works of wanderlust

I’m going to (mostly) skip over the part where the straight face I mentioned in my last walking post re:spring fell and we had another few days of chilling winter weather.

Instead, I just jump right into the idle decision that the day had improved enough that I’d just keep walking when I set out on a cool Monday morning in late April. My first three walks had been long loops that had led right back to my front door, but for walk four I had wanted to try out a new plan: a straight shot walk from A to B.

And what better place to act as my test-case B than West Edmonton Mall where I could find fun, food, and an easy bus ride back home?

The Route

We live in the South. The Mall, as the name implies, is in West Edmonton.

There is a river in between us.

I set out to find one of the few crossings that was not completely out of my way here, which took me down into the dog park and towards the pedestrian footbridge. I still think of it as the new bridge. It opened about ten years ago which is hardly new, but also means it was built after I moved to the neighbourhood and found myself frequenting the park… so, new-er. 

A good half of the walk was through the wilderness of winding trails that took me from the nearby park access trails, down across the bridge, across a long stretch of trail across an open field and towards the 200-step step climb that is the Wolf Willow Stairs.

From there I meandered through the neighbourhood, crossed another pedestrian-only bridge to hike over the Whitemud freeway, dodged through the last stretch of urban chaos and found myself crossing through a construction zone and into the parking lot of what was once the biggest shopping mall in the universe.

I stopped my watch at almost exactly 11 km and 2 hours and 27 minutes. This means across four walks I have logged 43.65 km total and nearly ten hours of walking.

The Effort

I mentioned the stairs.

I mentioned the newly minted fifth or six iteration of spring… I’ve honestly lost count.

There was still patches of snow on the path in many places, and climbing in and out of the river valley in such conditions was never going to be a traditional walk in the park. It’s a long haul made perceptually longer by the fringes of intolerable conditions. Other than that, I really don’t have much to complain about. No bugs. No wind. And the sun just warm enough to fight off the chill without forcing me to strip down to stay cool.

Navigating the construction going on up around the Mall—which has been happening for like three or four years at this point—as they bring an elevated LRT track through an established neighbourhood, past the hospital (where I was born) and alongside the busiest parking lot in Western Canada… that was less of a pain that I would have anticipated.

And then I hopped into the Mall, had an expensive lunch, and found my way over to the bus loop to catch a ride back to the vicinity of my starting spot—and my couch.

The Highlight

The stairs are the obvious highlight: I hate climbing them, but the view is amazing, looking down the length of the twist and turn in the river, spanning back over the scenery I’d just traversed.

On the other hand, and I don’t know if it counts properly because I’d already stopped my watch, but a dude was arrested on the bus. Two bus cops pulled him off and cuffed him and made a bit of a scene. They were telling him it was fare evasion, but I’ve never seen them full-on arrest someone for what is usually a minor ticket: there is probably a bigger story there. Maybe less of a highlight than a low point: ah, West Edmonton Mall, you never disappoint.