Bucket List No. 6 - Hike - Pembina Rim Trail
Why it is on my list:
This trail looked like an amazing fall hike for the colours. It is also not too far from the house, and given the length of the trail it seemed like a good way to build stamina.
The hike is 4.2 miles with 587 ft elevation gain. According to AllTrails it takes an average of 1 hours 49 minutes to complete but it took us 3 hours 10 minutes to complete.
I did it!
On October 10, 2024 in the Pembina Valley Provincial Park with Justin.
How I felt: Amazing, overwhelmed and definite moments of doubt about why I was doing the hike and my ability to do the hike.
General Hike information:
Getting to the Trail:
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| Trail signs |
The hike is on a network of trails in the Pembina Valley Provincial Park (MB Gov't info there) and there is is a trail map available through the link. Because the trail is located within a provincial park a park pass is required. When we went we took the turn down highway 432 from just outside Morden - which was mostly gravel roads and had a section where you drove down and through the valley and the sides of the road had obvious wear from weather. On the way out we drover over and took highway 31 back up towards Morden. I highly recommend that drive as its mostly paved roads. It does bring you extremely close to the US border and the Windygate/Maida crossing. Also the park and highways to the park hav spotty cell service so make sure you download the maps for direction to the park. One other IMPORTANT NOTE: make sure you turn off Data Roaming on your phone you are likely to ping a US Cell tower every now and again and will be charged for roaming.
Navigation on the trail:
The only thing to know before going is that the actual Pembina Rim Trail is not doable because a section of the trail is washed out; however, you just fall the rest of the trail and stay off the section marked "closed". The park contains a series of interconnected trails which look daunting when you look at the map; however, there are sign posts that clearly show the trails and directions at every junction making this an easy hike in terms of navigation once on the trail.
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| At the Trail Head |
Starting the trail:
The only thing I will say is when you are looking at the trail head map it looks like the only option is to go down to the left on the very obvious hiking trail and then look at a branch to start the loop. If you look in the picture of me at the trail head in the back left corner that is the obvious trail. We went in that direction first. This means you start the trail with some easy declines and then some small up and down climbs before starting the climb up the edge of the valley - which is a steep and steady elevation gain. If/when I do this this trail again I would instead go to the right of the trail head sign - it looks like an ATV or access path which it is. there is two or three climbs before a nice walk across the edge of the valley where there are two look out points and an observation tower at Panorama Point. This was a great place for us to climb even with really tired legs and have our snack and drinks. We shared the tour with another pair and had a lovely talk about hiking the options.
Final thoughts:
It was an amazing hike to be doing in mid-October. It was a warmer day out - I think about +13C but it was still super warm on the trail - I don't think there would be a lot of protection from the sun in the summer. There were not a lot of mosquitos (because of the time of the year) but there were a lot of other bugs that I think are no see ums and I did some pretty bad bites from them as we didn't start the day with bug spray so 10/10 recommend making sure you have that on before starting. I found largely that the hiking poles weren't necessary and often had them in our bags during the hike but were happy to have them on the steep final climb up the valley.
Closed section
Water Crossing
Climb up the Valley
Final Section
End of the Path - start here instead
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