Some winter snaps

Much of winter in Canada is devoted to huddling inside away from the well below zero temperatures and avoiding driving on the ice/snow encrusted roads. The rest of it, we go skiing. Snowboarding in Jasper, backcountry skiing wherever our fancy takes us or even just yo-yoing up the local Snow Valley ski hill for practise mid-week if we feel like it. It's the northern equivalent of dropping by the beach for a surf, except with a fair bit more organization and gear involved...

So a lot of what I missed writing about this winter while in hibernation was our awesome ski trips and some of the photos we took while on them (granted that by the end of the season we just gave up on taking a camera because you never remember to use it when there's fresh powder lying around waiting to be carved upon).

Without further ado:

These two were taken on an unfortunately foreshortened backcountry daytrip to Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park. It was -35C but a beautiful clear day and sadly the glue on my skins for skiing up the hill just couldn't handle the conditions, hence I couldn't get up the hill, so we had to go home. But it was a great little walk in the woods until that point...


Frostsicles...

Icelashes...


Another trip we did was snowboarding at Marmot (also in Jasper National Park) with Kate McCormack who was staying with us for a quick sojourn before making her way to the Netherlands to reunite with Bas. As you can see, she was well kitted out for the experience and having only boarded three or four days previously was amazingly good at it.

All geared up...

Only two photos taken all day...


The most intense backcountry trip was one I took with Ken, Mac and Andy to a little slice of remote backcountry heaven called the Shangrila Hut. This log cabin is tucked away in a valley about 3 hours trek in from the Maligne Lake Road and was just the most stunning place to base a long weekend of telemarking from. I had been sick with a bad stomach flu for the week before this trip and had only eaten solid food the night before we skiied in so the first day was insanely gruelling. When we stopped at the halfway point I thought I had given everything I had, but little did I know that there was a lot more work to do to get to the cabin. I don't think I've ever pushed myself that hard physically before, but it was well worth it as I think some of these photos show.

The long meadow on the way in (this was after halfway)...

I've never been so glad to see a hut before...

Mac cosy and relaxed inside the cabin...

Enjoying the sunshine at lunchtime...


And finally there was one other memorable trip to Hilda Ridge in not so great conditions, where we had another equipment failure and this was about the only piece of backup gear that Ken didn't have in his very well stocked pack. Once the binding snaps on you like this you either fix it or spend the rest of the day wading through hip deep powder down the hill to get out. Not a pleasant prospect by any means, so we fixed it, with a hose clamp and a bit of local materials. Not a bad job all things considered and good enough to get us back to the car in one piece.

Running repairs...

More winter photos and stories to come...

Hibernate or estivate?

OK, time to shake off the winter hibernation lack of content and start kicking this thing into spring fever. I almost came out of sleepytime two weeks ago when the weather got into double digits and the fingers started to thaw out for typing but then the cruel fancies of whichever god or goddess that is in charge of spring decided that snow would be a good idea. I disagreed violently, but no-one said I ever had any influence in these matters. Now however, it's warm, sunny and hopefully going to stay that way and it is more than past time to start writing in the blog again.

For those of you still vainly checking in every now and again hibernation is what the bears around here do all winter long and it's what they're starting to come out of in the warmer areas around B.C. at about this time. You can spot them on the highway normally in the ditches on the side of the road munching on the skunk cabbage which is usually the first really juicy green leafy stuff available before the berries really start growing. This makes the journey out to the lake that much more enjoyable as you play spot the large brown furry thing in the shadows on the side of the road. Good for keeping alert and for keeping the car intact, those suckers are a lot heavier than kangaroos and I imagine would do quite a bit more damage if they ambled into your path.

Estivation on the other hand is according to the dictionary

• To spend the summer, as at a special place.


• Zoology. To pass the summer in a dormant or torpid state.

I prefer definition 1 myself and plan on estivating as much as possible this summer. I can't off the top of my head think of a single zoological critter that would possibly want to spend all summer sleeping underground, makes no sense, but if there's a zoology term for it then it must happen right?

So enough of the preamble, there'll be more posts to come later this week as I attempt to catch up on some of the exciting and interesting things that have happened in the 5 months since I last posted.

Stay tuned...