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bikes canada general moosling snow

Yet more post-Christmas snow adventures

The day after Boxing Day, we headed to West Bragg Creek to go exploring. It feels like a long drive, but that’s just because these days we’re outraged by having to drive a whole hour to do something apparently. There’s an absolute nest of rideable snowy single track out there, good for running and snow-shoeing too, as well as groomed nordic ski trails.

We only had a few hours there, but the conclusion was that we really need to return with more time up our sleeves. And on a less windy day (we were both blown off the bike a few times).

I went for a snowshoe while Alex was out riding. The Moosling was unimpressed with the wind, but held on while I stomped about. I don’t really feel like I see the point of snow-shoeing, as it seems to largely be done on trails that you could just as easily run on.

And then the next day it was out to Lake Louise, and my first time skiing the Telemark and Great Divide trails. It was a painful day on classic skis, with far too much grip wax on making everything hard work – on top of me being a little tired and sore after so many consecutive days of activity. On the plus side, after working at it for a few hours, I may have marginally better technique now (thanks Lincoln).

The Great Divide trail isn’t terribly inspiring, particularly when you’re working just as hard on the downhill as you are on the up, but it was still a fun day of exploration, with bonus sled dogs.

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canada general snow

Boxing Day ski

Boxing Day dawned a bit grey and dreary, but at least it wasn’t terribly cold or windy, so we headed to Mount Shark for a ski. It was surprisingly quiet as we set off, with very few other cars or people to be seen.

Somehow I ended up being talked into skiing out to the Spray River bridge, despite being on my skate skis, which were totally unsuited to the trail. I think this largely ended up happening as I had no idea what I was agreeing to.

But it worked out to be a nice little 16km jaunt. As I wasn’t towing the Chariot, I was still feeling fresh though. So I convinced myself it would be a good idea to get Alex to drop me off at the Nordic Centre on the way back to Canmore so I could ski another 34km, thus bringing my total for the day up to 50km.

The only pitfall to this idea was that I decided to ski a whole lot of the harder trails I’d never skied before, so it took quite a while, and without a headlamp I had some fun making my way home in the dark. Nevertheless, the mission was a success! The crazy plan for January is to ski all of the Nordic Centre trails in a day. What could possibly go wrong?

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canada general moosling snow

Christmas

Christmas Day followed the by now fairly traditional pattern of Alex being at work, and the Moosling and I hanging out at home opening a few presents. The difference this year being that no-one was sick, and the boy was actually keen on the whole presents thing. Although when I told him that the Ho Ho had brought some presents, he was a little dubious. On arriving upstairs he declared: “Where is the Ho Ho? Ho Ho gone! *points out window* No, was Mama. Mama did presents.” So that didn’t last long.

So there was the donning of the festive apparel (new Toy Story t-shirts, amongst others), and the eating of the chocolate frog, followed by the running-around-getting-ready-to-go-skiing. After driving in with others, we caught the gondola up to Sunshine Village, and the Moosling went to hang out in daycare for a couple of hours (quite happily, as there was scary wind outside). I got a couple of hours skiing in, and was not terribly sad to have to stop at midday, as it really was a bit windy and miserable despite being theoretically fairly warm.

The afternoon was spent cooking, and being sprayed with the water pistol which the unthinking Mama had gifted the small child. And then came the eating of the tasty food, the setting fire to the pudding, and the going home early to bed, as it had been quite a long day.

The next day brought about the testing of the full body climbing harness, and the discovery that it certainly works quite well for swinging at any rate.

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canada general hiking

Five Dames and a Dog: Winter Solstice Expedition

The expedition was planned to ascend Ha Ling Peak, meeting in town at 6.15am, loading the crates of champagne into our cars, and setting off from there.

The trail was well packed, but it was still slow going, so we didn’t make it to the summit for sunrise. At least we were at treeline as all the clouds turned brilliant shades of pink though.

It was a glorious morning for it, calm and crisp, and the views were wonderful once we made it to the summit.

And now the sun is returning! Thank you sun!

Darkly through the trees we set off

Melissa at sunrise

Lulu and Sarah at sunrise

Kat, bringing her sister Michelle along for her first mountain ascent

Making our way up the snowy scree slope

Sleepy looking Canmore

Morning light on Ha Ling Peak summit

Sarah on her way to the summit

Summit!

On the way down, I realised how late it was getting, so I ended up running Lulu back down to the car, before running myself back down to town.

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bikes general moosling travel

Moab biking roadtrip – the video

Aha, finally finished! Here is the little video/slideshow from our trip down to Moab in April this year. I miss my bike. Well, I miss riding my bike in warm weather on red rocks and dirt. Riding on snow just isn’t the same. But this is a nice little taste of the awesomeness of Moab. I’m amazed I managed to take as many photos, and as much footage as I did, the riding was so nice it was easy to get distracted.

Mountain biking around Moab, Utah, April 2013. Featuring Megan, Alex, Finn, Brendan, Jeremy, Jackie, Chad & Michelle, and a lot of very awesome red rock.