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canada general moosling snow

Chester Bloody Lake

Against my better judgement I visited that accursed lake again, and found the weather pleasant, the snow soft, and the crowds a little alarming. It could have been worse! And now I don’t have to go there again for another year at least.

The Moosling skied for a little while from the carpark, then just got distracted trying to dive into the powder at the side of the trail.

And so he was carried for a while…

Before spending some time napping in the Chariot.

After lunch at the lake, Alex dug a hole. Then it filled with people.

A little running around at the lake, and then we started our descent.

The Moosling and I found an awesome method of descending – he could run between my legs while I held him and skied, lifting him up when we started going too fast for him to run.

We descended the the final kilometres of the path like that, and my thighs are still burning today (and I do have video footage, which I’ll have to try and edit and upload, because photos just don’t quite capture how amusing the whole thing looked).

Categories
canada general moosling snow

Skogan Pass

Our wonderful plan to get an early start back-fired a little, as we set of skiing in the freezing cold. It didn’t take much convincing to make a stop at Nakiska for a quick hot chocolate before we continued. By the time we re-emerged there was a little more sun around, and it felt a little less like we were about to freeze our toes off.

As the sun rose higher it even turned out to be a nice day. The trail had been groomed yesterday, and the going was easy.

We ate lunch in the sun at the pass, admired the hoar frost, and then flew back down the hill, dodging the walkers and fallen learner-skiers that had swamped the trail.

Categories
canada general moosling

Mountain Toddler – the latest video (finally)

From 1½ to 2¼ years old. Filming locations, in order of appearance, are: Bow Lake, Mount Shark, Ross Lake, Lake O'Hara road, around Canmore, Lake O'Hara Road, Mount Lougheed trail, Canmore, Lake O'Hara, Mt Edith/Mt Cory Pass trail, Canmore Nordic Centre. Plus stills from Mount Lougheed, Black Prince Cirque, Iceline Trail (Yoho NP), Lake O'Hara, Sunshine Meadows, Ross Lake, Pigeon Mountain and the Elbow Loop (Kananaskis)

Categories
general moosling

Words of the Moosling, aged 2¼

It’s not a complete vocabulary list, but it was approximately correct as of a month ago. These are all words he uses in context. Although he keeps learning more words every day, on any given day approximately 50 percent of the words he says are ‘train’ or ‘track’.

mama
papa
fire (‘sah)
door
book
light
baby
bridge
tunnel
phone
keys
mess
ball

train
car
truck
harold (which means helicopter)
plane
track

shoes
socks
pants
hat
boots
toes
hand
ears
eye
hair
poop
boobie

dog (dok)
duck
rabbit
monkey
mouse
cow

rain
snow/snowing
dark
moon
puddle
tree
bike
helmet

water (wah-dah)
bread
bowl (means food/bowl)
banana
apple (ah-pool)
juice
cookie (kee)
tea
snack (‘nack)
milk
food
cheese
rice
spoon
knife
plate

stairs
outside
bed
shower
towel
bubbles
bath

nap
sleep
up
down
come
gone
dance
walk
skiing
hug

yes
no
this (dis)
please (pis)
no way
uh-huh
a bit
one/want
bye
done
gone
coming
more
all gone
yay!
oh no!
again
go
away
ta

one
two
three
hot
cold
stuck
mine
break (for broken)

Categories
canada general hiking moosling

Failing to hike up Mount Lady Mac

A short wander up Mount Lady Mac, as neither of us had much time, or a desire to stray too far from home. The start of our hike was slowed to toddler pace. Not just toddler pace, but the pace of a toddler having trouble hiking up a steep snowy path.

Eventually he gave up, and started to get sleepy, so he was transferred to my back and we started to slog uphill. There was more and more snow, and eventually the pre-packed trail diverged from the summer trail, and we gained another hiker who was happy to hike along with us in an attempt to follow the summer trail.

We managed to get to the ridge, but then the huge drifts of snow were too much for us. The crazy wind blowing along the ridge line were downright unpleasant too. And the Moosling woke up and was very unhappy. And we had run out of time to make it to the summit and back down again anyway. So we took some photos and high-tailed it back down the mountain again.