Category: snow

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canada general snow

A backcountry birthday treat

As a birthday treat, I went out backcountry minus baby for the first time since being pregnant (well the timing was coincidental as much as anything, but it worked well as a birthday treat).

It wasn’t exactly a bluebird day, but there were buckets of fresh snow to play in. It was my first time out at Burstall Pass, and I discovered what a long way it is along the flat to get to just a few short turns. I’d renew my vow to avoid skiing to lakes, but I’ve the feeling the Tryst Lake chutes could be on the agenda some time soon, and they’re definitely nice and steep.

(For the record, it’s about 16km return with 450m elevation gain)

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canada general snow

Mt Shark

And another glorious sunny day. There’s just something about Mt Shark though, I tend to have awful days when I’m out there. Perhaps it’s haunted. Or perhaps I just shouldn’t try and go skiing when I’m still exhausted after skiing backcountry and then hiking up a mountain (while towing/carrying the offspring) on the weekend.

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canada general moosling snow trip reports

Not quite to Tower Lake (and definitely not to Rockbound)

This was another lesson in the “It’s quite hard to take a lot of photos when you’re the only one towing a Chariot and looking after an offspring” factor.

Rockbound Lake is just near Castle Junction, tucked in behind Castle Mountain. And I’d skied it before, pre-Moosling. At the time it had seemed like a fairly easy day-trip, a nice little easy jaunt. Towing a Chariot made the whole thing a lot more uphill. The hills! They didn’t stop! My legs! Ow ow!

It was a gorgeous blue bird day though, and lovely and warm (about 5oC in town), pretty much Spring weather. And we only came across two other people there the whole day! On a weekend!

Getting the Chariot up there was pretty easy, with a wide trail that wasn’t too off-camber. But then the trail swung around towards the west, and the skin trail became a narrow little winding path. Then I started to need help getting past trees and tree wells, and getting up some of the steep little rises. Do-able, but if I was to ski there with a Moosling again, I might use the Ergo instead.

We stopped for lunch in the sun. The sun had other ideas, and buggered off behind the peak about a minute after we sat down. And then half the party headed on to Tower Lake, while the other half went “blow this for a joke, snow-covered lakes are boring”, and started working the Chariot back through the trees (with only a few sideways Chariot on the snow incidents on the way) and stopping and chatting in any handy sunny patches they found.

We met up in time to do the fast descent together, flying down the icy track without incident to find the sun again in the carpark. Ow, my legs.

Elevation gain (to Tower Lake): About 650m?
Distance (to Tower Lake): 15.5km return

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canada general moosling snow

Christmas again! Already? Surely not.

For the first time since we’ve been in Canada, we got a real, genuine, not-made-out-of-newspaper-or-a-stack-of-old-tins Christmas tree. It smells of tree and has covered the house in pine needles, even if it is only sparsely decorated with home-made cinnamon stars (although now we have a rock-climbing Santa and a telemarking Santa to fill in the gaps a little).

We spent the traditional morning at the ski hill – and it snowed! And it was really warm, continuing the trend of this winter.

Unfortunately just as the flakes were getting lovely at fat and soft, I had to head home to get some cooking done. The offspring thinks the gondola ride is pretty cool though.

Christmas dinner was tasty, and silly hats were worn.

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canada general moosling snow trip reports

Skiing Skogan Pass

This was another of the “really local but never done it before” outings. Earlier in the year, in Spring, we’d try to bike up Skogan Pass from Canmore but got turned back by snow near the top. This time we were approaching from the Nakiska side on skis.

Once we skied through Nakiska and gained a little elevation the snow was in great condition, and almost untouched. It’s a really gradual climb up to the pass, no steep hills, just lots of weaving back and forth through the trees, then under the powerlines. We saw some cat tracks crossing the path at one point near the summit (maybe a lynx?)

After a really late lunch at the summit, we realised our late start was about to get the better of us – if we didn’t hurry the sun would be gone soon. And although we did have one headlamp between us, it would be dark and cold, and there were wolves.

Luckily the ski back down was just that (it went down), so we were back at the car in just an hour – barely managing the last section through the trees without a headlight.

We weren’t eaten by any wolves either.

Distance: 24km (I think?)
Elevation gain: 200m
Chariot skiability: Perfect for towing a Chariot up
We started at Ribbon Creek trailhead, although it would have been easy enough to park at Nakiska too. Full trail description here.