Categories
canada general hiking moosling

Failing to hike up Ha Ling Peak

Last Winter, we got so little snow that hiking up Ha Ling Peak in February wasn’t a problem. This year has been a little different, it was obvious from the start that there was still a lot of snow, with fresh skin tracks heading up beside the trail.

Still, with a nice packed trail, hiking in the snow was pretty easy. Until we hit the treeline.

Then our nice packed trail dispersed into a myriad of snowshoe trails. We did some tentative exploration on one of them. Brendan post-holed a lot. So did I.

This was the view from one of my holes.

Meanwhile Finn just hung out in the Ergo with his sunnies on.

So, conclusion? Bring your snowshoes if you want to get to the summit. Or maybe wait another month.

Categories
craft general

I made a doll!

I remember the first time I heard someone mention Waldorf dolls way back on Loobylu’s blog (she’s since up and moved to Canada and barely blogs any more). They are a type of doll made from wool and cotton using some traditional European doll-making techniques, and are used in Waldorf education. The idea is that they’re very simple with basic faces so the child playing with them can let their imagination run free.

waldorf doll

I recently fell in love with a few I found while wandering around on that vast online hippy market that is Etsy. And seeing as I’ve got a sewing machine these days, and time at home, I thought I’d try to make one. This is Sarlah, and she’s actually my second attempt, created from a made-up pattern and information gleaned from the internet (hoorah for the internet, as I’m still in the queue for the library book on the subject I tried to borrow).

Styling in fancy Thai Fisherman’s Pants – just the thing for working on her latest beach-side project… not so much for walks in the snowy mountains. Making miniature Fisherman’s Pants seemed like a great idea when I started, less so after many many attempts at creating a pattern that would work on that scale, it was just so fiddly! On the plus side I’ll be able to whip up an adult-sized pair easily now.

waldorf doll with nose and rainbow hair

She’s even for sale on my Etsy site – yes I have one now – at Adventures with Moosling (I’m still getting the shelves stocked, so far there’s mostly just a lot of photographs. But hopefully Sarlah will soon be joined by some other adventuring hippy doll friends, as making dolls is strangely relaxing and enjoyable.

Categories
general moosling

The boy likes his smoothies

And this is just the mess he can get into after I’ve already had the smoothie – just imagine what he could do with a full cup!

Categories
bikes canada general moosling snow

Legacy Trail fail

Instead of going skiing yesterday, we optimistically decided to head out on the Legacy Trail. Theoretically it was rideable, as it was certainly bare of snow in huge patches. It would be the first proper test ride for the biking version of the Chariot as well.

Things went well until we actually reached the Legacy Trail, at the Banff Park gates.

We rode around the first huge snow drift, then there was just a whole lot of gravel, as we were right next to the highway. That wasn’t great, but still, easy enough to ride on.

But then we hit the uphill, which was covered with a huge snow drift. We could see a bare patch afterwards, so we though “Why not?”, and pushed on up through it.

Alex started out through the next drift, and this was the “Seriously? There’s just more snow?” moment. So the Legacy Trail is rideable in parts, if you’re happy riding on the highway the rest of the way. We opted to sit in the sun on the bare trail and eat cookies, and then turn around and go home. Defeated once again by Super Winter. At least the Chariot passed the biking nap test.

Categories
canada general moosling snow trip reports

BOOM!

On Sunday we revisited Boom Lake two years after I first went there. So this time around I was wise to the fact there really isn’t much elevation gain, and it’s basically a rolling trail both ways. At the moment the trail is a mangled mess of tracks left by hikers, dogs, snowshoes and skis – or perhaps that’s the way it normally is.

It’s not the best trail for the Chariot – you can get it along, but with difficulty at some points, as it tends to be a bit off-camber and narrow in spots. The Ergo would have probably been a better bet, but you just can’t beat a Chariot nap, so I want to keep using it while I can!

the bridge of peril

There’s still a ridiculous amount of snow around.

onto the lake

And at least the Moosling is eating bread now, even if he turns up his nose at pretty much everything else. Well, by eating, I really mean sucking on, and spitting out most of it. But it’s a start.

bread eating

(And as Brendan noted, it went Boom once while we were there)