Tag: snow

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canada general snow

ast2: quartz ridge, sunshine meadows

We went to ski this thing:

 

Quartz Ridge

 

It involved another episode of cheating, where we caught the gondola up to the village at Sunshine, then rode a chairlift to gain even more height, then whizzed off downhill into the meadows. Eventually we ran out of speed and had to start skinning. And then after some hole-digging, some steep uphill skinning.

 

Skinning up Quartz Ridge

 

Then it was weeeeeeh downhill again (that’s me in that cloud of powder… somewhere).

 

Megan skiing down Quartz Ridge

 

And some more hole digging and food eating (leftover spaghetti pizza is a fantastic meal for backcountry skiing). There were great views off the back of Quartz Ridge.

 

Valley views

 

Categories
canada snow

ski tour: rockbound lake

Woah, it’s been a while… I haven’t been on the internet much, although I have found the time to make a pie chart displaying exactly how much time I’ve been spending at work and in transit and sleeping, leaving only 3 hours or so at home for laundry/dinner cooking/grocery shopping/going for bike rides/bouldering…. But anyway, prepare for an onslaught of backdated adventures. With lots of pictures and not many words no doubt.

 

Rockbound Lake, nestled underneath the ramparts of Castle Mountain

 

This one is more of a Nordic trail than anything else, with just one little steep section to get from the lower lake to Rockbound Lake. Optional to keep going to the top of Castle Mountain, but much higher avy risk as you go further. We just stopped and had lunch at the lake then flew down the packed trail home again.

Categories
canada general snow

to the inkpots

The avalanche danger has been very high recently, so a lot of the more interesting backcountry skiing has to be avoided at all costs. And most of what’s leftover has to be approached with a healthy dose of paranoia.

So on my day off I went and did what was basically a hideously ungroomed nordic trail, with no avalanche danger whatsoever, as it was so flat and far from anything that could conceivably be viewed as a skiable slope. But still pretty.

 

 

We kept the mountains at a healthy distance, and there were signs of natural avalanche activity everywhere.

 

The Inkpots

 

But there was sun! And even if the downhill back to the car didn’t involve floating through fresh powder, well at least it was downhill.

Categories
canada general snow

that strange source of light hanging in the sky

The sun shone on us feebly from far away.
 

 

But the snow was soft and fluffy.
 

Mt Assiniboine

Categories
bikes canada

back on the bike

Fed up with not having any exercise for the last week and a half, I decided to test out my knee on a short bike ride. Unfortunately the warmest it managed to make it to today was -22oC (-8oF) or so. And there was a lot of snow around, so it ended up being a longer than planned bike ride with large sections of pushing. As I set out it was like a world of pastel though, with everything snow-covered and subdued sunset pink and blues soaking through.

 

 

I went back out and cycled along my nemesis track – the powerline trail where I crashed and hurt my knee. Much less icy this time round. However I then made the mistake of turning off to cycle a loop along by the dam – I got bogged pretty much straight away, but for some reason decided to keep going.

 

 

So the pushing began, as even deflated, my tyres weren’t fat enough to deal with the snow. The sun was setting – and I was getting colder. My eyelashes got lovely and icy – as did my eyebrows apparently. And yes, I have a red polka-dot balaclava. It means I look more like a Russian peasant than the serial killer or cat burglar looks that you get with the standard black balaclava, but I’m ok with that.