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canada general hiking moosling trip reports

Pigeon Mountain

Picking hikes in spring is always a bit tricky. Trails have started to dry, snow has kind of melted – but there are still snow patches and ices lurking about the place. It was really a bit too early to try hiking Pigeon Mountain. Based on what you could see from the road, Alex was convinced it would be dry – I was a little more dubious, but figured a little snow wouldn’t kill us.

We set off fairly late – it was afternoon by the time we started hiking. The day was sunny and warm, but slightly unsettled. I was slightly hungover, having been drinking last night while enjoying the Missed Connections improv show at ArtsPlace, and then wandering out to dance to an 80s cover band and engage in some ironic head banging (it may have been ironic but it still gave me a sore neck the next day).

It didn’t take us long to hit snow – unsurprising. It didn’t take long for my slight hangover to fade either. Thankfully.

It’s five kilometres up the road before you reach the turnoff for the Pigeon Mountain trail. If conditions are good (that is, the road isn’t covered in snow) then it’s worth bringing bikes to ride up to this point, if only for the coast back downhill again.

Having turned off onto the Pigeon Mountain trail things got icy in the trees and I finally caved and put on my spikers – if only to help Finn along. But the section through the trees doesn’t last long, and then suddenly we were out and into the alpine, above the treeline and finding huge stretches of dry trail again.

Dry trail that was climbing steeply, and covered with the huge herd of bighorn sheep. There were about 40 of them, mostly young looking, and carefully keeping out of our way.

We stopped for a brief lunch, then continued onwards and upwards, and it got windier and windier. Light saber battles unfolded across the scree fields. Rock sabers were wielded.

In the end we gave up on reaching the summit. Travelling through the snow had been slow, the wind was strong, and the daylight wouldn’t last forever. We went up to the saddle below the summit, and tried to pretend it was just as good. 6.8km in, it would still be a big return trip for an early season hike on small legs.

One of our party set off alone, aiming to make it to the summit without the aid of oxygen. The rest of us began the descent to base camp.

The clouds made empty threats, finally managing to cover up the sun but nothing more. Descending through the snow was not as fast as we’d like, and our shoes were getting wet – another spring hike where we’d underestimated how waterproof we should be. No bears on the way down, just more melting snow and out of tune singing.

Back at the car without injury six hours later, adventure completed. Success! Oh, except for the tick we found in Finn’s hair that evening – ew, ew, ew.

Distance: 13.6km
Elevation gain: 883m

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canada general moosling

Winter being ridiculous

A bonus foot of snow for the morning. Thankfully it was basically all melted by the end of the day.

winter

And a bonus picture of the Moosling with a bucket. He likes the bucket. And now he can crawl, so he can get to the bucket whenever he wants.

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canada general snow

the epic spring powder dump

So at the point when we were all getting a bit sick of the snow, and hoping rain would come to wash it away so we could go climbing and hiking and biking, and enjoy Summer … that was when one of the biggest dumps of the season came. It started snowing on Wednesday night – we woke up Thursday morning to heavy snow. And it kept coming, and coming, and coming. More snow. We walked into town, and had trouble keeping our eyes open with the snow. We got saturated, as it was wet heavy snow, and there was a lot of it. On Thursday afternoon, the Jeep (we have a Jeep now) looked like this:
 

 
Snow had just started settling on the warm roads. Then we got up on Friday morning. It had been snowing all night. And the Jeep looked like this:
 

 

We had to dig it out – we ended up putting the shovel away before digging out the passenger side, and I had to crawl in through the drivers side door as there was too much snow built up to get the passenger door open. And of course, once we got the Jeep moving, we had to go to the snow… and so we skied.
 

 

 

And it was glorious.

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general

spring has sprung

The first daisy of spring

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general

sprung

Well, it’s comparitively warm, and quite definitely wet. I think Spring has definitely sprung in DC.

Cherry blossoms that remembered to blossom.

Flags outside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in DC.

“… and of course we’ll have a flag out the front of the building.”
“How about two flags? One at either end? That would create a bit of a statement wouldn’t it?”
“Well, it would certainly demonstrate the patriotism of the FBI.”
“You know, I think it would be even more patriotic if we had more flags…”

There’s a thunderstorm rolling in at the moment (accompanied by a downpour that started as I was walking home with my groceries). All I need now is a verandah to sit on and watch it from.