As everyone who reads the blog regularly will know, Upper Kananaskis Lake is our favourite place in Canada and winter doesn't change that one bit. There's always something beautiful here and winter brings it's own reward to those who would walk the 7km round trip across the frozen lake.
As the water level in the lake drops to provide hydro power through the winter, the early ice falls with the water level then, in the shallows at the north west corner of the lake, it breaks over the rocky bottom and the winter jewels of Kananaskis are created. Even in temperatures of -20 it's worth the walk, perhaps more so when you have the place to yourself as we did yesterday. The gallery below sees us starting out, crossing the lake and returning, it's worth noting that the ice on the lake is now over a foot thick and very stable, the visible ice that I've photographed is the early winter ice that was exposed some time ago as the water level fell. It looks nice in the photographs as I'd hoped but the real life experience is spectacular, the cold air bites at exposed flesh and the snow crunches underfoot while a million ice diamonds sparkle wherever the sun touches.
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The day before Christmas Eve I set out to explore a nice looking scramble close to Grotto Creek, so close in fact that the hike uses the first section of the Grotto Creek trail for access. I had noticed it while walking with Sarah earlier in the week and with little snow coverage at that time I was keen to get up there and try it out before it got buried by the inevitable (but late) snowfall. I didn't know the name, route or access points and had difficulty finding any info until I looked at my old paper maps and discovered the name and an unofficial trail along 'Anklebiter Ridge'. It was -14 in the car park but there was no wind and I expected it to warm as the sun rose, instead the cloud hid the sun for most of the day and a slight breeze was enough to drop the temperature massively once I'd reached the alpine zone. I had the full gear on, I was working really hard up steep climbs for most of the hike but struggled to get warm enough all day. It was still great to be out and making a summit so late in the season and at some point I'll probably get around to writing a full description of the hike as usual. Until then here are a few shots from the day.
It seems that Aurora are like busses, you wait ages for one then two come along in quick succession. Tonight we got a really nice display that started around 7pm which meant Sarah and I could both stand and watch the incredible show as it strung luminous green strands across the Cochrane skyline. With a three quarter moon lighting the foreground it was a great night to photograph the show too so plenty of pics were made. Below is a small sample of this wonderful phenomenon, as usual the main shot can be clicked for a larger version and the smaller shots open to a gallery.
At 11:00 pm tonight I got an alert from Aurora Watch saying a sighting was likely by midnight. So between 11:30 pm and 00:00 I walked out onto the balcony several times to check. For the first 20 minutes all I could see was cloud but by midnight I could just make out a faint glow on the horizon. It was absolutely freezing so I went back in the house and prepared the camera and tripod, put on some cold weather gear and returned to the balcony and grabbed a few shots of what turned into a reasonable display. Best of all was the rising mist coming from the Bow River in the valley below as it formed a white cloud snaking through the town, I'm only posting a few shots as it's not a particularly great Aurora but as always, it was wonderful to experience, you can click the image for a larger version.
Grotto Canyon is somewhere I've visited many times and after another visit last year I promised Sarah we would go together with the next good freeze, unfortunately that freeze didn't come. So almost a year later a few weeks of cold weather allowed us to get out there and enjoy the hike at last. Although temperatures didn't get above -12 all day, the right clothing and a flask of tea was enough to see off the cold and leave us to a wonderful winter walk just avoiding the blustery snow showers that lurked around the mountains all day.
The main shot is on the way back to the truck where we stopped to take in the views from the mouth of Grotto Creek, the gallery below has captions to take you along this lovely canyon with us, click any small image to start. Anyone seeking the parking place, further info and a route map can click here for a previous detailed hike. I finally shook off the virus I had last week and made my way to my favourite place to enjoy some of our beautiful winter sunshine, even if the temperatures were a little on the cool side it was great to have Kananaskis to myself again. You can see the whole hike by clicking here or you can get an overview from the small gallery below
The mountains have seen a good amount of snowfall this week with an almost constant dumping since Sunday but until today we hadn't seen much in the city at all. That changed today with a good heavy fall but it should be gone by tomorrow when positive temperatures return. It's been a really easy winter so far this year (as it was last year) and we're hoping it is a short one again. In the meantime I'm just waiting for a break in the weather to get the snowshoes out for the first time this year, it shouldn't be long now.
Yesterday I went out to the local forestry office to get the required form (TM66) to allow us to cut down our own christmas tree. We haven't done this before as we didn't know you could, but had to do it once we found out about it. For the princely sum of $5 a permit allows the removal of up to 3 Christmas Trees no more than 8 feet (2.5 m) high. The cut must be made within a foot of the ground so really the max is a 9 foot tree (docking the top is not permitted). A number of areas of land can be chosen and maps are provided by the forestry service either in person at their office or online. We chose the Ghost Wilderness area just because we really like it, it's very remote and it really 'feels' like you are in the great Canadian wilderness down there. The whole story is below in a captioned gallery, the main shot is of us taking in the view over the Ghost River before selecting our tree.
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AuthorWe arrived in Calgary, Canada on 29th December 2011 to continue our journey. This blog is intended to keep our family and friends informed whilst we explore Canada.You can use the RSS feed below to stay updated. Categories
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