Longer daylight hours, the soft warmth of springlike days, and the promise of a cold drink on a sunny patio – sure, let’s spring forward!
Oh.
Might have to wait a little longer for some of those springing forward benefits around here?
“Who ordered the 310-DUMP of snow?”
In the meantime, we don’t have to dream of the beach to visit the beach, not here!
Oh.
Oh well! Glass half full, it’s almost spring, or soon will be, and in the meantime, we’re off to the mountains for a few days, to enjoy the rain, and maybe even the snow, if our cabin is at a high enough elevation…
Ready to spring forward! Oh.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
…of the city, there is a small wilderness area squeezed between the southwest city limits and the boundary of the Tsuu t’ina Nation. It’s mostly a wooded wetland, located on the north side of the Elbow River, with pathways weaving along and between narrow waterways and tiny ponds.
Edge of the city
We were there this week on a bright March morning, enjoying blue skies and temperatures that quickly climbed above freezing. There were hardly any other park users – a few other dog walkers and a jogger who jingled past laden with bear bells. I imagine the bears appreciated the heads up, delighted to hear lunch was approaching? We didn’t see bears or any other big creatures, but there were many geese overhead, and chickadees were our almost constant companions in the sunnier spots. Every now and then we heard the distant tapping of a busy woodpecker.
Cheeky chap
There was some snow on the ground from a heavy fall a few days earlier, but it was melting away in the strong sun, and, in these bright March days, it feels far more like early spring than late winter, so I guess we’re headed in the right direction!
Farewell winter?
The park isn’t huge, but it’s more than pleasant enough to be in the almost wild for a couple of hours on a midweek morning. We’ll revisit again when it is spring proper, check out the new greenery, smell the sap, and give the mosquitoes something to feed on.
Not quite spring…
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Day care? Yes, somewhere to go when the weather doesn’t cooperate and there’s no xc skiing in the nearby parks to be had. So, what to do? Visit the “day care” of course! A new to us – it’s been there years – coffee shop that roasts on site, and they have a wide range of dark beans. Just the thing!
Adult day care – Mrs. PC likes the cappuccino here!
Most of January we’ve enjoyed (endured?!) a series of chinooks, keeping temperatures way above seasonal and eating all the snow in the city. This morning, we were able to have our coffee (beans from the place above) outside, shirtsleeves and sunglasses. Is it really February?!
Strangely warm…(the weather, not the coffee – that was just right!)
Here’s hoping winter returns soon. In the meantime, espresso it is.
I’m with this guy:
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
…and a tale of adventure and bravery. (One that ended in a fall, tee-hee! Who said that? Not those squirrels again?)
Don’t listen to them, it’s not true. The fall, if it could even be called that – it was more of a graceful tumble or delicate descent – came at the midpoint of the trip, but it is fair to say it was the end of the outward leg. And the end of a fully functional left leg, but that happened later. Goodness, does this all sound mildly cryptic? No? Just confusing, then? Stick around if you want – it gets less exciting.
Mighty (old photo)
I thought I’d try an easy cross country ski trail, one with a trailhead a short walk from the cabin we were staying in. The trail runs along a flat (almost flat – I’ll get to that shortly) valley, one overlooked by the mighty Castle mountain in the Bow Valley. I’d been on this trail before, more than ten years ago, and I remembered it as a fairly gentle there and back again outing.
Plodding
Once I’d found my steady plodding xc ski rhythm, the going was pretty good. I was upright, balanced, and making steady progress along the trail. I paused to allow one or two skiers on the return part of their outing to get by, nodding a greeting and agreeing on the perfect conditions. That was about right, given the cold but not too cold afternoon, and the very light snowfall – barely falling in truth, mostly flakes floating on a light breeze. “Why,” I thought to myself, “why hadn’t I been out here sooner this winter? I’ve clearly cracked this xc skiing lark at last!” With that, on I went, a happy and jolly super little skier.
Gentle slope
After about 45 minutes of gentle skiing and gliding, it occurred to me that I’d have to turn around at some point, head back to base before it got dark or I got too tired. It’s when I’m tired on skis that I (very occasionally) fall over, and I didn’t want to get to that point. I slowed to a stop and started to turn around, carefully lifting one ski out of the tracks, then the other. Then I fell over.
“But I’m not even tired yet!” I thought to myself. Nearby squirrels laughed as I fumed silently, untangling my legs and pushing myself back to my feet. Other than the squirrels, there was no one around to witness this embarrassment, and I’m certainly not about to tell anyone, let me tell you.
You can’t see them, or hear them, but they were in there, laughing
Oh my, the long slog back! It turns out maybe I haven’t conquered xc skiing after all. And I haven’t got the same mighty legs I had ten years ago. Goodness, it was hard work. That 45 minutes of gentle gliding must have been more than an hour of very steep uphill return struggle. (Erm, if it was a gentle glide down, it can hardly have been a steep slope back, right OldPlaidCamper? What’s that? Have you been talking to those gossipy squirrels? Anyway, I’m not taking questions right now!)
“Has he mentioned his legs yet? Wake me when it’s over…”
The most important thing about it all was that I was a very brave boy and I didn’t complain for days and days after about my poor aching legs. Just the left one. And only for one or two days. Oh, ok – three!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Blue skies with a few gathering white clouds – it did snow later in the day – combined with cold, but not too cold temperatures, made for great snowshoe conditions the other day. It had been more than a year since we last found ourselves in properly deep snow, so this was a great chance to see how our legs would hold up!
Being in a river valley, we opted to stay low and follow the river rather than go for steep slopes and sore muscles. I got those later anyway, but not snowshoeing. More on that another time.
Keep moving!
Helpfully, there was a trail to assist us, and we followed whoever had been out the days before, their tracks leading over the tracks and down to the river.
To the river
We could see a single set of footprints that occasionally stepped out of the tracks, leaving deep holes on the side. Fair play to the person – we said hi when we met them retracing their steps a little later, the only person we saw all morning – but it must have been hard going without snowshoes.
Easy going, as always!
As I mentioned last week, it was so quiet – we weren’t huffing and puffing too much after the first few minutes – and when we eventually stopped to sit and take it all in (and enjoy an all important caffeine and chocolate boost, ‘cos how else would we have made it back?) the silence was wonderful.
Rest stop
By the time we returned to the cabin, we’d probably been actually walking for a couple of hours, and I’ll admit it felt quite the workout. Still, I was ready for more, and, later that day, I set off to find a nearby trailhead, convinced I had enough left in me to tackle an “easy” there and back again ski trail. I wonder how that went?
Bow river beauty
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
What a relief it was to arrive at Baker Creek, check into our little cabin, and smile when we were told internet was spotty at best due to limited satellite uplink capacity (or something) and cell phone service was basically zero. Imagine our disappointment…
No cell service?! Oh our disappointment, teehee…
It was hard to see who was more gleeful to be out in the mountains, and to be running helter skelter through the deep snow, but I think Scout edged it. She was able to make slightly faster progress with four leg drive than we did on two. And yes, instead of dumping bags and heading straight out the door to explore the immediate surroundings, a short pause to don snow pants and snowshoes would have been sensible. Sensible? Nope, no time for that!
Sensible? No time for that!
We stumbled and postholed around the perimeter, trying to stay in the middle of snowmobile tracks, but with Scout leading and pulling, we weren’t able to keep from drifting into drifts. Mother had mentioned, before we left, not to fall into any deep drifts. Good advice! (We saw, from the road on the way home a few days later, an elk caught in a deep drift and bulldozing – elk-dozing? – it’s way out. Hope it made it…)
A still space to sit and think
Poorly equipped for even a short walk as we were, we still enjoyed how silent and still (our mad stumbling aside) everything was. The blanket of snow was so pretty, muffling most noise. Winter mountain hush! Blessed quiet! We could just about hear the tinkling chuckle-gurgle of the creek, and, luckily, see it in a few places where it hadn’t been snowed over. Scout desperately wanted to get closer, odd for her, given she doesn’t enjoy the water, but we resisted her efforts. Sorry, Scout – wet feet and minus fifteen don’t mix!
The creek
Eventually, slightly wet legged due to snowmelt on lower jeans, and ready to admit we should have put on snowshoes, we returned to our cabin to unpack, find dry pants, and get warmed up by the fire. Oh, and crack open a red ale we’d been saving as a fireside sipper. It was just the thing as we planned a proper snowshoe adventure for the following day!
Planning aide
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Short, chilly, bubbly and a bit festive. No, no, not me – this post. Enjoy the season, and happy holidays to you if you choose to celebrate!
“I’m not pulling this – where are the reindeer?”Festive cheer? Oh yes! We might even have another in the next little while. ‘Tis the season, and all that!
Phew! We got through the somewhat dull days of November, helped enormously by the very much appreciated end of month snowfall – for us, everything looks better with a light (or heavy) dusting of snow! Once the last leaves drop, it might as well snow, and, for now, it has!
Happy dog dance and an odd gnomish-looking fellow. (Photo: Mrs. PC)
So it’s goodbye November and welcome to winter!
Did someone say winter? Woof! (Photo: Mrs. PC)
I’ll keep it brief for this post and limit things to a few photos taken out and about the past week or so.
A light dusting
We have our fingers crossed that the temperature dip to more seasonal numbers is consistent, and that the promised snowy winter predicted by forecasters this season comes to pass…
Cool temperatures and a layer of ice beginning to creep out from the shore
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
I’m working hard to stay patient, same as always this time of year. The most colourful part of the fall season is behind us, and it’s not quite properly cold enough for snow and snow related activities. November is, or has been, my boredom season!
An empty head? Don’t be childish, PC…
Boredom season? That’s quite a childish approach to an entire month, but I’ll own it – years of teaching mostly Junior High and elementary school means childish is often my comfort zone. Still, this November I’m trying something different, and going for a glass half full (or more) month – it won’t be empty, not this time…
Fill my glass! Trust me, this one was excellent!
Getting out and about in the city, we’re aiming to fill the month with music, coffee, hockey, and some new beer haunts. We’ve already been to see a friend’s band, Magnolia Buckskin, play, and an added bonus was a new to me performer, Rory Makem, on the same bill. Both recommended if you get the chance to catch them live.
Coffee! And perhaps a flaky almond croissant to go with it?
Getting along to watch some junior hockey is always a fun afternoon or evening, and our first Calgary Hitmen game in years was a good ‘un, with a fine home win!
Good game, good win
Since the last time we lived here, it appears umpteen – possibly more – new microbreweries have started up, with at least three within walking distance of us. More to follow on those!
Ok, not within walking distance, but this was pretty good!
So perhaps November won’t be quite the empty month I sometimes think it is, and maybe I won’t have an empty head. I’ll go steady on the new beers though – wouldn’t want a sore head…
Winter will be just over the far side of this month
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Honestly, not too many horrors and this won’t be too scary; it’s mostly a collection of some frightful sights we’ve seen around the neighbourhood the past week or two. Many thanks to our neighbours for the fun seasonal scares! (Having downplayed the frights to come at the start of this, a word of warning to those of a sensitive disposition: the final image contains absolute horror, an unspeakable terror, as will become clear if you dare make it that far…)
Headless horror – eek!Headless plant based horror – eek-o horror?Pumpkin pie will leave you like this
Are you still here, with a racing heart and slightly sweaty? Ok, here comes the real scare – brace yourself:
I have no words for this one… let’s agree we shall never speak of it again…
Thank for reading, and I hope you have a great Halloween if you choose to celebrate, as well as a great weekend!
OldPlaidCamper 