K2inCanada's Blog

February 2, 2020

BC Ski Trip 2019

Filed under: Canada — K2 in Canada @ 8:06 PM

Instead of hoping I can finish all the posts I am behind on from last year before I post this, I figured I better put this together before I forget. Already started the forgetting….

It was a long trip this year, 11 days! We spent most of those in the Rockies. That also meant we had to put in two full days of driving. Going East was actually a bit of a problem this year as most of the southern part of the province got hammered with snow for 24hrs at higher elevations. Manning had received 1.5m of snow all at once on the 19/20th after being almost bare for all of December.

TripMap

Day 1 (Sat, Dec 21st): When we left town mid morning of the 21st, HWY #3 was still closed and HWY#5 had a travel advisory to not to go there because of snow clean up still. HWY#1 was open up to Revelstoke – after that there were still closures for avalanche control. Lucky for us, we were going clockwise this year and our first day’s destination was Sicamous. Taking HWY 1 adds an hour to the already long drive but once we got past Jackass Summit in the canyon the clouds thinned out and opened up beautiful views over the Thompson’s wintery landscapes. It was dark by the time we arrived at the Monashee Motel. The owner was complaining about all the snow they had to get cleared away. We walked 30min into town for dinner at the Brother’s Pub. Unfortunately they no longer served the awesome meatloaf I had there some years ago. This time around it was just regular pub food.

Day 2 (Sun, Dec 22): We woke up to an overcast sky but the weather improved as we drove towards Revelstoke. The parking lot at the Nordic Centre at Mount Macpherson was pretty busy. The people at the lodge told us about a new trail to get up to Mainline – for now called “Gentle Climb” but subject to change – which made a great addition to my usual loop. Grooming was pretty good given the temperatures were around zero degrees. They had rain the day before but a couple centimeters of snow during the night. Skins worked well and I skied for about 2hrs45min. Mix of sun and clouds. Quite nice actually!

The drive through Glacier National Park towards Golden was stunning. Lots of snowy mountains and almost blue skies. No avalanche hit us and roads were in good conditions. I guess they did a good job on controlling the slopes the day before. In Golden we checked in at the usual place, Mary’s Motel. It seemed a lot less busy than other years, maybe because it was still before Christmas and usually it fills up right after. A quick soak in the hot tub and then dinner at “The Island” – yummy. The plan was to go see a movie that night. Unfortunately we had forgotten to change our watches – time changed to Mountain time just after Glacier National Park – and when we arrived at the theatre the movie was already running for 45min. We felt quite stupid. If we would have walked over right after dinner we would have been on time.

Day 3 (Mo, Dec 23): We woke up to …. clouds. But they looked thin. And as we drove up to Kickinghorse Resort and Dawn Mountain after the usual and always good breakfast at the “Big Bend Cafe” we managed to get just above the clouds. The Lodge at Dawn Mountain was in bright sunshine, -7C. The problem with Dawn Mountain, most of their trail system is below the lodge and hence most of the skiing was done in the clouds. The trails were in great shape though and I skied for 4hrs, again using my skins. Good skiing, even in the clouds :-).

After the ski we stopped in Golden to do some shopping. We had booked 3 nights in the Truffle Pig Inn in Field over Christmas and the room came with a kitchenette since there isn’t much in regards of restaurants in Field. So we bought food to cook 2 nights and go to the Truffle Pig restaurant the 3rd night. And some bread and cheese and salami and jam and eggs and breakfast sausages and hashbrowns and pie and chips and….. We would not starve in Field. The drive from Golden to Field isn’t far, only about 50kms, but it was an exiting one. We got the first chip in our windshield which turned into a nice 20cm long crack right away – rats – and we saw a moose along the road!

We got into “town” just before dark, checked in and cooked a nice Thai chicken dinner (from a Thai soup package, minute rice and fresh chicken). The room was on the bottom floor which doesn’t have a great view but it was big and warm (floor heating!) = cozy. Definitely a nice place to hang out for a few nights and taking a break from driving. There were only 2 small problems with the room. 1. the TV didn’t work – no satellite reception with the big snow dumped they had a couple days before. 2. The fridge didn’t work. Well, #1 made us play a lot of dice and read in the evenings. #2 wasn’t an issue as we just kept all the food in the car. It was below -10C when we arrived.

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Day 4 (Tue, Dec 24): Christmas Eve morning was still overcast but the clouds were high enough that we could see the mountains around us. We took it really slow that day. Eggs, sausages and hashbrowns for breakfast. It was supposed to be a day without skiing and we had planned to snowshoe around Emerald Lake. But first off we explored the road behind the Lodge to see if we can find the elk that always hang out in town. We already checked the night before but got nothing – only ended up at a road block since the road was closed due to avalanche control on Mount Dennis. This morning though we did find a couple. They were not far out of town at all and quite close to the road. Just looked at us and then slowly walked away. Jeff got the idea to get the snowshoes and go follow them. So we did. Walking back 10min to the lodge, got our snowshoes and better clothing (it was -14C) and returned to where we saw the elk. The snow was deep and it was hard work through an open meadow and than up a wooded hill side. And trapper Jeff did spot the elk – amazing that he actually saw them. We tried to get above them – more hard work.  The elk didn’t seem to get too spooked by us, just kept a comfortable distance. They know that humans are slow in the snow. We saw the places they slept and the places they were digging for food. It was pretty cool to be able to share their space with them.

It was almost lunch time by the time we got back to the room. So we ate some more. We always eat a ton on these trips :-). Then we finally headed off to Emerald lake. It is only a 15min drive from the lodge, if that. One could ski there right from field (see previous years) but the trail wasn’t groomed yet. We have done the snowshoe hike around the lake before and it is easy walking with very little elevation change but stunning views. This time we added a circle around the Alluvial Fan Loop (supposed to be a ski trail only but we were very careful to not damage the tracks). That part was the only part were we really needed snowshoes and offered some different views. The rest of the trail was hard packed. At the very end, we took a different trail to the parking lot, thinking it would be a short cut but turned out to be the long way around. It was way less used and had fresh snow on it. We were the first ones to walk it that day other than either a lynx or maybe even cougar based on the tracks we saw the whole way. We never saw the animal but I am sure it saw us :-). All in all it took us 2.5hrs. On the drive back we stopped in at the Natural Bridge. I thought Jeff would get our car stuck in the deep snow of the parking lot as everyone else had parked on the road. But it looked like the Quattro had no trouble. Nevertheless I made Jeff park on the road as well just in case.

Back at the Inn we hung out for a bit in the room before our dinner reservation at the restaurant. It wasn’t busy at all, could have skipped the reservation, but one never knows. It was Christmas Eve after all. We had cheese fondue which was served with the typical bread but also broccoli, mushrooms and pig belly. The latter would have been something my mom would have enjoyed but neither Jeff nor I cared for the fatty pork. So we ended up ordering more bread instead :-). It was pretty good and very filling as we finished the whole pot of cheese. Did I mention already that we eat a lot on these trips? 🙂 To compensate we did a walk through town – must have hit all the roads there are.

Day 5 (Wed, Dec 25): Christmas day greeted us with sunshine and blue skis and -14C. The plan was to check out a new trail around Field, the Yoho Valley Trail. It’s a road in the summer and off and on tracked for cross-country in the winter at least part way. This year though the grooming was buried under about 50cm of fresh snow. It looked like they had not track set it again after the big dump due to the avalanche danger. Some people had skied it but Jeff wasn’t going to do what he call “backcountry” skiing. He wanted tracks. Plan B – we went back to the Natural Bridge on the way to Emerald Lake. But this time we skied there right from Field, meaning we parked the car at the lodge, walked to the Visitor Centre along the HWY (5-10min walk) and hit the tracks of the “Tally-Ho” trail. The first 10min are in the open along the Kicking Horse River until you cross the HWY and then start climbing up in the trees. There is a bit of a scary downhill to get to the Natural Bridge and one more road crossing but from there you get onto the “Kicking Horse Access Rd” trail which is a 9km out and back trail more or less along the river. Most of it is through the forest but you pop out on the river a couple times. The first 2km are very wide and have 2 tracks set. The remaining 7km are single track. Stunning views and easy skiing. I expected to see a moose or elk step onto the trail any second – we saw lots of tracks – but unfortunately that never happened. Very enjoyable plan B ski. Took us 3.5hrs all together due to many picture stops 🙂

We had a quick bite to eat and a short rest back in the room before going out once more just before dark to see if we can find our elk again. We never did but they had opened the road along Mount Dennis and we found this little sign on a tree “Carlsbad Column”. Well there was a van parked right across from it which really made us look. We followed some tracks up the relatively steep mountain side and ended up at the foot of a small ice fall. Pretty neat. I would have loved to explore more but it was getting dark and we had to get back onto the road before we would loose the trail. Next time.

Christmas dinner was pasta with a tomato-spinach-ground beef sauce cooked in our little kitchen. Didn’t miss the turkey – Merry Christmas!

Day 6 (Thu, Dec 26): Today we had to say good bye to our little cozy room at The Truffle Pig Inn. I really enjoyed being stationary for a few days and so did Jeff. Driving + skiing every day is tiring. This time around I was looking forward to each day of skiing.

Low clouds were hanging in the valley at Field and it was the coldest day of our trip, -17C. As we continued to drive east, climbing higher, the weather improved and Lake Louise was just on the edge of clouds and sun.  Today’s plan was to ski the “Great Divide”. We bundled up nicely. Jeff was hoping to do a nice long double pole ski but the tracks were very soft. Like very soft. So soft that even my skis every so often sunk into the tracks. Otherwise my Skins worked fine and I took it easy while Jeff blasted ahead. It’s a 9km ski to the Great Divide and another 3km to the Lake O’Hara parking lot on a nearly flat road. I was reasonable warm and enjoyed the views, watched the dog sleds past me and made it to the Great Divide sign no problem. Jeff still hadn’t come back so I continued on for another kilometer or so until I met him. He said the Lake O’Hara parking lot isn’t too far away, 15min for him which equals 30+min for me. I decided to go all the way. It wasn’t quite 2hrs yet. Jeff was going back to the start and then start a 2nd lap and meet me on my way back. Another 10min later disaster struck. I was on a bit of a downhill and I was actually gliding with a bit of speed which was hard to do in these conditions when my right ski disappeared into another snow hole. I had a good crash and twisted my left leg awkwardly. Getting up in this soft snow was tough and when I swung my legs around I noticed that my left ski was kinda backwards. The damn binding was broken. Rats! Now what? There was nobody around and it was 10km back to the car. Lucky for me I am the world’s best shuffler on skis. So I just put my foot onto the broken binding and shuffled my way back. Every so often, way too often, my foot would slip off the ski and I ended up stepping on it. It was annoying as hell and took a LONG time. I was hoping Jeff would be coming down again the whole way back but not knowing my predicament he decided to rather warm up in the car when he got back and wait. He just started to come looking for me when I finally made it back, almost an hour later than it should normally take me (4hrs08min). And yes it was still -17C and although I wasn’t completely frozen, I was not staying as warm as when you ski.

Anyhow, I made it and the heated seats warmed me up quickly as we drove to Canmore. A nice drive under blue skies. We had booked a place the evening before. Our usual spot was fully booked and there wasn’t anything affordable left in town. So we stayed just east of Canmore in Dead Mans Flats – who on earth came up with that name! The Big Horn Motel was right beside the highway and a Husky station with the cheapest gas I have seen in a long time, 96 cents! Room was clean and quiet. At least on the first night. On the second night the placed fill up all sudden and we had a crying baby and snoring dad right beside us – oh well. Other than the Husky restaurant there was no food anywhere in walking distance and the motel owner didn’t recommend the Husky for dinner. So we googled a place we can drive to that isn’t in downtown thinking it might be less busy. And so we discovered the “The Iron Goat Pub & Grill“. Beautiful log home like looking place, awesome food, great service and we got a table right next to the fireplace. Not the cheapest place to eat out at but well worth the money spent. My Alberta Game Meatloaf (bison, elk & beef) was delicious and so was the coffee cheesecake came in a glass. A great finish to the day!

Day 7 (Fri, Dec 27): We woke up to blue skies and sunshine and -10C. Breakfast at the Husky restaurant was surprisingly good! Our skiing destination was in the Kananaskis Country today. Jeff has this website he goes to, Skier Bob, that always posts information about the trials in the area. He showed me some great pictures taken at the Ribbon Creek area and I wanted to try those. But I also wanted to go back to Pocaterra, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, one of my most favourite places to ski. By the way, if you have not read my previous ski trip blogs, skiing in Alberta parks is FREE and the trails are always in good shape. Pocaterra won. There was quite a bit of wind on the drive out and I was a bit worried about temps. But then the temperature actually got warmer halfway along the 45min drive and then dropped again to something around -10C. Balmy, especially since we had a lot of sunshine, and a few clouds.

It was a great ski and Jeff decided to take it easy and ski with me. We were both using our skins. Pocaterra trail was freshly groomed and in prime conditions. Unfortunately we could not do the full loop as some of the southern trails weren’t groomed due to avalanche risk and we had to cut back down on Whiskey Jack. It was a long way down but we missed out on our favourite trails of Fox and Moraine. Neither of which were groomed. I forced Jeff to shuffle up Moraine through the deep snow for a bit to get the views but he was grumbling about “stupid” backcountry conditions the whole time :-). Lucky for me the first viewpoint was close :-). Wheeler had a bit of snow on it but since it is a gentle downhill for the most part we managed. Back up the 2nd Amos intersection – I was getting tired – and up Lynx back onto Pocaterra. A much shorter ski than we used to, 3hrs45min, but still a great ski. No moose though!

Since we finished earlier than usual and it was such a beautiful sunny day we took a different route back to Canmore, Route 742 through Spray Valley Provincial Park. What a beautiful drive. It would have been even better with the sun up higher. Road was in excellent shape. We stopped in at Shark Mtn which is another cross-country ski area but it wasn’t groomed yet. A bit later we got to Spray Lake and that’s where we saw them. Mama moose and baby moose!!!! They walked right onto the road about 100m ahead of us. Obviously we stopped. They started walking towards us on the other side of the road. I stayed in the car to not spook them until the walked right by us. Sooo cool. A couple more cars had stopped behind us and they both turned around and followed the little family. Mama moose walked right up to a small SUV that was parked on the other side of the road (empty) and started licking the salt off it. Junior was a bit nervous about the two running cars right behind it. I finally got out of the car but stayed my 100m behind. Mama moose didn’t seem to care much but junior was dancing around her ready to leave. Eventually they had enough off the two cars right in their faces and walked into the bush. Someone sure got some good close ups that day but I thought they were crowding the animals a bit much. Or maybe I was just jealous :-). But also very happy having seen the moose. Apparently seeing a moose in Kananaskis is the routine thing to do in the summer.

It was slowly getting dark as we finally left the valley behind and dropped down into the Bow Valley. Quiet a windy road to get back down with beautiful views over the Bow Valley and Canmore. We took it easy for dinner and just went right back to The Iron Goat. This time the pub was packed and we pretty much got the last table in the “overflow” area. We had pizza tonight which was really good. Still no complaints about the place. As I mentioned earlier, the night was a bit rough…

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Looking down into Canmore

Day 8 (Sat, Dec 28): We changed plans. Instead of heading back west,  and doing a non ski day fat biking at Nipika before heading down to Kimberley we decided to go back into the Kananaskis Country to ski Bill Milne Trail and Ribbon Creek. It was another sunny day and I wanted the views. Took us a bit to find the best starting point for the Bill Milne trail until we ended up at Wedge Pond Parking lot. It was cold, -14C and the parking lot and the first km were in the shade. I was freezing until we hit the wide open valley across the highway. Well yeah, there were quite a few road crossing on Bill Milne which was a bit annoying but the views did make up for it. The trail is pretty flat and even I double poled a lot of it. It was also busier than I expected. Glad we did it but I am not sure it’s going to be on my top 5 list with all the road crossings. It is about 7-8km to the end of the trail where it joined the Ribbon Creek trail system. A lot of their trails weren’t groomed and we ended up only doing the Ribbon Creek loop – which turned out to be enough. A lot more up and steep downs but our skins worked well enough. Near the top end we actually had to rescue a woman that had gone off the trail. The banks were steep and the snow was very deep and she got stuck with her skis. Jeff helped to get them off and then we both pulled her back onto the trail. Lucky for me, no crashes that day :-). Other than the steep downhill, it was a slow ski – too many picture stops, 3hrs40min.

Now it was time to finally head west and it was a long ways to Kimberley! But the day was nice and the roads easy. On our way through the Canmore area we saw a big herd of elk on one of the off ramps. So we left the highway to take some pictures. Unfortunately Jeff decided to pull of the road not knowing that there was quite a drop. And for a while it looked like we may have been stuck for good and needed a tow truck. I am sure the Albertans that pulled up behind us were shaking their heads – BC tourists. But with a bit of back and forth and a lot of force we somehow made it out. Love that Quattro! And I did get a couple pictures :-). Back on the highway we had one more close call with animals – an ermine (black tip tail) ran onto the highway in front us at 120km/hr but fortunately he turned around just in time. The rest of the drive was uneventful. It started to cloud over as we neared Kootenay National Park and it was dark by the time we got to Radium – no big horn this time around. Another 130km to go, although at the time I thought it was only 70km, oops. Anyhow, we made it to Kimberley and got the last room in the Kimberley Hotel downtown. It was pricier than I remembered and the Indian Restaurant no long existed. We walked into town and had a great dinner at the Pedal & Tab pub.

Day 9 (Sun, Dec 29): Back to the familiar trails at Kimberley Nordic. Compared to other years though they had a lot less snow and the trail coverage was thin and quite icy. Mind you they still did a pretty good job grooming what they had. And it was fast and Jeff finally got his 50+km double pole ski in. Actually he did 60km that day. I was as usual taking it easy looking for the MOOSE that apparently had been seen around the trails just a couple days before. Well, I did not see it but I found fresh tracks! Tried a new trail – changing it up from the usual 6km loop – and that’s were I saw the tracks. A nice ski under mostly blue skies. I skated for the first 90min and switched to my skins for another 2hrs or so doing my furthest distance of the trip as well.

We had already decided the day before that we would not push on to Rossland that day but stay in Cranbrook. That also meant we would be skipping Paulson for the very first time. But it allowed us to make Sunday night our movie night. We had to choose between Star Wars and Jumanji 2. Jumanji won and I loved it.

Day 10 (Mon, Dec 30): It was a drive-all-day day to gain some ground towards home all the way from Cranbrook to Princeton, a 6+hr drive. Roads were okay but it was overcast for the most part (made it easier to just drive by Paulson). Saw another big herd of elk in the fields just outside of Creston. The bigger surprise was a big flock of wild turnkey somewhere between Creston and Salmo (after Kootenay pass).  Off course we stopped along the road to watch them for a bit. Had to walk back a bit. Until a snowplow come down the road gunning for our new car parked along the part he was cleaning. Jeff was sprinting back to move it out of the way but the snowplow driver was nice enough and lifted the blade just in time to get around us. Probably the biggest excitement of the day :-). No bighorn sheep in Grand Forks and no deer in Midway but another bunch of elk before we reached the Okanagan. I think it was almost dark when we reached Princeton and checked into our usual Motel, The Cedars. They had plenty of snow in town. Dinner was at the usual pub.

Day 11 (Tue, Dec 31): The last day of the trip and it lightly snowed on us as we drove up to the China Ridge Ski trails into the clouds. One could hardly see the cabin from the parking lot it was so foggy. But there were still tracks and we headed out for our last ski of 2019. It was actually pretty nice. The trees were covered in frost. As usual lots of animal tracks on the tracks and twice we saw deer. As we reached higher elevations towards the northern end of the trail system, along Lind Burn, the sun made an appearance. Really quite beautiful but I was also getting tired. We didn’t cover much ground in the 3hrs ski but it was a good last ski to the trip.

The drive home was uneventful I believe. It was New Years Eve but we were in bed by 10PM.

November 8, 2019

Road Trip – Rivers, Creeks & Lakes

Filed under: Animals, Bears, Canada, Hike, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 11:27 PM

Oct 19/20 – Time to take the new car for a drive. This wasn’t the first for this fall but the first with the new car. Usually all our travels are point to point to do stuff. This time we just had a potential route in mind but no real destination or things to do along the way (this was a first for us). The weather forecast wasn’t great with rain and wind for the coast. We decided to head up Hwy 99 through Whistler, Pemberton and Lillooet and then think about finding a place somewhere between Lillooet and Hat Creek or maybe make it to Clinton. And on Sunday head back on Hwy 1 through the Fraser Canyon. We packed tent, sleeping bags and firewood to be able to just crash anywhere but secretly I was thinking we probably end up in a motel. The car fit all the stuff we needed, including a big box full of fishing gear in case we would stop in on the way back on Sunday. So much about our plan.

We didn’t get started all that early since we went to order winter tires first. We hit the road around 10:30AM. It was raining lightly when we left but as we drove past Horseshoe Bay the rain had stopped. By the time we hit Squamish there were a few sections of blue sky. Diamond Head looked just beautiful but that wasn’t on the list for the day. And the sun didn’t really stay either. We did make our first stop before we even got to Whistler though.  Brandywine Falls, it’s only a short walk but the falls and views over Daisy Lake are worth the stop. And we got to see a couple Pika but they were very shy.

We continued on through Whistler towards Pemberton to have lunch. But even before we got there, we made another stop. Nairn Falls. Neither Jeff nor I had ever been there. It’s an easy walk to the falls, although longer than Brandywine (3km return) right along the Green River through the forest. Fall was in full force – a few nice colourful deciduous trees and tons of mushrooms. From tiny to large and I must have taken a picture of every single one on the way out. It was fun. The falls themselves are quite spectacular as well. Not as tall as Brandywine but just as powerful raging down over a couple drops through a tight little canyon. There are a couple viewing platforms but I would have loved to explore beyond those. Unfortunately, since we only expected a walk, we didn’t put on any good shoes and sandals are no good for scrambling in the forest. Nevertheless it was a beautiful walk.

Click here to hear the falls roar

By the time we got to Pemberton it was already 3PM and way past lunch time. So we had an early dinner instead. Unfortunately our little cafe we had in mind was closed due to some Hallmark Christmas filming going on in town. But we found another nice place to eat at but it took quite a bit of time. Hence we didn’t start on the part I had been looking forward to the most, the Duffy Lake Road, until 4PM. On top of that the weather had deteriorated and clouds had finally caught up with us from the coast. As we gained elevation leaving Pemberton, the clouds got closer and closer to the road. No views whatsoever and near the top it actually started to snow on us. We missed out on all the big mountain views I had hoped for (one more reason to come back here soon) but we did get lucky as the snow stopped by the time we started to follow Cayoosh Creek on the east side of Duffy Lake. We pulled off on the first little rec side we could find, Roger Creek, to have a closer look at beautiful Cayoosh Creek. And we decided to stay there for the night. We explored the campsite for a bit and spent a couple of hours around the campfire – good thing we brought plenty of wood. The clouds started to disappear and we could see stars sparkling through above us from time to time. Magical. To my surprise, we weren’t the only ones staying the night. But the site were far enough apart that we neither saw nor heard much of them.

I expected it to rain over night but it stayed dry. We didn’t quite wake up to sunshine but the clouds had moved up quite a bit higher and we could see mountain tops. The headache that had plagued me the day before was finally gone and I enjoyed the drive even more. The fall colours seemed a lot more vibrant that day. We stopped at a few more places along Cayoosh Creek. There were quite a lot of small rec sites that are probably packed all summer long but were almost deserted right now. The new car felt great on the windy road and the drive was just as much fun as the scenery was spectacular – until we almost hit a bear! Neither Jeff nor I expected bears to still be around but there he was, walking up the highway, hardly noticing that he had almost been run over by an Audi A4 Allroad. We turned the car around and found a spot to pull over hoping to see the bear vanish into the bushes. But he didn’t. 3 more cars had to slow down and drive around him. He kept walking up the road right towards where we were parked. We had stayed in the car to not spook the bear unnecessarily and so he walked right by the car. I mean right by the car. The right thing probably would have been to honk or make noise but with the engine off nothing works on those modern cars. And instead of continuing up the road the bear decided to check out the car. Looked over the hood and came around to the other side. I am sure he would have tried to poke the car but Jeff finally started up the engine which cause him to run off – not far, just across the road where he started to continue walking up the road. I could not believe it. This was not normal bear behaviour as I have experienced before and I have had my share of bear encounters. I wasn’t nervous for us but for the bear. He was too used to humans and cars, maybe he even was fed out of a car before, to not be a danger to himself and others. Eventually he walked off the road ahead of us. At least I think he did. We made sure to take off to not give him the opportunity to come back for a second look. In hindsight I know it was wrong to stop but we were quite far away when we did and based on previous encounters gave him plenty of space to avoid us. But then it is fall and bears are getting ready for hibernation. Maybe he was just desperate to find some food … we did have some bread and muffins in the car which he could have smelled. Still feel guilty about having alter a bears behaviour by being there.

Hwy bear video

A bit rattled by the encounter we continued on. We stopped at Cayoosh Point to take in the views of the creek way below us and the mountains around us, spectacular to say the least, before dropping down into Lillooet to have breakfast. Not sure why but for me going out for breakfast is the highlight of all our road trips :-). Here we had to make a decision. Continue going north on Hwy 99 to Hat Creek or head south along the Fraser on Hwy 12. We picked the latter, not only because it was the shorter route but also because it was a new route for us. And the drive was really nice, overlooking the Fraser the whole way but with more picture stops than the canyon drive on Hwy 1. At some point the hwy narrowed to a one lane road for a couple hundred meters right along a cliff. There were a lot of rocks on the windy section of road. Pretty cool. We also found a little made up gold rush camp. And instead of signs telling you to stay out they had a sign inviting you to enjoy it just not destroy it. There were faces all over the trees watching you – very cute. Thanks Dave & Bev whoever you are.

Experience the drive on Hwy #12

Eventually we made it to Lytton and I would have loved to extend the trip forever but it was time to head home. So instead of going north up the Thompson – towards the blue sky – we headed south along the Fraser – into the rain. And rain it did heavily for a while. Lucky for us, it lessened around Boston Bar and I convinced Jeff to do a small detour. We crossed the Fraser to explore Nahatlatch Provincial Park, taking the new car onto dirt road :-). For years we have been driving by here on our way to the Cariboo and I always wanted to explore Nahatlatch but there never was time. Now we made time. It may not have been the nicest weather for taking pictures but it was well worth it. Car handled the wet dirt road without a problem – sure the quattro helped. Mind you, we were the only “luxury” car on that road. Everyone else was in trucks or SUVs. The drive to the actual park took a bit longer than I thought but definitely a nice area. Once in the park there are quite a few rec sites along the lakes and we stopped at a few to soak in the beautiful views despite the clouds. At the last stop we decided to have lunch, overlooking Nahatlatch Lake, hiding from the light rain under some large trees. Piece and Quiet!  I loved it. Definitely on the list to explore more in the future – but that list is getting pretty long :-).

This pretty much marked the end of the trip. The drive back Hwy 1 was uneventful and wet. A much enjoyable fall road trip in the new car – I see more to come… Although this was not our first fall trip this October.

October 22, 2019

Good Bye TDI

Filed under: Home — K2 in Canada @ 11:34 PM

Well, it has been 8.5 years since we bought our VW Golf Wagon TDI, the only brand new car I ever owned. And it has been a great 8.5 years filled with lots of adventures. We put over 250,000km on it and the engine still runs like on the first day. Well maybe it got slightly worse after they had to do the firmware upgrade to fix the emission s. But it still was the best car ever and we loved the diesel engine – torque, mileage and cost of diesel just made it worth every penny.

The car never let us down. Even when we broke the rear spring driving onto the ferry with 3 sea kayaks on the roof, 3 people inside and all the gear for 7 days of paddling. We made it up island and back. And that wasn’t the only time we likely overloaded the car. 1 single surfski and 2 doubles with 5 people probably did that too. Never mind driving into a strong headwind over the Coquihalla so that we had to retie the boats 3 times 🙂 Maybe that’s why we went through 3 sets of rear spring…

This car was fun to drive and we loved the torque. Never needed to drop a gear going up the Coquihalla. With winter tires, it was the best car to drive in the snow and we did a lot of winter traveling in sometimes nasty conditions. You could bet that Jeff would pass every single car on the road as if they would be standing still.

On our very first road trip, less than 4 weeks old, we blew the front tire and destroyed the rim – there just was not enough clearance to get over big rocks in the middle of the road. That kinda hurt but also broke in the car 🙂

But like all Volkswagen I ever owned this one also gave in to rust and it was time to either put quite a bit of time or money in to get it fixed up for the next 250,000km which I am sure the engine has in it. And since neither Jeff nor I like to spend time fixing things, we decided to look for a replacement vehicle…

Actually it started even before we discovered some of the worst rust spots that Jeff started looking for a new vehicle. Back then he wanted to replace our Tacoma with a new one or with a diesel engine truck. Something with a bid more payload to put a camper onto the back. But at the end, the right truck for us has just not been invented yet. But Jeff did not want to let go off the idea of getting a new vehicle. So he started to look into replacing the golf. Unfortunately there are no more new TDIs available or else we would have bought another one in a heart beat. So which car to get? We wanted to stick with a wagon so that we can transport our double surfski. Considered briefly some small CUV or SUV but discarded that idea pretty early. There are not that many wagons out there. We also thought a bit more clearance couldn’t hurt. And Jeff thought getting all wheel drive would help with winter driving (not that he needed any help:-)). So you may think that the only choice here would be a Subaru. But I have been a VW driver all my life.  Now there are a few other choices such as Volvo, BMW and Audi but that just seemed too much out of our league. Jeff did a ton of research online though. After-all, we had to try the VW Gold Wagon Alltrack first. What a disappointment though. That car felt slow and unresponsive and was just no fun to drive. Mind you, it probably is a perfectly fine car but it just did not compare to our TDI. I missed the torque. The sales person even joked about it before we left that the only thing we may feel to be different would be the torque but it has all those other gadget. Well we did not care about the new age gadgets but the gasoline engine would need a bit more horse power to make up for the torque for us to like the car. And here is where I made the mistake (or maybe my subconsciousness told me to go that way since I always wanted to own one!). There was an Audi dealership right next door of course. I suggested, just for the fun of it, that we should try an A4 Allroad. Now they didn’t have an Allroad to test drive but the sales person said he could put us into an A4 Quattro sedan because they would feel just the same (I had my doubts). Anyhow, we figured why not. The only A4 they had was the S line with sports seats, rims, steering wheel etc. Oh man, did that car ever feel good. People always say you have to drive an Audi to know why they cost twice as much as a VW. It was just too much fun and we were hooked. Jeff couldn’t get the grin of his face and it took all my will power to pull him out of the dealership without signing the deal on a brand new Audi A4 Allroad. I told him we need to at least test drive the actual Allroad before we could do that. Over the week we looked up used Audi’s as well and ended up test driving a 2016 Allroad (half the cost of a new one). It was not quite the same as the S-line sedan but still felt very, very nice and sure had enough horse power. Now we still needed to compare it to a brand new Allroad. Audi had changed the way the transmission works in 2017 and it was supposedly better. But test driving it, it didn’t feel like twice the amount of money worth better than the 2016 model. And even a new one doesn’t come in red (which was my childhood dream car colour – mind you in that dream I was also wearing a skirt and high heels :-)). At the end we bargained for the 2016 and traded in our beloved TDI (sniff) for a 2016 silver metallic, Audi A4 Allroad. It still feels like too fancy of a car for us but man is it fun to drive. Not so fun to fill up at a gas stations but oh well. We don’t use it to commute every day – it is a toy to support the fun stuff we do. I think we made the right choice.

To break the suspense, we did not do any damage to the car on our very first road trip last weekend. Although there was excitement but that’s for another post (I promise to get back into blogging!). Just having to get back to work on Monday was even harder than usual.

 

May 29, 2019

From Hot to Cold – April

Filed under: Animals, Bike, Canada, Kayak, Racing — K2 in Canada @ 10:29 PM

In April, we paid for all the warm weather we had in March. Temperatures dropped below seasonal for most of the month of April – at least that’s what it felt like. It also was a bit wetter than May but still not too terrible. Most of our adventures were related to paddling that month, but for one bike ride.

April is the start to the TNR season. It started off with a nice evening on Apr 2 but it got consecutively colder each week. Mind you at least the rain stayed away from Tuesday evenings for the most part . The cold wind was just not nice after getting off the water all wet. Below a few selected pictures.

We spent half of the weekends paddling in Indian Arm. It was mostly hard work and long paddles. And it was cold and wet! Except for the last day of March where we happen to see a river otter play on the rocks. Very cool!

Couple weekends we actually raced.  A new one for us – D’Arcy Island Cash Dash on Vancouver Island near Sidney on Easter Saturday and an oldie we haven’t done in a long time, the Dan Harris in Bellingham, Washington, on Apr 28. Yep another trip into the US! Both of those days were incredibly sunny and mostly calm but what little wind there was was freezing cold!

The D’Arcy Island race didn’t go that well for us. Somehow we got out of sink in the 2nd half and were fair and square beat by Kathleen and Gareth as well as a couple single surfskis. But it was overall a nice event!  And there were cash prizes as well as long as there were at least 3 boats in a class. Unfortunately there were only 2 doubles. Hopefully next year there will be a few more boats from the mainland out. Majority of the paddlers were OCs since it was a Cora race.

The Dan Harris Challenge went a bit better. Lots of doubles and we came in 4th double overall. There was some tough racing going on. Overall Team Canada did quite well in this first leg of the Think International Surfski Challenge even though we did get beat by the US. The margin was the smallest in years though. And Team Canada actually won at the end because they did better in the Canadian race, the Board the Fjord Race in Deep Cove in early May. Jeff and I missed that one though – May is fishing season (for another post).

The first bike ride of the year (other than the daily commute to work that is) up Mount Fromme happened on Apr 27. We meant to go up all the way to the top of Grouse to see the bears but the snow stopped us. So we had to settle with seeing a male Blue Grouse. He tried his hardest to win my heart – dancing and cooing :-). Pretty darn cool! I used my new e-bike for this ride and it was a breeze to get up. Now Jeff is the one trailing behind – which gave me the time to flirt with the grouse. I get the feeling he might be regretting talking me into this new toy :-).

If you want to see more of my friend the Blue Grouse, check out this video:

Last but not least, a few odds and ends pictures from spending weekends mostly at home in April.

May 8, 2019

March Magic

Filed under: Animals, Canada, Ski, Travel, Yukon — K2 in Canada @ 10:56 PM

One more time back to March. Sorry, it took a long time to finish this!

Mar 23 was the day of the Buckwheat Loppet, a new loppet for us this year since we missed out on the Birkie in Edmonton due to the extreme cold in Feb (-31C). The Buckwheat is being organized by the Skagway Nordic Club in Alaska, is being held in Northern BC near Chilkoot Pass and the majority of the attendees are driving in from Whitehorse, Yukon Territories. I would have been really looking forward to this event but my right knee had flared up yet again the week after the Sun Peaks Loppet and I was on pain killers for 3 days. I was just starting to feel better the Thursday before the race but far from perfect. Anyhow, I figures I’d be in good enough shape to ski if not race.

We had our flight to Whitehorse booked for 8:30AM Friday morning. I was still in the bathroom trying to wake myself up with a splash of cold water in the face at 6:30AM when I heard Jeff laugh out loud from the living room. What now? All he said was, check your email. And there it was, the Buckwheat Loppet was canceled due to melting snow conditions. It has not only been above seasonal warm in Vancouver obviously. The email said it was unsafe to put in their usual 25km course but that they would still have a 10km loop ready to be skied on and all the festivities would still be happening. Just no timing. One could ski as long as one wanted and then stop in for a burger at the ice castle. The Buckwheat always has a theme for people to dress up – this year it was Alice in Wonderland. We could have tried to cancel the flight, hotel and car but I figured why not go and check it out anyhow. May still be a fun weekend, even without a race (secretly I was relieved to not have to race on my weak knee). I figured there are plenty of things to do in Whitehorse when it is +10C vs -31C in Edmonton.

And so we were off to the airport shortly after. Fate almost struck again. As we were waiting to board the plane they called for volunteers to stay behind as they had overbooked the flight. 2nd chance to stay home? Nope, I was now intend on going – get out of town for 3 days. It actually is a less than 2hr flight to Whitehorse which makes the total travel time about the same or less as our usual winter getaways by car into the interior and by far more relaxing. Beautiful views along the way for the most part. Once in Whitehorse we had to wait in line for the rental car company since half the plane had rented from the same outfit. But eventually it was our turn and the friendly guy behind the desk tried to save us money by talking us out of paying extra for unlimited kms. But we did the math and knew we would easily be over the limit since it is about 180km one way from Whitehorse Yukon via Chilkoot Pass to Skagway Alaska. Daily limit was 300km. So we finally got the key to the rental car which was supposed to be just in the lot outside. But we looked everywhere, there was no grey Ford Fusion. Hitting the panic button also resulted in complete silence. The poor guy behind the counter was a bit flustered but that had us end up with a bigger car than we had originally paid for for no extra charge, a black Toyota Corolla. Ironically this car had winter tires on while the car we rented in Ottawa just after the biggest snow storm in a long time had none. We were able to check into out hotel early. It was situated in downtown right across the road from the mighty Yukon River. It wasn’t the most luxurious place and the neighbourhood looked a bit sketchy but it was clean and in walking distance of food and beer! We had a late lunch/breakfast at Tonimoes, as suggested by the car rental guy, just a couple blocks away. The food was good, the beer even better and the server very friendly and chatty. We were the only customers.

It was a beautiful sunny and warm day in town and we decided to take a drive up to Chilkoot Pass and take in the sights along the way since we would not have the time in the morning of the race to stop for pictures. And what a drive it was – incredible scenery all the way. I let the pictures below tell the story. We stopped in at Carcross to hike the desert. Carcross Desert isn’t a real desert but a pretty sizable windblow from the glacial sediment collecting along the shores of Bennett Lake. It was warm enough for T-shirt and the shoes came right off as well. I never expected it to be this warm in the Yukon in March – +13C. I sure fell in love with the place. We made it to the “Log Cabin” Provincial Park where the non-race would be hosted the other day. There seemed to be enough snow still to ski, even though it was a bit soft. We saw a couple of skiers come off the trail and they confirmed the 10km loop should be in good shape. We again took our time driving back, stopping again in Carcross to explore the shores of Bennett Lake as the sun was playing with some clouds. The view was absolutely stunning.

Back in Whitehorse we decided to just go back to Tonimoes for dinner but for some unexplained reason they were closed at 7pm on a Friday night. We kept wandering around the downtown area and looking for another place to eat and ended up at “The Burned Toast Cafe“. It sounded more like a breakfast place but they were open for dinner. And we really lucked out here. The food was very good and way above your normal pub food. They used a lot of local stuff. We had Wild Game Potato Skins filled with elk salami and bison pepperoni as appetizers and I followed it up with locally made Elk and Blueberry Sausage. Yummy!!! We had planned to go and see if we can be so lucky to watch the Aurora Borealis that night and the super friendly server told us about THE place to go to. “Just past Kopper King, you know” Well, we did not know where or what Kopper King was/is but I could find Fish Lake Road on my tourist map. “Just 10km up a good gravel road a couple kilometers out of town”. We were able to find the turn off and drove for quite a while. Jeff was ready to stop after 3 km at a lookout over Whitehorse but I insisted to continue. No way it was dark enough there. Jeff was grumbling about it but we drove on and eventually made it to Fish Lake. It was the perfect place for watching the Aurora – if there was one happening. We waited for a good 90min for the show to start. It didn’t. There was a bit of high cloud cover around as well and we figured that might be the reason we saw nothing but darkness ( it wasn’t). Still it was a cool place to be – so quiet and peaceful and not at all that cold either. But we were late to get to bed – past midnight which hasn’t happened in a LONG time.

It was a bit of a noisy night and 6:30AM came way to early. Non-Race Day – we had to be at the start line by 9:30AM. It was a pretty nice morning and the drive in the early morning light was just as beautiful as the day before. I was sooo sure we would see a moose on the drive but nothing. No deer, either. Nothing! We made it up to the Log Cabin PP with plenty of time to spare. But as the start time came near the parking lot was still fairly empty. Maybe most people decided to stay home? Not so, we were an hour EARLY!!! Apparently the race start time was on Alaskan time, even though we were still in BC, and Alaska is an hour behind BC. I could have slept for another hour?! Oh well, it was not a bad day and we had a bit of a walk and admired all the costume of the people getting ready for the ski. Most of the participants had a costume. From Grinsekatze = Cheshire Cat to card soldiers and nasty queen, everyone and some were showing up. Very cool. I felt out of place in my “race” suit even though it’s a perfect costume for me.  Eventually we got near the start time. They still had staggered start times by 15min for the 50km (which Jeff had signed up for) and 25km (which I had signed up for) and the 10km even though there was no race. Jeff start did have a few young guys line up, all in race suits and Jeff realized there may still be someone to race with. And off they go… racing :-). My start, 15min later, was a lot more civilized and almost everyone wore a costume. Initially the trails were in decent shape but fairly narrow. It was flat. I was going fine mid pack. But it did not take long until we hit the first obstacle. We literally hit a wall of sticks sticking out of the trail right in the middle of a short steep section with a 90degree turn at the bottom that looked like trouble. I stopped dead, bit the snow and off course my bad knee did not like that one bit. While I tried to get onto my feet again, I saw a few skiers almost kiss the tree at the 90degree turn below hardly making the corner. No way I could do that on my bad knee. I waited until most people passed me and then actually took my skis off to walk down. I sunk in up to my hips – so much about not enough snow. It was NOT fun. The trail continued to be challenging. If I had been in better physical or psychological conditions, meaning not afraid of hurting my knee yet again, this could have been a fun course but it was narrow with some really steep, although short turny and twisty downhills. Mind you it never seemed to go up ever. I was terrified by the time I made it to the ice castle for the first time, about 4km into the “race”. But the ice castle was cool – the shape of a big grinning cat big enough to walk into – and I was able to take a deep breath and get myself together again. If they can build an ice sculpture like this for us I can finish this damn ski! So I continued on thinking I want to at least finish the 10km. I did end up walking a few more hills even though the first one was the worst. On top of all that, it started to drizzle a bit but I hardly noticed that and it did not last all that long. The last stretch had a lot of debris on the trail and I put another nice gash into my base. Overall the skins worked fine though.  Jeff passed me while I was still on my first lap. It was tough skiing for me and I can’t really say I enjoyed it but I managed to almost finish a 2nd lap secretly hoping Jeff would happen to catch up again when I was near the ice castle – you get to see it three times during the 10km loop actually – but he did not catch me until after I passed the ice castle for the last time with about 2-3kms to go. He also thought conditions were tricky but of course he raced on, intend on finishing his 50km. He was on his last lap. So we decided to meet up at the ice castle. In stead of doing another full 10km I decided to just turn around which was a bit tricky on the narrow trail with lots of people coming towards me. But I made it back to the castle, nobody complained about me going the wrong way, everyone smiled. Luckily the drizzle had stopped. There were tons of people at the ice castle and many amazing costumes to look at. The ice castle had more carvings in it than I originally saw – absolutely amazing! And they had the BBQ going as well – how they got all this to this place in the middle of the ski trail system is a mystery to me. Pretty committed volunteers, almost puts all of our local races to shame. Although I always admire all and every volunteers out there in the freezing cold waiting for the slow skiers like me to finish. Here nobody waited, everyone was partying since the ice castle was also the food station. Once Jeff finally finished, we quickly grabbed a burger and then skied back the last 3km to the car without any further incident.

We decided to drive down into Skagway for the actual apres-ski party which was supposed to be amazing. Not sure though how anything could beat the ice castle thing. It did not take long until we hit the Canadian customs booth but then there was no US booth anywhere near it. We continued on driving through the high mountain pass. It was raining again and visibility was about 5m when we drove into the low hanging clouds. All of a sudden, Jeff hit the breaks complaining why they would reduce the speed from 90 to 40 without a warning. Then it dawned on us – that sign was in miles/hr. We were no longer in Canada. Somewhere in the clouds we must have crossed the border. We still had not seen a US customs booth. It probably took another 10min already going down towards the coast until we finally reached US customs. Off course I had to go in to get my Visa and it took quite some time. Not because of me getting the visa but because all the custom officers, all 2 of them, were busy checking the many cars coming down from the ski race :-).  Getting the actual visa was painless. We finally made it into Skagway. It was overcast and windy and pretty much deserted. We had a quick look at the ocean but it just look uninviting. The town lives by the cruise ships that stop here all summer long. In March there aren’t many people around but everything looked in very good shape. The “downtown” area was kinda neat with it’s “gold rush” style architecture. It turned out that the apres-ski party wouldn’t start for a couple more hours. Too late for Jeff and I who had to drive the 2hrs back to Whitehorse that evening and neither of us was looking forward to drive the foggy pass in the dark with dropping temperatures turning the wet road to a sheet of ice. Hence we ended up in the only open pub, a local brewhouse and had some beer and food. Both were very good. Next time we plan a bit better and stay the night.

The drive back was actually much nicer than expected. The clouds had cleared up and we had some beautiful views over the white emptiness along the pass. That’s the reason both border stations are so far apart from each other – the area is so remote it was too expensive to get power up there. So if you ever want to set your foot on US soil without having to go though border control – knock yourself out at Chilkoot pass :-).

Back in town we had a quick rest and then drove out to the Takhini Hot Springs about 10min out of town. These hot springs aren’t huge or luxurious but they also were not busy at all and are nice and warm. It was awesome, exactly what we needed, and we soaked our sore bodies for quite some time. Last stop for the day was Lake Laberge to see the apparently even stronger Aurora that evening, sometime within 3 hours of midnight – or so we were told. We stopped at a gas bar to pick up some chips and beers for our evening on the Lake. The drive to the Lake Laberge campsite took some time but we were the first ones there – other than a family camping. It was so quiet and dark – until someone crossed the still frozen lake in their ATV. Then again it turned quiet and peaceful. Stars started to come out – a million stars. Wow! The sky was almost white with stars. Then more people showed up and it got “noisy” again. We stuck it out till about 11:30PM. No hint of an Aurora yet but we were both too tired to stay any longer. As we left there, we saw at least 3 actual tour busses coming down the road to the lake. But at that time I wasn’t sad we would miss it. I wasn’t looking forward to experience it with all those noisy people around. Funny how quickly the Far North makes you feel 3 people are a crowd :-). Anyhow, turned out we missed nothing. But we had a great night sleep.

Day 3 of our mini trip. So far it had been just short of amazing and very relaxing (yesterdays anxiety attack during the ski long forgotten). Another blue bird day and still not too cold. We had 45min to kill before The Burnt Toast Cafe would open for breakfast and hence did a walk along the mighty Yukon River. Not much was left of the ice that had still covered the river only 2 days ago. Amazing how quickly the snow and ice was disappearing everywhere. And off course we paid a visit to the SS Klondike Paddle-wheeler who was running the Yukon River from 1929 to 1955 between Whitehorse and Dawson City. We paddled that stretch many years ago in a double sea kayak as participants of the Yukon Quest Race – 740km in length. The race still runs every year….but we never had the ambitions to do it again.

We made it to the cafe just in time before the crowds and got a window seat. Apparently this is a popular place with the locals. Breakfast did not disappoint. More awesome sausages for me and pulled pork hash for Jeff. No wonder they ran out of pulled pork for dinner the previous night, given the amount they serve for breakfast. The rest of the day before our flight out at 5pm was spent at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve near Takhini Hot Springs. You can visit the park by foot or bike or buss. Obviously we decided to walk. It’s quite a big park and sometimes animals are far away but it was fantastic! From deer to moose to sheep to goat to caribou to muskox. All my favourite hoofed animals were there. The two moose of course were the highlight – we got so close. Unfortunately the friendly park people had specifically warned us about NOT touching or feeding the moose and it took all my willpower not to. As for all fenced in animals, the grass always looks greener on the other side. Except, these two moose were not trying to get at the grass but the small still leave-less bushes along the fence. Pretty tough diet if you ask me but they moved the whole fence around to get at it. The predators of the North were not quite as well represented – all for the better since they are always kept in too small of an area. So no bears or wolf but they did have foxes and a couple of lynx. The lynx were circling their habitat for quite a while seemingly looking for a way out which made me a bit sad but also offered quite nice views of the animals themselves and we got to see them quite close. It’s not quite the same as seeing these animals in the wild but this park did a great job in trying to provide enough space for the animals to roam. We spent many hours walking the ~5km trails system of the park and I took many pictures of course, until my battery died :-). Time to go home, sigh!

A most magical trip – amazing, scary, fun & relaxing at at the same time! For a week or two after Jeff and I looked into buying a property up there. I am sure the weather may not always be this cooperative, especially in March :-).

P1030976 (Medium)

Takhini River

April 8, 2019

From Freezing to Hot

Filed under: Canada, Kayak, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 10:53 PM

Well it did not quite happen over night but it went from too cold for March to too hot for March in a few days. And it was the driest month of March ever recorded. We already had our very first wildfire. But April is starting to look more like a normal spring. But lets wrap up March first.

Mar 9/10 Weekend was the last cold weekend. But it was sunny! We went skiing at WOP on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day with temps around -5C. I was still a bit weak from the cold that hit me in early March but it was great to be out and about. That night, Jeff finally made the decision to sign us up for the Buckwheat Loppet near Whitehorse Yukon. The weather forecast for up there looked decent with temps around zero during the days and just below freezing for the nights for the next 2 weeks.

We survived the change back to Daylight Saving Time. I am not sure why so many people complain about it. Having an extra hour in the evening AFTER work makes a world of a difference to me. Mind you, if people don’t want the change then lets just stay on Daylight Savings! The Sunday was just warm enough, 5C, to go for a paddle in Indian Arm. The sun sure made it difference even though there was a bit of a breeze. It felt great to be on the water again but I was more sore that I should have been after a couple hrs paddle.

The week of Mar 11 the temperatures were about average with day time highs of 7-9C. And off course we grumbled on Monday morning about having to ride to work in the dark again but when I came home to a beautiful sunset over the river that night, I knew Daylight Savings is for me!! Just in time for the weekend, temps climbed above 10C on Friday. And it did not stop there. Sunday high in Vancouver was 16C!!!

But we weren’t in town the Mar 16/17 weekend. It was another trip to the interior for the Sun Peaks Loppet on Sunday. We left at a decent time Saturday morning and got to Stake Lake and the Overlander Nordic Centre by about 1PM. Enough time for a little warm up ski. And it was warm!!! The snow was really soft and sticky in the sunny spots and very icy and fast in the shady spots (it has still been cold the night before). It was tricky skiing because of the stick and go snow. The beautiful sunshine and scenery though made up for it as usual. Apparently they had lots of moose sightings lately – I only saw some fresh tracks.

We, Jeff, John G and I, stayed the night in Kamloops. After an early dinner at Harold’s, we enjoyed the hot tub at the Best Value Inn we always stay at. Then walked to the nearby pub for some beer and some appys. Maybe one too many beers?

The next morning started cold and sunny. The Sun Peaks loppet is a smaller event and you can use either technique. Most of the participants chose to skate while Jeff, John and I were doing classic for the close to 30km long course up to McGillivray Lake and back. I had good grip with my skins even though it was pretty icy in the morning. But the icy conditions were iffy on the way back down. I was very timid and snowplowed a lot. I still didn’t trust my knee to be stable enough, the one I injured in Jan. The few people I dropped on the uphill came flying by me just before the end of the 1st loop. On the 2nd lap the snow started to get soft and sticky in the sunny spots but I still caught up and past the same few people only to have a repeat of lap 1 where everyone speed by me just before the finish. No matter though, I finished without crashing or hurting too bad and I was the “first” female classic skier over the line. Always pays off to be in a category almost by yourself. Especially when they give away big Lindt chocolate bars for the winners in each category – I did not feel bad at all about being almost last and still first :-).  Jeff did exceptionally well again as he double poled the race. Those icy condition suited him just fine and he finished long before the snow got too soft. Even he said the downhills were quite scary but that didn’t slow him down one bit. He was first in his class and there were a few more than 2 people in his class! And a couple of those were pretty strong skiers! So both of us came home with a large Lindt chocolate bar each and a couple draw prizes on top of that. Good event :-). We walked into the resort for coffee/tea AND first ice cream cone of 2019 to enjoy the nice weather for a bit longer before the drive home. It was about +10C up on the mountain. Only real problem of the day, the lot we had parked the car in in the morning had turned from frozen into liquid mud by the afternoon and you could not get to the car without filling your shoes with mud. Mind you, I take that and the sunshine over frozen but non-muddy feet any day :-). The drive home was uneventful. We stopped in at the Wild Cat Grill in Agassiz – really good food!

The week of Mar 18 was when it got really hot. Sunny all week. I think we hit 22C as a high and broke several temperature records that week. It sure felt like we skipped spring and went right into summer….. pretty awesome! I even made it out onto the river one night that week for an evening paddle and finished well before the sun set!

There was only one problem… but that’s for the next post  … soon

March 5, 2019

Sicko

Filed under: Canada, Home, Hummer — K2 in Canada @ 7:09 AM

This is starting to annoy me. This year has been quite a line up of minor injuries/illnesses so far and I am missing out on a lot of my exercising! First I hurt my knee in early Jan, then a sore back in early Feb, then a pulled thigh muscle in late Feb and now a minor cold hit me last Thursday. We still went skiing Saturday. Had to pick up our new Manning Nordic Club uniforms. It was a beautiful day out even though a bit on the cold side with -7C at Strawberry Flats. I layered up quite well but still wasn’t sure if it will be warm enough. Well it was. It was a slow ski for me obviously, not only because I had no energy but also because I had to switch skis. One of the skins on my Rosignole skis came off. Jeff just had put them on a couple of weeks ago, just before Ottawa. I tried switching to my waxables but whatever wax was on there didn’t work – no grip whatsoever. And my wax tech Jeff was skiing! And my fingers were starting to freeze. No way I would try to put a different grip wax on. So I borrow Jeff’s Atomic skin skis. There are even longer than mine and a bit stiffer but it worked surprisingly well and whatever started off as “Gosh I rather be bed sleeping” turned it a “Great to be out here” kinda day. And the suits really look nice. Love the bear paws obviously 🙂 Never mind the hot tub and beer and flatbread afterwards. Manning is always worth the 2+hr drive (one way).

Sunday was supposed to be a paddling day but I felt even worse. We did a paddle last Sunday and it was great! Sunny and 6C. If Jeff would have wanted to go I probably would have followed and it would have been like Saturday a great day outdoors but he gave me an out by saying “it only feels like 3C (5C is our cutoff these days) and it is windy and you will get wet”. He made it very easy for me to say, let’s stay home. Instead we pruned the tree in front bit/lot more – well cut branches randomly is probably the better description :-). Hope my heather survived. At least we had nothing land on cars or smash through windows. Chatter wasn’t too impressed with us being on the balcony for that long. Lilly couldn’t care less and visited us a few times :-). In the afternoon we went for a nice almost 2hr walk along the Fraser. It really was a gorgeous day – barely a breeze and felt warm enough but still too cold for March :-). At least I had a look at water and we said Hi to all the hummers along the river.

We finally finished the puzzle I started Christmas Friday night. Took a lot longer. I thought this one would be easier than the hummingbirds but it was not. All those fall trees took a long time! And Jeff wasn’t helping all that much…. until Friday night when we finally finished it 🙂

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March 3, 2019

Loppets far and near

Filed under: Canada, Racing, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 2:10 PM

After missing out on the Edmonton Loppet this year due to extreme cold we were twice looking forward to the Gatineau Loppet, Feb 16. Although I wasn’t quite sure if I could even ski. We flew into Ottawa on the Thursday. Takes all day to get there. My back was still sore and I wasn’t looking forward to a 5hr flight being stuck in a middle seat. But the nice woman next to me offered me her aisle seat so I could get up when I needed too. But once I was in my seat I felt like nothing would get me out of it again. It wasn’t the most comfortable flight but I survived. Somehow I even managed to get up and out of the plane upon arrival. We had rented a car this time so at least that was easy. The Hyundai Elantra even fit our big ski box. With the help of our antiquated GPS we found the motel Jeff had booked without problem. To my surprise, the roads were in good shape all the way. Ottawa had just gotten 40cm of fresh snow the day before but all highways and major roads were clear. The motel was a bit run down but clean and quiet and had a grocery store and a pizza/pasta place, in easy walking distance. Gabriel’s Pizza even served beer even though it looked more like a family restaurant. Pasta was okay, beer and artichoke dip were very tasty.

We spent most of Friday in the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. There was more snow/rain in the forecast for the day. We spent time with the butterflies and the live sloth first thing in the morning before doing the rest of the exhibitions. It was a nice way to spent an overcast winter day. By the time we finished, the sun had come out. In the afternoon we picked up our race bibs in Gatineau. My back felt a bit better and I figured I may as well try to ski. I used my phone to find a place to have an early dinner on the Gatineau side. We picked Pacino, a great Italian restaurant. Not the cheapest ever but the food was exceptional. We spent the evening with our former kayak coach and good friend Lynn. We hadn’t seen her in 5 years or so and back in the days she always was a wild one :-). Now she is a mother of a 2 year old, owns a house in Ottawa and teaches Kindergarten. Well, she still coaches but dragon boating now and no longer sprint kayaking. She seems to have good success with it though and is planning to take her team to world in 2020.

Sat Feb 16 – Gatineau Loppet. We got up at 6AM since Jeff’s shuttle would leave the school area/finish line at 7:30AM to be shuttled to the 51km start area. He had signed up for the A wave this time. His race start was at 9AM. My race, 27km, started at 9:02 (B wave) but was leaving from the finish line area. Back felt okay even though bending was still tricky. It would be a lot of striding for me rather than double poling, whereas Jeff was going to double pole the whole race. It was a sunny morning, air temp around -7C but windy which made it feel colder but not too bad. I was fine in my red race coat and my favourite Craft shirt + grey T-shirt. The racing was okay. Snow was slower than last year which also meant more control. I was using my skins and they worked well. Striding was fine, double poling for very short burst okay and only herring boning was bad on the back. The course is fairly flat with only a few short hills and I felt reasonable good at a steady pace. As last year I had people all around me. Unlike last year, they double-poled/glided away from me but I was actually catching them again striding. I had a really good kick and glide that day! It almost made me feel like a skier :-). And without crashing I made it to the finish line in good spirit, 15min slower than last year, finish mid pack! 108 out of 200+ skiers. Nothing hurt too bad, the sun was shining, no 51km skier passed me and like last year they were sampling beer at the finish line :-).

Sunday was another sunny but much colder day. We bundled up for our stroll through downtown Ottawa taking in the usual sights. We parked right at the edge of Byward Market Hall for $7 all day. That seemed quite cheap compared to Vancouver and there was a host that could (probably wouldn’t) keep an eye on our car since all our gear was already in it. We had breakfast near the Byward Market and looked at the ice carvings on York Street – Winter Festival in Ottawa. We walked over to the locks, than down to onto Rideau Canal – again no skating. It was really busy and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that to my back, which by the way felt fine. But my legs were very sore from all the striding the day before – I guess I used muscles I hadn’t used in a while. Sometimes a sore back forces you to use proper technique more than strength :-). We walked through downtown to do some ring toss and back via Parliament Building to have lunch at Byward Market Hall again. Jeff had been looking forward for a year to eat at this small Mexican place inside the market :-). It was still a bit early to head to the airport for our 5:30PM flight but we were cold enough after walking around Byward Market for another 45min or so. Ottawa Airport is not the worst place to hang out to wait for your flight home :-).

The Monday (Family Day Feb 18) was supposed to be a paddle day but it was too cold in town. So we went to WOP for another ski instead. My legs were still quite sore, I think I seriously pulled a muscle on the inside of my left leg, but it was a nice sunny day and would have been a shame to waste it away at home.

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The following weekend, Feb 23, was our local loppet at WOP. The P’ayakentsut was sponsored by our good friend Bob’s store, Coast Outdoors, this year for the first time. Jeff the crazy guy signed up for the 50km classic, while I smartly choose the 30km classic. Most people skate this loppet but since I haven’t done any skating this year yet I didn’t want to kill me. It was a great day for it. They just had 25cm of fresh snow the day before which made for a bit slower race but also better control on the downhills. Except for one corner where the snow had piled up and I took out a 50km skater who tried to pass me on the 2nd lap, the course was in great shape. They had put in 2 classic tracks this time so the most right one did not get shewed up by skaters as a much as usual. My leg muscle was still in pain and I had a pretty slow race but was not last 🙂 All in all a good ski and we well deserved the food and beer afterwards at the Shady Tree!

Jeff is now thinking about a Loppet in the Yukon in March…..

February 12, 2019

Everything just got worse

Filed under: Canada, Home, Hummer — K2 in Canada @ 8:54 PM

Weather got worse –  it snowed most of Sunday night. Probably accumulated close to 10cm. It stopped for most of Monday but it stayed cold so nothing melted away and then it snowed again Monday night. Another 5-10cm. That`s the most snow we have seen in a while and apparently it is not done yet. Another 5cm predicted for tonight. It actually does look very beautiful and I would probably like it if I could enjoy it but…

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My back also got worse – I was in a lot of pain today. Took me 15min to get out of bed into the bathroom this morning. Work was done mostly standing. Not because it didn’t hurt but it hurt less than getting up from a sitting position. My legs feel like I did a marathon today (not that I know how running a marathon would feel, never will). Hopefully this gets better for the weekend so that I can ski!

Chatter is also confused by all this snow. He could not sleep Sunday night. We saw him at the feeder at 10PM at night! And again before 6:30AM the next morning. Usually he goes to bed by 5:30PM and up again around 7:30AM these days.

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Should have been in Edmonton

Filed under: Canada, Home, Hummer, Ski — K2 in Canada @ 8:26 PM

Well, I was not supposed to have all this time last weekend to blog. We were supposed to be in Edmonton. Saturday would have been the Canadian Birkebiner Loppet, 50km for Jeff, 31 for me. We had planned to go to Edmonton this Friday, race Saturday, check out the mall Sunday/Monday and then continue on to Ottawa for the Gatineau Loppet. But even in Vancouver we hardly saw positive temperatures all of last week. It was sunny but pretty cold, as low as -10C. Edmonton obviously was even colder and race day long term forecast was just on the edge of being raceable, above -25C, or not. Jeff and I stocked up on cold protective gear at MEC the previous weekend. Finally, the forecast for race settled on -31C and and the organizers sent out the cancellation last Wednesday. Now we had to cancel/change all our flights, rental cars and hotels. A bit of a mess and we lost a whole whack of money! Oh well, better that than suffering frostbite.

Hence we had an unexpected weekend in town. Saturday we went skiing at Callaghan. There was a strong arctic outflow going on, some areas of southern BC saw as much as 90km/hr winds. Howe Sound was white capping as far as you could see. It wasn’t that windy at WOP, maybe 40km/hr but that wind was freezing cold! The forecast for temperature with windchill was -19C but I don’t think it was quite as bad. Our car thermometer showed -9.5C when we started skiing in the morning and it was sunny. The wind was only gusting to ~40km/hr so for the most part it was bearable. Actually I was overdressed quite a bit and was too hot most of the time. What the wind did cause though was a whole lot of debris being blown onto the trails, such as pine cones, moss, needles and whatever else can blow of a tree and fill in the tracks. It was awesome for grip but really sucked for glide, especially in the tracks. So I had to ski a lot outside the tracks which is quite a bit more tiring for me. I did make it up to Madeley Lake but it wasn’t fun. And the wind was coldest up there as well. I skied for over 3hrs but hardly covered much more than 2okm. It was more walking and slipping than skiing. But hey, I got to try out my new face mask, which was too hot, the foot warmers and neoprene overboots which worked like a charm, and a double layer of gloves which also worked well to keep my hands warm but resulted in my hands slipping out of the ski pole grips. Oh well. I am ready for the cold!!! The best part of the day was sitting in the pub in Squamish while the wind howled around us drinking beer and eating Lasagne :-).

Talk about a change in weather. Sunday started out sunny and cold (-3 with windchill of -9). Again, this wasn’t a temperature that allowed us to paddle. We went for a walk instead. My back was a bit sore from Saturdays ski – hope this doesn’t get worse. Half way through the walk it started snowing and it didn’t stop all day and was still snowing when we went to bed. Snow accumulated quickly and we must have some 5-10cm on the ground. Looks pretty :-). Chatter was hiding underneath the roof out of the wind and snow. I even had to turn the feeder lamps on during the day as the sugar solution started to freeze.

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