I don’t know how to spell that.
Today we borrowed some snow shoes from Craig, and drove to Emerald Lake, only a few mins from Field. We had to de ice the car, and it was cold enough that ice crystals had grown along the inside of the windscreen. Cold, but very pretty.
We stopped at a place called Natural Bridge, where the river has carved out a path under the rock, leaving a bridge of rock above it. I think more impressive in summer, now it was just covered in lovely foofy snow.
The lovely colour of the lake could have been anything, as it was frozen solid, and covered in snow. Flat, white and smooth. The whole place was ridiculously pretty. A lake, ringed by mountains, and the lower slopes covered in mostly coniferous type trees, with dark green needles, and everything dusted in snow.
We rugged up pretty well, and awkwardly put our snow shoes on near the car. Good thing we had rugged up, coz man, it was cold. I think that was the coldest I have been since we got here. The car temperature gauge said -18…. I don’t know if it was quite that bad, but my fingers were painful, my toes were numb, and I had to cover my face.
Once we got walking and warmed up a bit, and got out into the sunshine it was better though. It was definitely more chilly between the trees, and the ones that didn’t have sun had ice growing all over them, and draping of the ends of the branches and moss. We walked around the edge of the lake, on the lake, for the first part of the journey, then took a side path off into the trees and drifts, then got onto the snow shoe path. It was very pretty, if a bit cold.
A bit awkward to walk with snowshoes on, you kinda have to walk like a duck, waddling like, so you don’t stand on your own snow shoe and trip yourself up. Coz that is not a good look.
We found a place where a small stream entered the lake, and there were free flowing bits. Near places where the ice wasn’t covered with snow, and around other peoples tracks, ice crystals were growing all over the place. Some were like tiny little bushes of crystals, others were long and thin… they were all super pretty and delicate and sparkly. The snow made a clinky tinkly sound as you stepped on it in the colder parts, where ice crystals had grown over everything. The snow that got sun was more swooshy.
We made it all the way to the end of the lake, where we went off the track, and just wandered through the lightly forested area, with small trees, and lots of drifting snow. Only fell over once, and that is where my feet kinda slid into a hole and got stuck where the branches caught my snow shoes. It is hard to walk backwards, turn sharply, or pull your feet up with them on: to get out I had to roll around a bit. To go backwards requires probably more skill than I have, and to turn, you have to make a bit of a circle.
It was fun though, traipsing across the top of deep snow, where no one else had been, with nothing but trees and snow drifts around you. Dale found us a nice fallen tree trunk, and we cooked some soup and ate sandwiches. It was delishuz, as food often is when you’ve worked for it.
After lunch was more traipsing, and finding the poor trees that had a massive buildup of snow on them, and rescuing them, while trying not to let the snow hat fall on you. I may have had one fall on me, as I couldn’t move backwards! Silly Becca.
We found the track, and made our way back to the start of the lake. We were walking in to the sun, and the snow, that had continuously slightly melted and then refrozen in crystals, was the most amazing glittery rainbow in the world. Screw diamonds, this was so much prettier. Rainbow flecks everywhere. I couldn’t get a picture of it, but I had nail polish when I was younger, it was clear, but had rainbow glitter in it, and the different colours would change in the light. It as like that, but prettier, and so very, very sparkly.
It was a lovely clear day, there were mountains all around, and we didn’t freeze 🙂 Driving back home was lovely, blue skies, with a view of the town, as huge as it is.
I made a delishuz banana sour cream cake, and we ate it for dessert. Might have to go for another walk tomorrow.
Dale and Becca 