Snow – Dale and Becca

Canada is Melting…Also, Puppies!!

After being in Grande Prairie a few days, and with a few reasons we realised we wanted to change every plan we had already made.We wrapped up our trip to Grande Prairie much sooner than we intended, only staying a week. After a very busy few days planning, we changed all our plans. We leave Canada next week (cry!), flying out of Vancouver on Tuesday 18th March. We are heading to New York (exciting!!!), where we will prance around and see the sights for a week, before leaving on a Jet Plane, to London! Eeek!

My little brother Tommy, and his lovely fiancee Katharina, are getting married at the beginning of May, so that is kind of what threw us into alternate planning mode. Hopefully I will be flying back to NZ for a couple of weeks then.

The first few days in Grande Prairie were super cold, but then the last few, it warmed up a ton, and everything started melting. I am suspicious of this “Spring” that is happening, it is 10 degrees outside, and thoroughly balmy. I think it is a ruse, spring has just happened like someone flicked a switch. I’m sure it will get cold again… second winter!

We did our last few chores, and packed the car up again, and drove back to Jasper. Half of the snow was gone. Canada was no longer in black and white, but now had a range of colours, blue green in the rivers, tans and browns in the fields – we could actually see grass! – green and mossy on the trees, and grey and green of mossy rocks. Lovely! Some of the rivers have melted up tot he surface, so parts are visibly flowing again.

It is tricksy though, everything melts a little, then cools and freezes again overnight, so you now have to watch out for patches of ice, where before there was just lovely snow.

Today we did the best thing ever, husky dog sledding up a mountain valley… we went with Cold Fire Dog Sled Tours. They seemed to keep their dogs well, and mostly I think they were the only place around Jasper to do dog sledding. The dogs all seemed in fine form, all were SUPER EXCITED TO RUN< PLEASE LET US RUN, TIME TO RUN? IS IT TIME? TIME TO RUN? PLEASE OH PLEASE RUN, RUN< RUN, RUN, RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN…. They all caused quite a commotion when it got close to the time of the sleds leaving, barking and howling and carrying on Had to hold them back.

What was great on this tour, is that they let you steer a sled yourself if you want. They give you the basic instructions and commands- start, top, braking, parking), and the tour guide rides the sled in front of you, so you are limited to their speed, but you get to steer and command the puppies…It was awesum!!! I want to go back and do more. It was so much fun having them all so excited about running, and that you could tell them to stop and go, and steer your little sled, and stop them from pulling you off into the drifts at the side of the trail, (Stop? they didn’t like to stop, you had to put the brake on, and tell them a few times, and if you were stopping for any length of time, put the anchor down, and when we stopped for lunch, they tied the sleds up, so they couldn’t just keep on running..).

P1210652 — One person drives, one person gets to snuggle in the sled

We had lunch cooked over a little fire, snacks, and apple cider (Which in Canada is actually just warm spiced apple juice), before zooming off again. It was great fun 😀

P1210737 — Sled. Stand on the two outer poles, stand on the silver bar or black pad to slow the sled, stand with all your weight on the silver bar to stop, then put the anchor out!

Saw “Warning Moose Crossing” signs along the road, but unfortunately no moose. We drove on to Kamloops, where we stay the night.

The thing I am sad about is that I didn’t get tot see the northern lights. In Grande Prairie, I was finally at a latitude that was high enough to see them if they were just a bit active. However, they were not active this week. Incredibly quiet compared to the previous weeks. Or it was cloudy/snowing, so I couldn’t even see the sky. Disappoint!

Tomorrow we head for Vancouver, where we sort out the car, then make sure all our belongings can fit into our bags for the plane ride.

Grande Prairie Farmstay

We left Jasper smothered in snow, and drove off to Grande Prairie. I was concerned we wouldn’t get to see any wild mountain sheep, but no chance of that… barely out of Jasper, and there was a herd all over the road, and everyone had stopped to wait for them. Got to stop too, and take pictures, while the sheep just ambled across the road, unconcerned.

If you turn left here, then drive approximately 2600 km, then you will reach Alaska! (Which is longer than NZ).

Saw another herd on the road 10 minutes along, then another herd a wee way after, up on the rocks. Saw a couple of eagles, and some mule deer peeping out of the trees, but that was pretty much it, and the rest of the drive was simply trees, trees, lakes and snow. For about four hours.
Grande Prairie is a sizeable town though, and we are staying on a cute little farm just north of it.

We get to help feed/clean/milk/move the numerous cows, calves,pigs, chickens, rabbits, emus, turkeys, geese, rabbits. Give food, hay, water, bottles of milk. The calves are the cutest.

Last night the heating system broke, so it was pretty cold inside, and even more so outside (-30). I had all the blankets I could find on the bed, which made it very cozy.

The geese were very excited to get out of their house

The first night working we froze, running around outside in the dark was pretty darn cold. Milking the cows by hand is nice though, very warm. Some of the cows live in a barn, and mostly we look after those, and the cows who are about to give birth, and mums and calves recently born. The barn is all steamy inside, with the breath and heat from the cows. There are often ice crystals growing all across the inside of the roof and doors. The cows that live outside often have ice crystals on them, or snow, if it has been snowing.

Bottle feeding the calves is fun. The next time outside, they provided us with quilted overalls, which are the most amazing snuggly things (like onesies, but are appropriate to wear outside). Keeps me nice and warm, and just have to have a scarf for over my face, and everything is good.

We have to give water to the cows twice a day, and only as much as they will drink; if we leave the water in their buckets, it is well frozen by the time we come back in the evening/morning. Chilly. If it freezes in the buckets, you have to spend a while getting the solid hunk of ice out.

The emus, chickens and geese provide eggs, but by the time we get them they are usually frozen. Still good for in pancakes though.

We always had lovely sunsets, with soft pastel colours, and occasional bright oranges.
I got very excited when we arrived, as there is a treadmill! The most exciting thing!!!! I got to run, which was fantastic, run without feeling like your insides are freezing every time you breathe. Never thought I’d see the day where I would be excited about a treadmill.

We have changed all our plans now, after a couple of crazy planning days, and are leaving Grande Prairie in a few days, to drive back to Vancouver.

Jasper – 3rd March

The cold snap was continuing, and it was again, freezing. I cannot stress how cold this day was. There is no other feeling like the insides of your nostrils freezing! My phone doesn’t like to operate in this cold, if I take it out for more than a minute, it has a hissy fit and turns off; it won’t turn back on until I have warmed it up again.

Our first day in Jasper we headed up the road, where you drive up a glacial valley, firstly to lovely views back over Jasper, then on to Maligne Canyon, to do the walkthrough.

We did the little walk down the way, and made our way to where the canyon opens out, and we climbed carefully down into it. The river was frozen mostly solid, with only a bit of water flowing right near the bottom. Water had flowed from the walls, and frozen, forming more walls of ice, ice all around! The floor was super slippery, what with being sheet ice, and parts of the floor had little ice terraces, where water had flowed over the top, but then frozen. It was very pretty, a bit otherworldly.
I wanted to spend longer down there, you can walk quite a way up teh canyon, but the lack of feeling on our feet made us leave. The walk back to the car was great, as it warmed us up a bit.

We then drove up past Medicine Lake to Maligne Lake, where we had lunch, then cruised back to town. This is an interesting area: Maligne Lake is a large glacier fed lake, the largest lake in Jasper National Park. It flows down to Medicine Lake, which was created when the river backs up, and disappears underground. It flows under and overground, and comes out furthur down in Maligne Canyon, where the walls are covered in fantastic ice sculptures, from the different springs and parts of the river that flow and emerge from underground.

After driving around some of the smaller lakes, we saw a squirrel, and another coyote, this one had some lunch in its mouth.

We watched a few squirrels, then headed back to town to get warm again.

The next day we had planned to drive to Valemont in BC, to get our licences sorted, but we gave them a call first, and I think we can use our NZ licenses for up to 6 months if just visiting. We are only here for a bit longer, so it seems a shame to have to drive so far and pay money to change our licenses when its only for a month or so.
We ended up with a day and not much to do. It was snowing, but a wee bit warmer, so we decided to walk the few blocks to town and check out the sights.

You can't see me, behind the couch! — You can’t see me, behind the couch!

We checked out the Den, a little corridor of native canadian scenes set up with stuffed animals. It was interesting to see, but it smelled a lot like dead animal.

We wanted to go to the museum, but that is only open Wednesday to Sunday. We wandered back home (after lunch at The Bears Paw bakery – delishuz), and started the car with only a little reluctance, and drove to the Athabasca Falls.

"Poor" road condition — “Poor” road condition

IT was very lovely, another frozen in time falls, with a bit of deep blue in the small patch of water that hadn’t frozen. We saw some squirrels playing near the car, and I got quite close to one who was just sitting there, eating his little nuts. Two of them had a bit of a fight while running up a tree.

P1210251 — I like it when I get to grow ice crystals on my face

This is how we drive in Canada when it is cold.

A quick drive back to home, and dinner at a yum pizza place. Also, we had dessert pizza that was filled with nutella, a dessert calzone, and it was delishuz.

This is what happens to mayo after it is frozen and unfrozen a couple of times

Lake Ohara. Tues 25th Feb

Tuesday we were up nice and early for cross country skiing, fully bundled up in all the clothes, and we were on the trail by 8.10am. It was freezing. Absolutely literally. About -22 degrees. We got our gear on and got moving as quick as possible; if you sat around for any length of time, all your bits started to freeze. The first few kms were pretty easy, getting used to up and downhill, and trying to make the skis slide nicely. It took 3kms for my hands to unfreeze, and another before I could feel my toes – it was a good incentive to keep right on moving.

Just a fraction of what we can do with icicles

We stopped after a couple of hours, at 6km, for a hastily munched snack of solid muesli bars (sorry, granola bars) and chocolate. They were not quite frozen solid, but pretty close. Had to be careful to blow the water out of the drinking tubes so they wouldn’t freeze. With mine, the plastic had frozen, but was able to drink easily. We only stopped for about 5 mins, but our fingers started freezing again, so we had to keep going. We both had grown ice forests, with icicles hanging from the sides of the hats. I didn’t get any pictures of the ice farms at their peak, though, unfortunately. They dripped everywhere during lunch.

Another couple of hours got us to the campground, where tent sites were a metre deep squares dug out of the snow.

Don't leave your food our for the bears — Don’t leave your food our for the bears

Furthur on took us past the lodge (I’m not sure if it operates during winter, but it is super expensive to stay there. An incredible location, but I think it was something like $300 a night). Must be fantastic in summer, they have a whole pile of cute little log houses on the edge of the lake. They were all closed up for winter, but we found one in the sun to perch on the deck and eat lunch, as the snow was too deep to do it anywhere else. It was another ridiculously pretty place to eat lunch, with the white covered lake in front of us, and the high peaks all around.

Lunch was interesting. We had the cooker to make noodles and soup, which was great.. However, our egg sandwiches had somehow manage to freeze a fair amount. Especially the egg bit. Frozen egg is not delishuz, not even a little bit. Dale tried warming his up on top of the pot, and I stuck mine down the front of my jersey. It took a couple of hours to thaw enough to eat ><
After lunch we traipsed across the lake (you can’t climb to a frozen solid alpine lake and then not walk across the middle of it!), to the deep blue of the waterfall we could see on the other side. I’m not sure if it is even a massive waterfall in summer, but in winter it is a great, pretty wall of blue blue ice.

Sharks teeth in the upper left corner, sticky out cube rock in the left lower

We took our skis off at the edge of the lake, and climbed up to the falls. It was lovely, we stopped to take a few photos and videos, and saw a couple of squirrels in the trees around, and a flock of little dark coloured birds who would keep flying to the bit of the waterfall that was still flowing, and hop around in the water. Weirdos, its cold! I think they might be called Dippers.

By this time it was about 2.30pm, and we needed to get going, so we could make it out by dark. Starts getting cold again when the sun goes down. We swooshed across the lake, then started the interesting part of cross country skiing, that is going downhill!

Cross country skis are meant for traveling long distances, not for downhill skiing! They are very thin, and do not have metal edges, the whole thing is plastic. There are funny bits on the bottom, like fish scales, that help stop them from sliding backwards when going uphill. When going downhill, you have to stick your foot out and snow plow, and you can’t steer very well because of the no edges. I fell over a few times on the steep downhills, before I figured out how to slow myself properly with the skis.

Dale didn't do well in powder — Dale didn’t do well in powder

Heading down was much quicker than going up, most downhills meant you could just cruise, and try not to fall over. You sound like a train when you’re going fast with your skis stuck in the ski tracks. Feel a bit like a train too. Easy to derail! It was much more fun going downhill, but by halfway back I was ridiculously exhausted. We stopped for a snack – I had been keeping my food down my top to keep it warm, and the rest of my egg sandwich was finally unfrozen, so I got to finish that. The last 3 kms were very hard, only because we were so tired. We finally made it back to the car, going out took us just over 2 hours.

Light and shadow over the top of the mountain

Back home to Field, where we went to the local restaurant, Truffle Pigs, for dinner, to celebrate our last night (and we were also too tired to bother cooking). Food was delishuz.

Cross Country Skiing @ Emerald Lake. Mon 24th Feb

Our last day in Field, and the only thing I hadn’t done yet that I wanted to, was make it up to Lake Ohara. It is 13km up to the lake, which is nestled amongst the mountain peaks. In summer, the only way to get there is via the bus, which only takes a certain amount of people, or walk. In winter, either snowshoe, walk. or cross country ski up the snow covered road.

We were planning to snowshoe in and do an overnighter, but we ran out of time to do that (and I’m not sure about staying at the hut in winter), so we decided to try cross country skiing, and make our way in like that.

We went up to Emerald Lake, to have a look around, and ask about skis. Christy had arrived in Social House, she was taking over form us at the hostel. We took her up to see Natural Bridge and the Emerald Lake. We ended up being convinced to hire cross country skis, and to try them out on the lake, so we went for a quick ski.

Christy's first time on skis! — Christy’s first time on skis!

Videos from Field,BC

A few videos from the last few weeks that I’ve posted to Facebook but ought to post here as well!

Throwing hot water into the air in -30 degrees C. We’d seen this on the internet before and decided to try it for ourselves. Pretty!

A compilation for Neke and Garth from our day snowshoeing halfway up Yoho Pass by Emerald Lake.

After 3 weeks with very little snow, the storm arrived and started snowing. It’s now been snowing most days for the last week and expecting to continue for a few more days. This leads to beautiful fresh untouched powdery snow on the skifield, which we love.

Powder Days Part 1

After watching the weather forecast with bated breath, we knew it was going to start snowing again. So Excited. It also meant the temperature was going to rise a bit, and while -30 degrees was interesting to experience, it is fine if it doesn’t continue for our whole trip.

It started snowing! We had to work for another day, but that was fine, as it meant the snow could start building.

On Wednesday morning, we consulted the internets, and due to the 10cm of snow overnight, and the accumulated snow over the past few days, we decided to go to Kicking Horse again. There were puppies playing in the carpark. They don’t seem to care about the snow.

It was ridiculous and amazing and so soft and foofy. The whole day was great, the powder was great, the field was so much fun with that much snow. Everywhere is so much fun with powder! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Cruising down into the bowls, it is all quiet and peaceful, and the only sound you can hear was not the scrape of board over firm snow or ice, but the “WooooOOOOO” and “YEahhhhh” of the people riding around you, everyone was just so excited and happy to have a powder day. Even Canadians get excited about powder! It was the best day we’ve had, and Woooooooooo.

I love the trees in the snow, not only for zooming around them, but they look so pretty! And they have squirrels in them!

Thursday (today) we decided to mix it up and go to Lake Louise, as it was closer, even though they hadn’t had quite as much snow. We had a great day there, we stayed on Larch and Ptarmagin lifts, over the far side of the field, and the whole day was great, lots of zooming through trees, falling around trees, and a few swear words, but mostly it was fantastic and there were freshies galore!

We arrived home to nicely plowed streets, and a large ledge of snow in our driveway, so we had to spend some time clearing it out before we could park. Not so much fun after a couple of full days of boarding, but it was nice to get the driveway clear.

I’ve formed a theory, on why Canadians are so nice and helpful. I think it is cause of the powder, and cause their country is so pretty. They can’t help but be super happy after having a winter of riding powder, it makes everyone so very happy! And everything is just so pretty, even when there is no snow, the mountains and trees and lakes are all So Pretty, that it just makes everyone happy. All the happy.