Drip, drip, drip

In his last blog entry, Kenmore suggested going out for a 50k ski today as per the men at the olympics. I opted for a snowshoe hike along the Wolf trail and am satisfied that I made the right choice. Temps are rising and two layers of fleece were enough today. The new snow that fell during the week was welcome and the packed trail is plenty thick but if it stays this warm it will melt soon enough. I enjoyed taking photos of the water drops on twigs in the forest. If you enlarge and look at the drops you can see reflection of trees in the drips, pretty cool. On the ridge I was looking for a section where there was a frozen cedar tunnel when I last hiked here after Christmas. Good news is that the ice melted and the tree is back to standing up straight as trees are supposed to do! A nice day to be out but I hope winter sticks around for a couple more weeks before the spring melt.

Now:


After freezing rain:

Winter Duathlon

With the Winter Olympics about to start I got in the spirit by getting in a two sport day on Saturday.

Rideau Canal skate

First off it was the canal skate. While not a sanctioned event and with un-olympian conditions, I did enjoy the skate. Starting at Patterson creek I headed downtown before turning around and skating to Carleton U and then returning. The ice was not great and was bad, especially between the Bank street bridge and Dows lake as well as the last stretch down to the Rideau centre downtown. It always amazes me how it is 10 degrees colder there than the rest of the city, or perhaps it is just because I skate so fast :-)

Randomn snowshoe

After the skate I headed up Mountain road to do some exploring on snowshoes. I basically followed various tracks in the snow for an hour or so before hitting one of the parkways in Gatineau Park. While I did not end up getting to any sort of lookout I did enjoy the hike and tested out my new boots and some steep terrain where the shoes worked great.

New shoes on the Wolf trail

I bought myself a pair of snowshoes just after christmas, figuring it would be a good change of pace to try some of the showshoe trails in Gatineau instead of always xc skiing. Today was the maiden voyage. As expected the trail was a well packed path. I meant to go up the steep way and back down the flatter part but missed the right turn and did it the other way down. I love the way the snow covers up the uneven bits of rocks and roots on the trail. The sky was overcast which dulled the views but there is still some beautiful sights of ice in the trees. The temperature was quite mild so there were a lot of people out enjoying the day. I loved this mode of travel and will do a few more Gatineau trails and maybe venture down to the Adirondacks for some of the easier scenic hikes.