Everything You Wanted to Know About Canada But Were Afraid to Ask

Shortly after last fall's Parliamentary "crisis", Rick Mercer devoted his RANT to the sorry state of affairs.

Following up on the crisis a few weeks ago now, the Rick Mercer Report had a go at explaining how some of Canada's Parliamentary System works (when it does work, that is). If you haven't seen it, you should. It ought to be one of the cornerstones of any Social Studies program in school.

Revisiting Krao Lake

Sunday was supposed to be a rest day, after all, I'd been out skiing the previous Sunday, again Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. But the morning dawned clear and blue so Catherine and I decided to snowshoe into Krao Lake, a small pond high in the hills above Ainsworth and one we'd visited on a rainy and snowy day last summer.


By the time we snowmobiled the 13 km to the start of the trail, some clouds had moved in, but the view down Kootenay Lake was quite fine, so we pressed on.


Terrain always looks quite unfamiliar in the snow if the only time you've seen it has been in summer, but finding the route into the lake was easy enough, especially considering that some snowmobiles had been in there and had left a packed trail all the way! Today, however, the woods were quiet and there were only the sounds of our snowshoes crunching along the trail. Views to distant peaks from a small hill just past the end of the lake were quite nice and we admired the vibrant green lichen on an old tree while we munched our lunches. Then it was off through the trees and heading toward home.

Exploring the Koots - 0221 - 12 Mile Creek

I got a call from one of the local ski enthusiasts Friday evening to suggest an objective for Saturday. The idea was to skidoo up 12-Mile Creek FSR and then ski further up towards Mt Carlyle. Basically, to explore the terrain and hopefully get in a few turns here and there. A couple more phone calls and we had a group of 4 ready to go in the morning.

Saturday was one of those clear blue-sky days and getting warm, at least once you were out of the shade.


The trip up the FSR was uneventful; many other machines had been using it, most recently a group of testosterone-saturated youth headed up another valley with their snowmobiles. Our group was a bit more sedate.


Once we left the skidoos, we angled up along a steep side hill, only later realizing that we would have been better off just staying the valley bottom. In any case, we arrived at a small lake within sight of Mt Carlyle. After weeks of low fog and cloud, it was nice to stand in the warm sun again. The day was getting on so we retraced our steps and made a quick ski down through the trees and back to the skidoos, arriving back in town just in time to visit the opening of the newly-renovated Hotel and celebrate with a local brew.

A Reconnoiter of Reco's Ridge

We've been talking about taking a day to visit Jackson Basin and today turned out to be that day. It wasn't the perfect blue-sky opportunity I'd been hoping for, in fact, it was pretty socked in and we got snowed on for part of the trip. Nonetheless....as they say: "A bad day in the mountains is better than a good day at work", or in my case, a day spent sanding and cutting big pieces of wood into small pieces of wood....

This area has an active cat-skiing operation but it's mostly pretty quiet in there - several scales of magnitude better than a commercial ski hill. One side benefit of the operation is the condition of the trails. The large Bombardier snow machines they use have made a network of packed roads all over the area, making the skidoo trip in pretty quick. We parked our machine by the side of one of these roads and took to the snowshoes. From the long ridge connecting Reco with the Texas Peak area, we were able to look back to Reco, seeing part of the peak during one brief period when it was semi-clear. We plodded on, eventually climbing up to a minor hill where we could catch a glimpse of Texas Peak, one of the several peaks on my "to do list" for next summer.

We retraced our steps, slithered down some steep, snowy sections and headed back out to the highway about 11 km away, home, snacks, soak in the tub.....

Probably a Tempest in a Teapot

You've no doubt heard about the "Probably no God" adverts on the sides of various city buses. Not surprisingly, it's generated a certain amount of outrage and probably a few chuckles. I'd have to confess to being on the chuckles side of this, especially with the feeling that we've been subjected to prosetylizing from the "other side" pretty much since forever.

If you want to have a bit of fun with this and have a creative bent, there's an on-line "Bus Slogan Generator" available for your amusement. Once you've entered your catchy slogan, you'll be able to see the results on the side of the bus. Save the image and upload it wherever you'd like.

Moonstruck

This was our view across the lake just a couple of hours ago. Clear skies, a condition we haven't experienced much in the past number of weeks, coinciding with a nearly full moon rising over the peaks just to the east of us.

Spring Thaw?

Given the date, even though it isn't Saskatchewan, it's probably being a bit too optimistic to think that winter is on it's way out. However, we had a nice day of sunshine, restoring the views of nearby mountains to their usual splendor, snow and ice were dripping and spirits were rising. We went for a walk on a trail overlooking the lake and later I worked in the shop with the garage doors wide open. It was probably a bit too cool for that, but working in the sun was so nice I couldn't resist. My current project is producing lots of dust so having it blow outside was an added bonus.

Looking for Lost Ledge

My skiing partner decided that it was time we had some skiing at the Lost Ledge cabin, a backcountry hut operated by one of the local ski groups. So we packed up the skidoo, drove about 11 km up a forest service road, then skiied a couple of more km to the hut. This was late Friday afternoon. We didn't have great views that afternoon or evening, although it did clear up after dark and we had a nice moon casting shadows in the forest around the cabin.

The next morning, the early morning light was particularly nice over Mt Schroeder, just to our west. Minutes after this picture, the peak was in full sunlight. Keep in mind that this was almost the only sun we've seen in weeks given how cloudy and foggy it's been down in the valleys.

We skied several runs in the morning and then joined a few other fellows we knew for another run after lunch. I continued on down through the forest to the logging road and back to the highway and home as the rest were staying for another night. More pictures can be seen here.

Snowshoeing around Sandon

Sunday morning dawned with a promise of some sun, so we decided it was time to head west, towards New Denver. This was the highway that was closed for over a week last month with many massive avalanches and we wanted to see what that looked like. Also, we wanted to do some snowshoeing somewhere new, also higher up is usually sunnier.....so off we went.

Sandon has a history going back to the late 1800s - it was a vibrant mining "city", also the location of a relocation camp during WWII. It's almost a ghose town now although there are still a few mines in the area and a few people do still live there. It also has the oldest continuously operating hydro electric generating station in western Canada, at least I think that's what I read. While waiting for Catherine to finish her snowshoe, I went to look around. One of the station operators happened to be going by so I had a chance to have a look inside. Yup - still humming away.