Winter in K-Country

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After re-discovering how amazing the Kananaskis area is in the fall (Hiking in K-Country), I was excited to have a few opportunities to head back to the mountains for some winter exploring.

Despite having grown up in Canada, on the Prairies, I'd never been on snowshoes before this winter. The part of the prairies I grew up on just didn't get enough snow, or for long enough, to warrant having snowshoes, even for recreation. When we did get a big dump of snow, it was usually too cold to go out and enjoy it.

My first snowshoe adventure was the Hogarth Lake Loop. It's an easy, mostly flat loop at the Burstall Pass trailhead. I enjoyed the day out. At the end of the loop, the snowshoe trail merges with the Burstall Pass trail. A few cross-country skiiers whisked down the hill at the end, and it looked like fun...

About ten days later I went out again with the same friends. This time we snowshoed to up to the Kananaskis Fire Lookout. We decided to do a full loop instead of backtracking, 16kms in all. It was a fun day. We had good weather up to the Lookout, but as we started descending, it started snowing. It felt like we had stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia. The final stretch of the loop was along a creek which was only partly frozen over.

Just days later, I found myself heading up the Burstall Pass trail on cross-country skis with some friends. We had snowshoes strapped to our packs, to change into for the final climb up to the Pass. It was a beautiful day--pristine blue skies and gleaming white snow. Of course there was a price to pay for the blue skies--bitter cold. It was -30C when we arrived at the carpark by the trailhead. It warmed up a bit as the day went on, until we got up on the pass. I've only experienced winds that cold once before in my life, when I was at Laguna Colorada in Bolivia (Laguna Colorada: Flamingos at 4000m+). Even my camera was protesting at how cold it was!

We took our time getting up to the pass, and by the time we got back down to where we'd stowed our skis, the sun was low in the sky. We skiied out through sunset, twilight, and arrived back at the car in starlight.

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Photos

Snow Puppy
Can you see the chunk of snow that looks like a puppy climbing the tree?