Desolute Winter Desert

It was dramatic, desolate, destitute! Parts of today's snowshoe made me think, could parts of the South Pole look like this! The Ice! The Cold! The Blue!

This is what I have to show for 5 1/2 hours of snowshoeing and 14 kilometers later. This was not really what we expected to see when we set out this morning to visit Watridge Lake and Spray Lake. But, when you least expect it:

The trek across and along side Spray Lake was breath-taking! In total, I took about 60 photos of ice formations, each one looking spectacular in its' own way. The light blue in the photo above is actually a big piece of ice.

Lunch was at Watridge Lake. We tucked ourselves in the trees for protection from the wind and we had a show of snow swirls right in front of us. I checked in a tree stump for a note I left last year, but no luck in finding it. One of my favourite photos is where the water drops froze while dropping!
We smelled smoke so followed our noses and this is where we ended up! It is a pine beetle infestation burn. The fellow invited us to come close to warm up. We visited for about 10 minutes then carried on. He was getting paid by the piece, it was getting late and he needed to get back to work.I got to try out my Pelican SnowFlite 36! Today's trek didn't include much elevation but we did find a slippery slope steep enough and long enough to give it a whirl. I managed four slides and my fastest was 12.2 km/hour. It was a lot of work to climb up, that's why only four.

We did a fare amount of bushwacking, some of us taking turns leading to break trail. I would pick this way to strengthen the legs instead of the weights in the gym any day. I felt tired starting out today but was invigorated by the scenery and fresh air and being in the company of such fun and adventurous people.

We topped today off with hot drinks and snacks at a coffee shop in Canmore before heading home. I feel like the luckiest girl of the planet being able to experience days like these!