walking on sunshine

and don't it feel good

Meeting at car pool this morning, we were wound-up and gung-ho for our trip to the top of the world.   A short 70 minutes later we were at the Sunshine Ski Hill parking lot gearing up, while being revved-up by our neighbour's music, for our snowshoe adventure on Sunshine Meadows.  Once our tickets were purchased, we hopped on the gondola to be whisked away and up to Sunshine Village.  At the Village, we picked a clear spot at the side to finalize our gear up process then aimed for the side of Strawberry to snowshoe up & away.  

We arrived at our up & away spot.

We crossed the barrier into heaven on earth. 

We formalized a plan which began with hitting a trail that leads toward Assiniboine.  The sun began breaking through the clouds, it was mostly windless & warm and we had a 360 degree view.  We maintained our revved-upness at a slow pace making sure to "remember to breathe" in our surroundings. 

We reached our turn around spot along this route.

I looked back to see where we came from.  

Wishing to cover more untouched terrain, instead of returning on our beaten track, we detoured towards snow covered boulders in the distance.  This afforded us the joyful experience of some gentle downhill sliding through deeper snow.  

Our next destination was Rock Isle Lake.  

The Lake is located on the other side of this snowy hill.

Our route of choice was to go up & over & down. 

We arrived at Rock Isle Lake just in time to dine.  We made our way up onto the small island situated in the middle of the Lake.  There were a few trees for shelter from the odd wind gust.  The views were wonderful.  I took a moment to give thanks for being fortunate enough to be walking on Sunshine Meadows on this day.

Feeling refueled, refreshed & renewed it was time to make our way up to the top of the world which would be our high point of our day.  That point is the wooden structure in the center of the photo.  The snow was perfect, after all this place was like heaven on earth.

looking back at Rock Isle Lake as we began the climb

We arrived at the Standish Viewpoint deck to a strong cold bitter wind. 

This is my "on top of the world" destination shot. 

Even though the conditions were wild up here, we didn't rush our visit.  

We incorporated a little playtime plus a little snowshoeing along the ridge.  

We could see forever up here  

on top of the world

With still loads of time for adventure, we picked Laryx Lake to be our next destination.  We could see it was quite a bit of downhill which meant climbing back up mid afternoon.  Game-to-go we were anyway!  We had the luxury of descending through deep powder.  I remember this viewpoint from a prior summer visit, never expecting to be here on a magnificant winter day.

heaven on earth

pillows of perfection

We arrived at Laryx Lake.   It was a thumbs-up moment for this spot on this day in these conditions.    Here again, we had a 360 degree view.  Lots of spinning going on here admiring what we were surrounded by.  We quenched our thirst and added a little fuel to reignite the fire within to make that climb back up.  

Back at Rock Isle Lake sooner than we expected and not wanting this day to end, we stole more moments to prolong the ending.  I added another destination shot to my collection.  Then we circumnavigated the whole Isle in the middle of the Lake.  

We finally left Rock Isle Lake choosing to blaze our own trail through the powder up and down slopes, as if we needed to add more elevation at this point.  We made our way up onto the hill where in summer the lookout and bench sits.  We wondered were we standing on the bench.  Supposedly in spots there was five feet of snow.  

We reached the intersection to aim back to Strawberry for our descent to the Village.  

I took one last look back.  

Today was more than I hoped for or dreamed it could be.  

Snowshoeing does not get any better than what it was like here. 

It is called "snowshoeing on top of the world" for a reason.

Thank you for sharing in this amazing adventure!