First Try at Snowshoeing

For Christmas, KC and I decided to get snowshoes that would give us something to do on the off chance that we had a non-ski day or two. We picked them up last Friday and brought them out this weekend.

Sunday dawned bitterly cold (-29 at 10 AM) as expected, so we did not head up to Sunshine, instead hanging out doing chores and staying warm. By mid afternoon it had warmed up to almost -25, and we decided to test our new shoes out walking around our neighborhood. Given the temp, we opted not to take a camera, so sorry, no photos. Here's the route we followed:



These things we learned:
1) Snowshoeing enables hiking when otherwise the snow would be too deep. We walked a similar route last winter in big boots, and sank in deep in similar snow conditions. That time, snow got in our boots despite our best efforts, and it was limited fun. This time no snow in the boots.
2) It's a workout, more so than hiking. The combination of the slight extra weight, and the lifting and kicking of the snow make it harder than just walking. Crossing obstacals like fallen trees is tougher.
3) Even with snowshoes, you sink in powder. And the stuff we were walking in was just light as dust due to the cold. There were a few areas of wind crust, but we sank in those, too, as the crusts weren't that thick.
4) Snowshoeing isn't quiet. You actually make a heck of a racket tromping around, especially in the forest. Hence we saw LOTS of tracks of lynx, fox, coyote, bobcat, squirrels, mice, deer and elk, but no actual animals.
5) Snowshoeing is warm work. We dressed for -25 and were hot, usually with jackets open.

We saw virtually no birds except those at our complex, where due to a neighbour who LOVES to put out bird seet, suet feeders and peanut butter, we saw multiple woodpeckers, pine siskins, and 3 types of chickidees (black capped, mountain & boreal).

Contrast this with yesterday when we saw:
1) A big bull elk with a huge rack;
2) A mom and a baby moose
3) a HUGE herd of elk, and
4) a 6 or 8 point whitetailed buck

So we had a lot of fun despite the cold temps.

Ski Day 1: Cold or Not, Ski Season is Back

Vert: 9,920 m, 17 runs.

The reports I have been reading that the snow conditions are good are indeed true, as we discovered today on our first foray to Sunshine this season. It was a pretty cold start to the morning, with -18° in the parking lot and on-mountain temps in the -20° range. I'd love to be more precise with the temp, but for some reason Sunshine has removed all their clocks and thermometers so the temp's just a guess. It was cold but it was clear; I managed to get exactly 1 photo today before my batteries died, and it was of the early morning viz at the top of Goat's Eye.



The groomed and recently groomed snow all over the mountain was among the slowest & stickiest I have ever encountered. Spent the morning on Goat's Eye, and was able to find some serious knee deep powder stashes in the trees between Gold Scapegoat and Gold Afterburner, which proved that 7 months off from skiing didn't harm the technique (just the endurance -- we quit a little early today).

In the PM the sun came and went but it warmed up to the -12° range up on Divide and the viz stayed fine. We found fabulous conditions in Bye Bye Bowl with boot top power that was moderately tracked, and for the time we spent in there, we were usually alone. In fact, there was no crowd in general. The A lot was only filled 2/3rds or so, to row 34.

The temp dropped dramatically as we descended to the parking lot, and was -21° leaving the lot at 3:15. This is in keeping with the forecast, which is currently calling for falling temps, an overnight low of -30°, and no warming tomorrow. I suspect we won't be skiing Sunday.

Hawaii Real Estate

Now here's an off-topic post...

We're back once again for our now-annual Hawaii venture, staying once again at the Maui Vista.

When I first came to Maui in 1992, you could buy a place (+/- 600 sq. ft. 1 bedroom) in the Vista for $30,000. A few years later, I considered buying a place here when the price was in the $140,000 range. A few years after that the price broke $200,000, then in the early 2000's, the price went up to the $450,000 range. In the crash of 2008, the prices started to fall slowly. This week, I have seen places advertised from $199,999 to $349,000. I know that some of the places (like 3215) have been amazingly upgraded, so know that there is a big range of value in this complex.

This week, I looked at Maui Homes and Land. There are still places on the island listed for over 12 MM$. I see OK places on the island at the $500,000 mark. But if you want to buy something on Maui worth living in, you need to spend at least $600,000.

Which is stupid.

Let me do the math of a cheap, $200,000 place in the Vista.

Current occupancy rate: 60%
Rental agent take: 50% of gross
Annual average nightly rate: $100
Gross revenue = 365 X 0.6 X 100 X 50% = $10,950/yr
Cleaning fees (assume 15/yr @ $100/time) = $1,500/yr
Current condo fee: $325/month = $3,900/yr
General maintenance ($100/month) = $1,200/yr to cover various costs to maintain "stuff"

Net revenue after expenses = 10.95 - 1.5 - 3.9 - 1.2 = $4,350/yr

Now, $4,350/yr is $362/month. That's the payment on a $76,000 mortgage at 4% interest for a 30 year term. So you would need to put down $124,000 -- on which there would be no income.

Where is the sense in this?

And people wonder why I don't own a place in Maui.

Horton Hill? Ha!

In 27 years of hiking in the neighborhood, I always struggle to find fall shoulder season hiking. Spring shoulder season is easy; lots of hiking is available in May when the skiing season ends. But between late September and early December, hiking tends to be spotty, and of course, the ski hills are not yet open.

So I was pleased when Gillean Daffern recommended the Horton Hill hike here as a shoulder hike. Looking at the map, it had all the makings of a good idea today, with bright sunshine and +4° temps. However, the directions Gillean offers are atrocious and misleading, and the trail is non existant, at least as far as we got.

Her instructions to start the hike are:
Park at Canoe Meadows parking lot on Hwy. 40. Walk out to the highway and turn right. At the K Country boundary sign, climb the grassy bank on the opposite side of the road and follow the powerline right-of-way a short distance to the right. Just past a broken-down fence turn left and shortcut up to a logging road. Turn left and follow this road up a long hill to a T-junction. Turn right on another logging road that climbs into the cutblock on the west slope of the hill.

Here's the alleged "T-Junction", which as you can see isn't a junction at all:



In fact, it's so not obviously a junction that we walked right by it, and past it by over a kilometer. It's also not at the top (or even part way up) a hill at all, having gained a mere 20 m from the broken fence. So here's the "another logging road" that she wants you to turn onto:



Road? What road?

Farther down the "road" from this mess, whatever has thus far passed as a road (more like a bulldozer track) turns into this:



Kinda gives you the feeling that the alleged "road" really doesn't exist. There's no trail at all, so you have to clamber over and around all of these trees. Bush-bashing is far more enjoyable.

On top of this, the topo map that Gillean shows on her site is incorrect. The power-line marked on the map doesn't exist, and in fact, there's no sign of it. So if you wander up the road looking for the power-line as a landmark ro find the right turn, well, you're out of luck.

I can say that if you miss the turn and continue along the actual logging road, you'll eventually get to fenceline and meadow marked on the topo, and arrive at a TeePee camp used by the Tim Hortons folks.



The road is flat, muddy and boring, but had lots of tracks on it, including elk, deer, cougar, bobcat, coyote and wolf.



We wandered up and down the road for over an hour trying to find the route and finally gave up when we ran across all the downed trees laying across the "road" pictured above. We went back to Canoe Meadows and watched the kayakers play in the race course area (which looked really cold to me).





So having never made it, I can't attest to what climbing Horton Hill is actually like. But I can say that you should expect challenges following Gillean's "route" should you try to do it.

Hiking: The Year in Review

The weather is pretty nasty today, but the forecast is calling for sun and +4° tomorrow, meaning we might get out for one more hike this year. However, given the snow and wind that has happened so far this fall, I'm not betting our target of Horton Hill (see the reference here) will be doable.

So with not much to do today, I was looking back at our year in hiking. The stats are pretty impressive:

Number of hikes: 27 (normally 8 or so)
Total distance hiked: 275.7 km (172 miles). Last year: 59 km
Vertical climbed: 10,899 m (35,750 vertical feet). Last year 2,879 m
Average hike length: 10.2 km, longest 30.6 km
Average height gain per hike: 404 m, biggest one day gain 900 m
First hike: May 17
Last hike: October 17
Hiking season duration: 153 days

Tied for best hikes of the year are Burstall Pass, Rummel Lake & Pass and the Headwall Lakes. I continue to be impressed by this section of the Spray Valley. Within 8 km are half a dozen spectacular valleys with stunning scenery and fantastic high alpine terrain. And I remain surprised that folks tackle Chester Lake when they could just as easily go to any of these three and have a better experience.

And Stanley Glacier is also in the "best of" category, especially so because we caught it early in the season when the glacier was still impressive.

As always, it was a treat to return to West Wind Pass, Old Goat Falls, and to summit Jumpingpound Mountain, and even more so to take friends to discover the spectacular hiking that we have nearby.

I won't be returning to the Horsehoe Loop near the Alpine Club clubhouse in Canmore any time soon. Ditto for riding the Goat Creek trail from Canmore to Banff, which was a pretty uninteresting waste of a day. I won't try to summit West Wind Ridge again, but will keep West Wind Point on my list of places to go back to.

The toughest hike of the year was Tent Ridge, without question, though the circuit around Read's Ridge also stands out as quite the workout.

I was also really glad we got up to Sunshine Village for the Citadel Pass and Quartz Ridge hikes. It's one thing to see this in the winter, and yet another to see it in the summer.

My list of "hikes still to do" has been whittled down to a mere 15. However, the list started at 18 at the beginning of the year, and while a handful came off, another handful were added. I suspect I won't run out anytime soon.

I had planned to do a similar wrap up of last year's ski season. Sunshine Village opens in a mere 4 days, and knowing we won't be getting there for at least a month, I still may.

Ice Hiking in Grotto Canyon

Yes, I'm still working on the Arizona pictures.

In the meantime, we're still trying to extend hiking season. It was warm while we were in Arizona, but turned to winter as soon as we got back. A chinook blew in this weekend, and was initially forecasted to get us up to 20°, but the best we could muster on Saturday was about 12° and the odd bit of rain.



Undaunted, we decided to stay low and head up Grotto Canyon.



I like the canyon because of the cool rock formations, evidence that a whole lot of water used to come down this canyon.



Plus the Indian pictographs are pretty cool.



But wandering the canyon Saturday was all about the ice formations from the seeping walls.





Hiking the canyon was mostly snow and ice free. But there was one section about 20' long of smooth, glare, slippery ice that was a bit of a challenge. Be forewarned.

The Crab's Done

In this post, I talked a bit about the crab tree in the back yard. Well, the combination of snow and the windstorm we had a few weeks ago were its final undoing. It fell into the fern garden, and bashed the house on the way down.





Doesn't look like it badly damaged the stucco, but I will have to wait till the spring to get out a ladder and find out.

The birds already miss him.

Is Hiking Season Over?

We just got back from 10 days in Arizona (pictures to come) and this is what we woke up to this morning.



And though you can't really tell from the photo, it is indeed snowing.

On the bright side, ski season should start soon...

Suddenly Popular

Last week, when I was posting, I noticed that the counter on my little blog had about 4,600 hits (probably 3,000 of which are mine...).

Today I noticed that I broke 12,000. Yes, twelve thousand.

Why I have suddenly become popular is beyond me. Perhaps someone is trying to hack my blog (if the writing suddenly improves, you'll know why). Perhaps there has been a rush of people with Garmin eTrex Vista Cx problems, too.

Or perhaps it's the Pika pictures. If so, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy seeing the little guys. Please feel free to leave a comment if there's a post or photo you like.

And thanks for the visits. I'm flattered.

Read's Ridge Circuit & Pikas Yet Again

Saturday dawned cool but it looked like it would be one of the best hiking days of the year. We had planned to head up to the Sparrowhawk Tarns, but it seemed more logical to head uphill as much as possible to gain the best views on a day where the visibility looked like it would be over 100 km without any smoke or haze. So instead of the Tarns, we did the circuit route around Read's Ridge and Mt. Sparrowhawk.

Note: this is a steep uphill trudge. The whole loop is only 7.8 km, but we climbed an astonishing 900 m, our biggest vertical hike for the year on one of the shortest trails. The advantage of steep, though, is that it gets you to great views very quickly.



Don't forget to note KC staggering up the slope in the picture above. The route up to that point through the trees is very steep and straight up (have the trail makers never heard of switchbacks?), and the footing is poor. And that point is just the start of the up. Here's the trail on the ridge looking up the slope. Mt. Sparrowhawk is on the left, and Read's Tower is the slope in the middle.



Click on the photo above and look carefully at Read's Tower. There are 4 hikers working their way up that slope.

We did not do that. To have done that would have added another 275 m to the day, and we were not up for it.

Of course, the higher you get, the better the views. Here's looking up the Spray Valley towards Banff & Canmore.



You finally arrive up 600 m at the base of Read's Tower on a pretty grassy hilltop, which happens to be a great place for lunch for both people & critters. This fellow had a lot of something in his mouth. His cheeks are fatter than his butt.



So you have options at this point. You can climb 275 m up Read's Tower, pull a U-turn, and head back down the way you came up. The quality of the trail told me not to do that. Or you can circle Read's Tower, down 50 m through this gully and up 200 m over the col in the centre of the photo below.



The gully was a blast. Talus/scree Rocks + grass = Pikas.



That's 4 straight hikes with Pikas. These guys (we saw 3 or 4) were skittish, and covered a huge amount of territory, running at least 150 m up the slope from where we first found them.

Climbing the gully is a challenge, though not a technical one. It's hugely steep, especially at the top, and there really isn't a consequential path for lots of it. Here's KC working her way up in the shadow of Read's Tower.



But on top of the col, you get staggering views up the Spray Valley...



...and over the other side into the basin under Mt. Sparrowhawk. Interestingly, you can also hike to the top of Mt. Sparrowhawk from this point. That adds another 550 m to the day. Yowzer.



Note that the Sparrowhawk Tarns basin (our original destination for the day) is actually directly over my head in the above photo.

This whole basin is just grass and scree, and though we saw lots of holes indicating marmots or ground squirrels, and found some sheep scat, saw no life in the basin. Views up here are tremendous. Here's the view looking down the Spray Lakes, with Mt. Assiniboine peeking over the shoulder of Mt. Nestor.



There's no trail to get down. You just get on the right side of the creekbed in the centre of the photo above, follow it diagonally down the the flat spot on the lower left, then head out the meadow. At no time are you in forest. The going has some very steep sections, and some slippery bits. Staying on the grass and dryas beds offers the best footing.

Finally you reach the edge of the hanging valley, 200 m above the Sparrowhawk Tarns trail, and head straight down the slope starting on the right side of the upper rocky area in the photo below.



The trail back to the car follows Sparrowhawk Creek in a cool and moist valley with waterfalls and moss.



So this was an interesting hike, though a tough one. It came from the "Where The Locals Hike" book by the Copelands. Normally, I don't like their books, but the whole trail from the top of the col to the Sparrowhawk Tarns trail junction earned just 2 lines in Gillean Daffern's book. That notwithstanding, the Copelands version of times for the hike were (as usual) ludicrous. They claim you can make the top of Read's Tower in 90 min from the car. We took two hours to get to the hill below the tower. They claim you can make it from the high point col down to the Sparrowhawk Tarns trail in 30 minutes. Maybe if you slide or fall the whole way; we took 90 minutes.

If you're interested in doing it, know that you do need a guidebook, too. The Copelands are right in that there are better and worse (read: more dangerous) ways down the basin, and without a path to follow, screwups are more likely.