logloglog

After yesterday’s walk during which we saw the elks Alison wanted to get some crampons because the trail was quite icy at times from melted snow. So we rented very sturdy crampons for her. Of course she didn’t need them at all today because we were walking on firm snow at much higher altitudes near Medicine lake in the Maligne valley, a valley south of Jasper. This lake is called that way because the natives thought it was magic. The lake has no visible outlet yet in the winter it drains completely. Now we know it drains through a underground system of caves and surfaces again 10 kilometres later in the Maligne Canyon.

When we drove back to Jasper after that walk we passed a sign advertising said Maligne Canyon and I had to check it out. We looked at the 50 metre deep canyon from above but the trails here were extremely slippery again. I couldn’t go any further while Alison was happily trotting around on her crampons. I couldn’t stand that so I tackled her, stole the crampons from her feet, and sent her back to the car to read the Internet on my iPhone. And then I descended into the canyon.

Even though the ice in the canyon floor was at places covered with 10 cm of water it was very nice. The canyon was very narrow and in the summer the water must go through it with extreme force and over time it formed very nice rock formations. And there are also a couple of ice pillars that are used for ice climbing. I documented the site by taking a lot of pictures so I could show Alison what she had missed.

When the trains are gone the elk take over.

Jasper is in the middle of a national park and the animals are very tame. A park ranger told us she had bear in the house on numerous occasions, once even over the crib of her baby. She didn’t want to call this a close call though. But the elk apparently are far more dangerous. At least twice a year people are hospitalized because they got attacked by elk. Not only the males with their big antlers can do serious damage, the females like here on this photo can be very aggressive as well. I didn’t know that when I took this picture, we had freshly arrived, so I went quite close. Or more precisely they came close, as they were walking towards us. Curious and not at all wary. We were just humans and not wolves or bears. Nothing to fear here.

Anyway, I survided this close encounter without damage.

We arrived late in Winnipeg so our scheduled 4 hour stop was cut short to one hour. I didn’t care too much since I’ve visited Winnipeg before ( Read here and the next posts about that trip).

We went on a short stroll through the Forks, where we saw the worlds longest skating rink, a cool bridge with ice on it so you could skate over it, and had a chat with a guy that ran a sound recording studio right in the middle of a shopping mall.

When I told people we were going on this trip everybody warned me that the part of the trip through Manitoba and Saskatchewan would be very boring because the landscape was all flat. So I feared the worst, especially because I hate the flat Dutch landscape.

So when we left Winnipeg I prepared myself for some boring hours and even thought of doing some work on my current programming project. But the landscape was actually quite pleasant. We travelled between rolling hills, covered with snow (although in Montreal there was more snow that in Winnipeg) all the way towards Saskatchewan when it got too dark to distinguish much outside our always moving picture window.

So don’t believe people when they say Canada’s prairie provinces are all flat. It’s a big flat lie.

Montreal, 29 January 2009. via MPA

This morning a man survived a major avalanche in Montreal, Quebec. At the time of the accident the man was removing the recently fallen snow from his car. The victim, surprised by a wall of snow several metres high, managed to dig himself out before the rescue teams arrived. The rescue dogs didn’t need to come into action.

The victim is, considering the circumstances, doing well and can soon get back to work.

For the first time this year my friend Paul and I went skiing in the Laurentians. I was a bit worried how my knees would hold out since I had to stop skiing halfway during last winter because it became too painful.

But so far they withstood the beating fairly well. My legs are sore, but that is normal: with cross-country skiing you use muscles you never use the rest of the year. At least I don’t. I’m also out of shape but that too was not entirely unexpected. It was nice though, albeit very cold and the sun only came out from behind the clouds when we left for Montréal.

(I even emailed and twittered from the trail, in the middle of nowhere. But the iPhone keyboard didn’t like the cold and my Twitter message was eaten by the backspace key that came ’stuck’ en letter for letter erased all I had just typed. Very frustrating, fortunately it was only hundred forty characters or so.)

Made it to Yulblog on my skis. Here they are signing up blogs to be included on the register of Montreal blogs. I had already signed up from home, so this post might show up on their meta-montreal-feed.

While walking in residential Nepean, in the street where Alison’s parents live, I heard and saw this beautiful woodpecker. It was hunting for insects in the tree by waking them up with a lot of noise and wasn’t shy at all. I could approach the tree within a couple of metres and it still wasn’t flying away.

I probably should post something here but it looks like I’m taking a little break from logging. I hardly take photos anymore and I’m tired of writing the same things over and over, illustrated by a lousy point-and-shoot photo.

My life is pretty boring at the moment, I’m not progressing much with the projects that I should have finished some time ago, there are some health issues but for the rest it’s pretty much the same as it was last year or the year before that.

L’histoire se repète.

We try to find access to the west side of “our” lake. This view is from a neighbouring hill, but steep cliffs prevent us from descending. Later I (and Poupoune) manage to bushwack around the hill, but it certainly isn’t an easy approach. I think I’ll hack a path towards the lake next year and put up a sign “lake access”, so the path gets really defined when many people are using it.

All the shoreline on the right of this photo will soon be developed for rich people. For the land alone the developer asks already around 300,000 dollars per plot, and your architectural plans have to be okayed by a commission before you can buy. Not for us mere mortals. And even if we had the money we wouldn’t want to live in an enclave of rich people. Why can’t they make cheap apartments near lakes?

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