My first weekend of Telemark skiing and I loved it! It was hard to un-learn my alpine ski reflexes (even though it’s about 8 years ago since I last did any alpine skiing) but after a day and a half I suddenly got the hang of it.

Did I already say I love it?

(I do have sore muscles though. Umph.)

We got a new pack for the dogs, so they can come on longer and snowy walks, and, when their feet starts to hurt we can carry them in the pack. This is a front pack which is nice so you have some contact with the dog. The bad thing is that you can’t see your feet very well, which is kind of awkward when you are snow-shoeing. But Alison didn’t lose her balance and Poupoune enjoyed the ride.

And we, we enjoyed our snowshoe walk.

Mary’s annual epiphany party was held on the evening of the second snowstorm that hit Montréal this winter. We made it without much trouble, but other people were a bit late because they took 3 hours for 25 kilometre.

On this evening everybody takes their worst Christmas present and re-gifts it to somebody else. Alison got a pink rabbit cellphone pouch and I got two bears with tutu’s. Both are absolutely horrendous, so we had a lot of fun.

Today we were planning to go for a tour on our skis. But the ski trails were still not groomed and were much harder to ski on than the ski trails we skied on before. After one descent (and more than 10 consecutive falls) I had to say to Alison she better returned. The hills were too steep for her ability to snow-plough and I didn’t want her to break a something. She decided she’s going to take lessons.

I went on and nearly got lost because I lost my map somewhere. I then followed some of these sleigh tracks but they ended up in terrain that was so narrow that you couldn’t go there with skis. I took them off and walked for a while but couldn’t find the bigger road that should be there in the map in my head. Since the area was really deserted I decided to turn back and follow my tracks back to the other side of the lake were I knew there was a road. All in all it was a really nice experience.

The hotel had a really large population of sleigh dogs. We counted around 40 of them and they were all howling when we walked past them on our evening stroll. We weren’t supposed to touch them but we met one of the owners and then I embraced one of the really furry dogs. Their fur is so thick and dense that they sleep on the snow, even when it’s -40. Can you imagine how hot these dogs get in Québec’s hot summer?

We didn’t go for a sleigh ride ourselves because you could only be in the sleigh, as a passenger covered with some pelts.

Snowshoeing through the wilderness. (The path proved to be 100 meters to the right…)

As noted here previously (but in Dutch) Alison had won a gift certificate for Hotel Sacacomie and it expires next weekend. So we really had to go now. And our bodies could use some excercise after Christmas and New Year. Timing proved to be excellent because the roads were almost snow free and in the hotel there were not too many guests. An hour after we arrived it started to snow so the next day there was a fresh cover of 10 cm of snow over the icey slush that was left after the rain of last week.

So we hiked, and snowshoe-ed until our feet were covered with blisters. Well, only mine were, but some band-aids took care of that.

We had three things on New Years Eve and decided to do only two of them. So after we had supper in a restaurant with Suzanne we went to another supper at Paul and Diane. And even though we promised ourselves not to eat much we ended up eating more of the lovely sushi and dipping our pieces of fruit in the bowl of chocolate fondue than was good for our expanding bodies. We were with a small group of friends and the language spoken was French. I had to pause mid-scentence regularly, trying to find a word. People then started to do a guessing game, like charade, and we all had a lot of fun.

At 1:00 or so Alision sneaked off to have a nap on the couch.

I wish all my visitors a happy New Year and may lots of nice things happen to you in 2005.

A couple of months ago I met Karen who asked me if I could install a door for her. It turned out she also wanted me to re-install these stairs that the landlord had taken down to do renovations. She accessed her attic now by climbing on a very wobbly kitchen stepladder.
Of course it took me much more time than anticipated because the state of the parts, dug up out of the basement, was not very good. They don’t look very good, and are in need of a paint job, but at least they are safe.