Sat, Mar 14 2009 - Windy Peak Hills (Off-Trail Exploration) (View Original Event Details)
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From the second we opened the car doors at the Hump, we knew that we were definitely at a windy place. None of us had ever experienced wind quite like this - it was so strong that mitts and a few other smaller items went flying with no chance of being rescued, so strong that going up the ridges we often had to lean against it, so strong that it literally pushed us off the well-beaten path, and so strong that you had to yell to the person right next to you. Never mind being randomly pushed into the person next to you. It was tough just keeping one’s balance, requiring poles, but then when you used poles the wind was so strong that it pushed them all over the place. The wind, however, did make this event exciting and made us experience a totally different kind of adventure. We’re still trying to extract wind speeds from the GPSs, but it must have been well over 100km/h without ever letting up all day. What would normally have been a simple D3 event was made challenging because of the extreme wind.
The ridge was dry and with just a few small snow patches made it a great event for this time of year. Views were incredible. Downtown Calgary was visible some 120km away. Hailstone Butte was in plain view for most of the trip. We went up over the north, central, and south peaks, but not the final Windy Peak – waist-deep snow there made it too difficult to continue. After having lunch between the south peak and Windy Peak, we backtracked a short distance and then followed South Twin Creek back to the gravel road. Here we encountered more deep snow in sections, teaching a couple of people that when this coordinator posts an event as ‘off trail’ and ‘must be willing to explore’, it does mean without trail and be ready for something unusual :-). Carrie found a solution to the deep snow, realizing that crawling and swimming made it easier to get through. When the snow cyclones hit we simply had to turn our backs against them and let them pass. Eye protection seemed mandatory in this wind.
With the wind having sucked a lot of energy out of us, we decided to stop in Longview for burgers. The saloon looked great, and gave us a chuckle when one woman exlaimed ‘look at all those people’ and another noted that ‘there must be something going on in Longview when there’s a lineup in the washroom’. A band was playing, we learned that Longview was formerly Little New York, and we savoured any grease on our food to get some energy back. Thank you all for making this a great day out!