Sat, Mar 28 2009 - Gypsum Mine Area Explorer (Bushwhack) (View Original Event Details)
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What a day! Peter Lougheed Provincial Park sure didn’t disappoint with lots and lots of deep snow, so we were glad to get another great snowshoe in this season. While the weather in Calgary didn’t look all too promising in the morning, we had partly blue skies and warm temperatures (up to +4ºC) out in Kananaskis and were rewarded by some great views over towards Kent Ridge and the Spray Valley. We had read on Bob Spirko’s website that he bushwhacked up to the ridge viewpoint on snowshoes in just over 5 hours, we joked whether we might stand a chance of beating that (though highly unlikely). Instead we ended up breaking another record: we snowshoed approximately 2.5km in 4.5 hours; yup, that’s a whopping 556 metres per hour. The snow was deep, we laughed really, really hard (and Mark seemed to even have a really, really hard time staying upright), and we had great fun in the snow. Oh, and it’s so much harder to drag your feet up when you’re laughing! No-one in this group will need a treadmill for the next two weeks, so to the guys who want to go home for a beer: go for it, because you deserve it for breaking trail. The day was ended by a few bringing out the crazy carpets back at the cars and taking them for a spin down the hill. Speed records were much more favourable there.
Welcome to COC Qyreenia, and thank you all for making this a great and funny day out in the mountains.