Bow Valley Provincial Park January 12, 2022

Just an hour west of the city is the entrance to Bow Valley Provincial Park.  This park has a variety of trails that can be linked together to create a good distance to cover with a variety of scenery.  It's always a quiet place as it was today.  The wind was wild again and it felt colder than a chinook wind so lots of layers were needed.  

From the very small snow packed parking lot, I broke trail down to Middle Lake.  In some sections the snow was wind whipped and in other sections....

.....it was sheer ice! The sun was up but created this look as it shone out through the cloud.

No one had been in quite awhile so there was no trail broken in the snow for long stretches.  There is now!   Snowshoes would have come in handy.  I worked my way through the forest finding the way of least resistance and eventually arrived near an outlet to the river.  

Instead of finding the trail through the forest around Many Springs Lake, I stuck to the shore as far as it was safe to do so but I did have to resort back to the forest and break trail. There's not much snow around the lake and the lake is mostly wide open with very little ice.

the sun peeking through the trees and casting a shadow

at the viewing platform

My creation stands about ten inches tall!

As I neared breaking trail through the snow on the far end of the lake, this sight captured my attention.  

It's little things in nature that draw me in these days when I am "out & about". 

My hope was to have bird sightings and I did.  The top right photo is a "lifer" for me, it's a Boreal Chickadee!  This was the best I could do with capturing a photo of one of them.  The bird on the left is a Mountain Chickadee which was on the ground foraging through this fallen branch. When I was at the viewing platform, two male Common Goldeneyes were swimming about in Many Springs Lake.

With more trail breaking to do, I headed down to the edge of the Bow River.  I was surprised to see how much open water there still was considering how cold it has been for such a long time.  There was no getting down to the edge to capture ice formations.

I found a somewhat sheltered spot from the wild wind where I could enjoy lunch and have a nice view.

There were lots of these on the ground everywhere. 

There were also lots of trees down that will eventually need to be cut and cleared away.  

It was time to aim back to where I started the hike.   A couple of kilometres later, I arrived at the back side of Middle Lake where it was sheer ice.  My skates were in the car and I debated whether to head back and get them.  I opted to play it safe and just slide on the edge a bit.  

The tracks in the ice show signs of freeze thaw freeze. 

After following the icy edge of the lake to the little hill, it was then time to plod through the snow back up to my car.  Once back at my car I thought about going for a skate but second thoughts told me it would not be a smart thing to do today.  Before heading home, I finished off my sandwich, apple and chai tea that had some Rolo hot chocolate powder mixed in with it.