leaving January 2024 behind

What have I got to show for January 2024?  I have loads to be thankful for given how wild and crazy the month was!  I am making good progress on the Grand Canyon Virtual Challenge and as you can see, I am ahead of plan.  It has been quite the task finding local paths and trails to walk that are not sheets of ice.  On one occasion it took hand holding between friends to make our way along sections.  Another day it was all about purposely becoming one with the ground to gingerly shimmy my way down a slope.  For another "out & about", I was thankful to find a parking spot in the grass off to the side of the lot to avoid crossing metres and metres and metres of ice to get to the trail.  My spikes have not been serving me safely on sheer ice.  Some outdoor skating rinks have closed due to inclement weather!  The ice has deteriorated from the plus double digit temperatures we are having!  I wish the ice was where it should be!  Rant done!  Yet, I carry on virtually floating down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon!

Here we are, my community of conquerors!  The orange star is just above my marker.  A few members of our community have already crossed the finish line. Two conquerors reported in our private chat that they just received their medals.

three recent postcards

Knitting squares has been providing much pleasure!  To-date I have knitted 24 squares of the 35 that I need to make the blanket.  The stack is growing and the higher it gets, the more excited I get!  I did a test run of laying them all out to begin coming up with some kind of a pattern and figuring out what shades of yarn I need to buy more of.  What I am finding is that I can get lost in knitting and knit away my cares and worries.  

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I have a few final photos to share from my last days at Lake Louise this past week.  On my second last morning there, I captured a selfie sitting in the throne by the Ice Castle.  I wasn't going to but thought what the heck just do it!  Have no regrets!  

On my final morning, January 25th,  I drove up to have one last look at Lake Louise and the Ice Castle, before walking the Lake shore and then doing some hiking around the Village.  It snowed over night and the skating surface was covered in a blanket of white gold.  I captured this photo of the Ice Castle shortly before sunrise.  It looked glorious and regal!  

Upon my return from walking the trail across the Lake to the far end and back, the groomer was now out clearing the snow off the skating rink.  I watched for awhile, at times he and his plow were lost in a cloud of snow.  Not quite ready to leave, I cleared snow of a bench then sat for awhile to just breathe it all in!  

Five days later on January 30th the Ice Castle was no longer!  It was actually taken down on the 29th.  After I left Lake Louise on the 25th, the area received rain and above freezing temperatures throughout the day and night.  The Ice Castle was melting and pieces were falling off.  For safety reasons, it needed to be taken down and the area cleared.  I took a screen shot of what the webcam showed on the morning of January 30th.  The brown area at bottom right is where the Ice Castle was.  Also reported was that the ice sculptures that were carved on the 26th and 27th by teams from various corners of the earth, for the Annual Ice Sculpture competition, melted before the judging even took place.  All this is just a part of the wild and crazy month that January was.   

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I am looking forward to February!  This is a rough sketch for my "over the Snow Moon" watercolour painting.  I used a photo from a number of years ago that I took while on a snowshoe trek. February's full moon is called the "Snow Moon" because it is known to be the month with the most snowfall.  Will that hold true this year?  Stay tuned, my painting will be ready soon!  

living life locally

✅It's back to reality after enjoying an amazing escape to Lake Louise!  Reality means getting out the door early the next morning to capture photos of the Full Wolf Moon.  This is the year where I want to make every effort possible to witness the full moon each month.  I shared my mooning plans in this blog post.  Technically, it was full Thursday night. I took these two photos Friday morning roughly around 4:30am.  It was overcast when I first looked out from my deck, but a few minutes later the clouds were gone.  

✅Reality also meant getting back to Bowness to skate!  The Full Wolf Moon was still up when I arrived but I had to be quick on my blades to find the right spot to take a photo before it dropped lower behind the trees.  When I got home and downloaded my photos, was when I saw a fraction of the moon was reflecting in the freshly flooded ice surface. 

the moon meeting the trees

Do you see what I etched?  The ice in this location had been swept but not flooded.  It took a few laps to get it defined enough to show up in a photo.  It measures about ten feet by ten feet.  About thirty minutes later, the groomer drove over it washing it away! I will make more another day. 

I enjoy skating so much and I like the health benefits (mentally & physically) that come with this activity.  I also enjoy adding other fun ideas to make it even more enjoyable.  The above design is one of those ideas, yet it's this shadow that catches my eye and leaves me laughing.

My hope is to skate again in the coming days.  The forecast for each day is sunshine with close to double digits celsius above freezing and not going very low over night.  Those are not good temperatures for ideal ice surfaces. I will be monitoring the reports.   

✅Getting back to reality also means paying a visit to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary.  I half expected to see more birds than I did figuring they may be confused with the warm weather and come back sooner rather than later.  That could still play out over the next few days.  

The Full Wolf Moon was no longer full by now but it still was worthy of capturing a photo this morning.  The pinkish hues surrounding it seemed to make it glow brighter.  While you would never see a wolf at the Sanctuary, you very likely would see coyotes but that was not the case today.  I have seen and heard coyotes howling but not when there was a full moon. 

There is not much snow locally, the ground is brown and what snow there is, is dull looking also.  It was a nice treat to find this area looking like this, clean white snow.  Most of the paths and trails here are ice or slush.  

Black-Capped Chickadee

White-Breasted Nuthatch

Male House Finch

I will keep trying to make weekly visits to The Sanctuary always with hopes of seeing something out of the ordinary but if all I hear are the Chickadees dee-dee-deeing then my heart will still sing too!

Lake Louise January 24, 2024

With a new skiff of snow over top of freshly groomed trails, I aimed for the Bow River at the Lake Louise Campground knowing the cross country ski conditions would be ideal.  The early morning cloud was beginning to lift as I crossed the bridge over the river. I could see the trails had been recently groomed and it was easy to tell no one had skied here since the flurries fell.

 After crossing the bridge, I veered right to glide around a section of the Campground first. 

The temperature was on the warmer side for January in the mountains and the forecast was to go above zero again.  A layer of glide on my waxless skis was perfect for the conditions.  Mostly it felt effortless to glide along.  A flat top low post with no snow was easily accessible to place my camera on to capture this selfie.

After roaming through the Campground, I arrived at the wide open area where I could access the trail that follows the Bow River.  The pillowy meadow looked so dreamy!  There were still low clouds off in the distance, they added character to the view.

As I skied along here, I could only hear my skis gliding along and each breath that I took.  I could only feel each beat that my heart took.  This was medicine for the soul!  

I arrived at the bridge at the far end of the loop.  

 view from the middle of the bridge

I skied to the other side and meandered along the trail through the forest.  Instead of continuing through the forest for the entire stretch back, I returned and skied back the way I came, I wanted the open views.

through the forest on the other side

crossing back over the bridge for the return ski

back to the open views

music to my ears 

I arrived back at that dreamy meadow.  From here I did another loop through another section of the Campground then aimed back to my vehicle.  By now, it had warmed up quite a bit and I could feel it taking a bit more effort to glide along.  My timing was perfect,  it was now warm enough to……

……sit out on my balcony, catch some winter rays and savour an adult beverage!

A Whiskey Jack flew in for a visit!

I built a snowman!

It was mesmerizing to watch and listen to the drops fall from the melting icicles.  

Lake Louise January 23, 2024

My hopes were to skate on Lake Louise this morning but after seeing what it looked like yesterday, I had doubts I would be skating here any time soon.  Yesterday, it was covered in snow except for a very small section in the middle.  People were reporting the surface was quite rough with lots of cracks and holes. That recent brutal cold spell took a toll on the conditions. 

Even if I didn’t skate, I still wanted to go out on the ice and capture a photo of the Ice Castle. As I rounded the corner at the head of the lake, I saw the sweeper just finishing up clearing the entire gigantic surface.  He must have started early, it’s the biggest cleared surface ever and the sun wasn’t even up yet. I quickly went back to my vehicle to grab my skates.

Before lacing up, a lady offered to snap my photo at the Ice Castle.

We both laced up and began etching away.  The ice was rough, there were many large cracks and lots of holes and big bumps. There were also smooth sections mostly around the outer edge and along the centre so that’s where I skated.  For the first little while it was interesting to watch the low clouds dance.

Then, I saw a familiar face!  What were the odds that Elladj Balde would be here this morning!  I skated towards him, chatted to him and his wife and another lady.  Just like back in March of 2021, he was kind enough to be in a photo with me. For the second time, I was lucky in my love for skating!

The dark low clouds lifted and the sky turned shades of pink then blue. I continued to skate, time passed, distance covered added up and I was feeling fulfilled.  It was time to get my boots back on and find a place to settle to savour some tea and scenery.

tea time

 view from another bench where I sat for awhile

The flurries started not long after I arrived back at my suite. 

I enjoyed the view from the warmth of inside.

Eventually, I bundled up and sit outside to fill up on more fresh mountain air!