We saw moose on the drive to Golden!
Debbie and I try to travel without expectations. If you go somewhere and you are all excited about what you might see and or what might be there to see or experience and then things turn out different you could be disappointed big time. If you go there without any preconceived notions of what you might run into no matter what transpires you will most likely have an entirely enjoyable time taking in everything with the interest of a child.
Last week was an epic snow week. In Edmonton XC skiing went from marginal to excellent in 2 days. The temperature was quite pleasant, the tracks were set and skiing started in earnest.
We are scheduled to heli into Mistaya Lodge the next week. Every day it snowed I was checking where it had fallen and how much fell. Southern Alberta got hammered with snow. Calgary got a months worth of snow in two days. The good thing about that is Mistaya Lodge is on the west side of the Rockies at more or less the same latitude as Calgary and the west side of the Rockies gets way more snow then the east side. Therefore, I was EXPECTING some fantastic snow which translates in to fantastic skiing. Expectations, if you remember, are something I try to avoid and it turns out should have. There is a ton of snow and visually it is beautiful. On the uptrack the snow is easy to flick with our poles and it is a foot deep. On the way up we plan our descent. The slope is open and the snow still soft.
Get to the top and take the skins off and realize the snow is really dense. I mean really dense. Normally the slope is steep enough to ski but this time we have to point the skis straight down till we could get enough speed to make some turns. The snow was so stiff every turn is effort. Turn after turn and it didn’t get any easier as we progress down the slope. We get to treeline hope the snow gets a bit better. Nope, still dense and still extremely hard to turn.
I really wanted to ski silky light Rocky Mountain snow. The walk up is still good and skiing is still skiing but reality did not meet my expectations. That silky smooth effortless descent is not to be.