Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Windy Joe - Jan 2013

In January we dragged another friend up Windy Joe... And injured him!!  Readers may recall last year that we climbed Windy Joe with Raj and he ended up in agony by the end.  This year, we took up one of my colleagues, Reza, who twisted his knee!  Remi and I have decided that we break our friends on Windy Joe.  If we invite you to snowshoe there, DECLINE!

Anyhoo, it was a bit cloudy, but with a high ceiling so the view was still okay.  Here are a few photos!

 
 The climb!

 
A couple of shots from the summit!
 
 The descent.
 
A couple of views from the river at the bottom.
 
Sarah

Monday, February 04, 2013

Larch Plateau Approach - Dec 2012

Writing those Morocco blogs certainly took a lot out of us!  Both Remi and I have been putting off blogging about our recent activities back home.  And we've been busy!  Two snowshoes, some home renovations, Christmas!  I'll try to post a couple of blogs today while I'm home.

First up, our attempt at Larch Plateau.

We've been a bit lazy this year in terms of getting up and moving on mornings before snowshoeing.  We often sleep in, pack in the morning and stop at McDonalds on the way to Manning Park (about 1.5-2 hrs from here dependent on road conditions).  That bit us in our bums on this hike.  We arrived at the trailhead around 10 and only had 6 hours of daylight to do an 18 km snowshoe.  We should have arrived at first light (around 8 AM) and given ourselves 8 hours.  Needless to say, we didn't make it to the plateau.  But we still had some fun!
It was a gorgeous day.  Would have been incredible to make it to our destination.  Clear blue sky, cold and crisp!  
As always we ran into some Whiskey Jacks on the way up.  They seem to arrive just as you're opening your trailmix or granola bar - greedy buggers!  We always share.
The picture below is on the way down.  I just couldn't stay on my feet!!
 
We hope to try this one again this season.  The days are at least an hour or more longer now and we're motivated to get up earlier so we can finish the hike!

S