We were looking for something to do on New Year’s Eve, so we decided on… snowshoeing. Yeah, us!
Here’s the post from Gillean Daffern that helped me choose our location; Jumpingpound Mountain. We were lucky to have an open gate at Powderface Trail (thanks, paradoxically, to Spray Lakes Sawmills), and so we took a chance to see if we could make the summit in winter.
Sadly, we could not. Here we are, pooped, after the effort.
The route is fairly straightforward… in the summer. I had expected lots of breaking trail, along with trail finding skills (unmarked, untrodden trails in the winter tend to be a little difficult to follow). Luckily, Gillean’s party got the first 2km or so ready for us. It was the last 600 meters that would kill us.
We made the end of the broken trail in about an hour and a half (remember, little legs with Tina, and little legs with Elliotte, who’s six), and by then we were a bit zonked. I pushed ahead a bit to see how close we were to the summit (Gillean suggested 600 metres), but after about 350 metres (according to GPS tracking) I gave up and turned around.
Good thing, too; Tina was suffering from every snowshoer’s scourge, mal de racquatte, and it was a good time to turn around.
Elliotte was a trooper, though, and did very well. In all, 350 elevation gain, and 3hours return. Probably warmer here than in the city, a very pleasant winter’s day. A fun way to spend the eve of the New Year.
Here’s the Flickr photoset.