Sunday Snow-Shoeing

After a day at work feeling completely detached from the real world, with the sun out and 13cm of new snow, I was looking for something else to spend my evening off (of course, I'd normally be working at Chimney Corner on Sundays). I knew that there was occasionally snowshoeing organised for whoever wants to on Sunday evenings, so I found out some more and met at the hotel for the tour to begin at 8:00. I took the shoes for a 10-minute practice before I saw people starting to gather for the tour, then came back down to meet the guide. Graham, a new member of staff, was offered the opportunity to take people snow-shoeing after HR heard that ski patrol had found him hiking way outside the boundary getting up a cliff, and us staff were in need of some more stimulation other than Trapper's and the hot tub. So he lead our group of 4 staff and 4 hotel guests on a tour of the Standish area, to coincide with the sunset and the stars coming out.

We could see a cloud building at our level on Goat's Eye mountain, and it was obvious that it wouldn't be long before the village and Standish was covered too. But we went on, getting very confused by hiking up the runs we normally ski down and seeing them from a very unusual perspective, then finding a flat area of untouched powder to hike through. By the time we had reached the base of Divide chair, we couldn't see much other than our immediate surroundings but we carried on up the hill to the summit of Strawberry hill and the Strawberry chair. Just as we reached the top of this small hill, we broke through the cloud- and were amazed by what we could see. All 3 mountains were visible and the sky clear with stars starting to shine. But the lake of cloud was filling the village and the valleys and the mountains and lifts were poking through this. I was unable to take any photos because it was too dark for my camera, but Ian (staff cafe) took some and they will hopefully be seen below...

At this point, the hotel guests and our guide headed back to the village (on sledges), while Ian, Joe, Tino and I decided to hike up Headwall (a black run) to the top of Standish chair. This icy, powdery, mogul run was pretty difficult to ascend but we made it to the top, even with the sledge in tow which is a huge bonus! At the top, our total ascent had been 710', but we carried on walking past the boundary to the lookout post overlooking British Columbia, the Sunshine Meadows and the various other valleys and peaks in our vicinity. By this time there was very little light and the temperature was dropping rapidly (plus, I was on the wary lookout for the 2 Sunshine Village cougars), so we made our way back to the top of Standish Express and sledged all the way back down to the village! Total time, 2 hours and about 5km. Now, for my bed...







Pretty blurred- but you get the idea!

By the way- this is post # 100!