Leseur Ridge

Last weekend we attempted to go out for another snowshoe... but really not that much snow in or around Calgary. We took at stab at a new location for us in Ghost Valley, north of Morley. Leseur Ridge was about 8.2 km round trip with 290 m of elevation gain (although lots of little ups and downs on the way. This time we had Duncan & Steph with us as well as the usual suspects of me, Tom & Breanna. We opted to leave Uma at home because the car was packed and we were worried it was going to be chilly there again like the last snowshoe... although it ended up being a gorgeous day and she would have loved it! ... still a bit steep for Kali's elbow though.

We had about 10 minutes worth of snowshoeable snow... then gave up and stashed our snowshoes.

The trail was muddy in places, but overall well-drained. Beautiful hiking conditions! There were a few snowy patches still, especially in the trees...

Great views from along the ridge... looking towards Devil's Gap (I hear it's an awesome hike and will probably be on the books for this summer!).

70 Buck Loop

I'm a bit behind in my blogging, but thought I'd share a few photos. A bunch of us went snowshoeing back on Jan. 9 (the day before I had to head to Houston for 3 weeks of training). We chose 70 Buck Loop, one of the more obscure trails in upper Kananaskis. We were fortunate to have enough snow and got to break fresh trail the whole way! I forgot to save the track, but it was relatively easy. Here's Tom, Uma, Breanna, and James and the trailhead.

The snow was pretty bare towards the top of the ridge... and it was windy up there too.

Kind of lost the trail at this point... and Uma was starting to shiver and cry.

I bundled here up in my wind breaker and down vest to warm her up (I took this shot after we headed back down, not while she was freezing at the top!). She warmed pretty quickly once we got out of the wind and moving again.

Even though we didn't quite get over the top of the ridge it was still pretty scenic. The hill directly ahead is Eagle Hill (biked in previous blogs).