Thursday, April 22, 2021

Ha Ling solo adventure

Disclaimer: Terry neither took nor edited these photos.

After last week's aborted attempt to hike Wasootch Ridge, I realized I needed conditioning - more hiking. Everyone else in the family had other plans for the day, so over the weekend I took myself to Ha Ling. First impression: wow it seems like the road to nowhere as you head towards. I worried the potholes would break the car. Second impression: I was surprised and delighted to find a parking spot in the parking lot. Third impression: nobody should hike in the mountains in April without decent ice cleats and yet a full half of my fellow travelers lacked them. As some careened down steep parts I feared I'd be knocked over like a bowling pin.


 This hike completely  kicked my behind - I played a guessing game about which body parts would be sore the next day. (Spoiler: more parts than I expected)  It was steep and challenging. All the scree at the top made me fear falling off the mountainside. During the hike, all the nice firm ice the cleats could dig into warmed up and became slush that provided no traction. The downhill was nearly as treacherous as the uphill was. It was AMAZING.

At the top, I was sitting on the rock ledge you can see on the bottom right of the above photo. The snow you see just above it is a relatively thin icing, the other side is just a massive cliff.

These are the mountains I could see during the entire hike once I got above the tree line.




Sunday, April 4, 2021

Lake Louise, Take Two

 In deciding where we will ski all of next winter, we realized that a mountain we'd visited once, on one of the coldest days in a cold place, and where we'd finished on a really sour note - was not the way to make an informed decision.  So mid-March we tried again. As we pulled into the parking lot (the third lot entrance, meaning WAAAY to the back) we realized this would be nothing like what we'd experienced before.

It was so much warmer this time that Zoltan frequently complained of overheating. We discussed getting waterproof rain pants he could wear instead of his snowpants for warmer weather skiing.  Even with a much more crowded park we never waited more than 5 minutes to get on a lift. This could definitely be because most folks come to LL to ski the black diamonds, whereas we emphatically did not. However, we did not notice long lines at the other lifts, so perhaps not.

Even Alex enjoyed herself, and she's been a pill on ski trips since she came out of quarantine. I'm whispering this to avoid her notice in hopes she continues to enjoy skiing. 

I still think I prefer Sunshine, with its much wider range of greens and blues (recognizing the kids will likely move to blacks after a few more lessons) and its super fun powder. At this point, what we do next year is anyone's guess!