During my recent road trip to Jasper National Park, I had some free time to drive the scenic highway to Maligne Lake.  All the visitor amenities at the lake were closed but the views along the drive were worth the trek anyway.

I came across a beautiful mule deer in the middle of the highway.  It was licking the snow/salt mixture on the road surface.  I pulled over to watch.  It did not move until it was ready to.  Eventually it made its way to the embankment on the west side of the road.  The snow was so deep that the deer sank up to its underbelly as it made its way to the forest.

There were a number of spots that had avalanche warning signs posted.  That did not deter visitors from heading out on the trails with skis and snowshoes.  There were a number of vehicles in the parking lots along the way.

The evergreen branches held up a layer of snow.  The mountain tops in the distance were covered in white.  The scene was as beautiful as a Christmas card.

I pulled into the parking lot at Medicine Lake.  In the distance I could see three park visitors on snowshoes trekking across the lake.  Without the use of binoculars, they looked like little ants on a white blanket.

The drive to Maligne Lake and back took almost 1.5 hours.  It was a great way to enjoy the winter scenes and the majestic Rocky Mountains.

Sunshine and melting snow was testament that the temperature made it to the plus-side today.  The day was beautiful and many people were out enjoying the extra day off.  I've never seen so many vehicles driving through or parked in the lots at Elk Island.

I pulled into the parking lot of the Amisk Wuche trail and found 6 vehicles there.  I'm usually the only one.  Keeping that in mind as I put the snowshoes on, I decided to break a trail on the lake surface.  

There was a packed trail down the embankment to the shoreline.  That's where it ended.  I could see there had once been another trail that went across the ice but the wind had drifted it over.  I created a new trail along the shoreline.

That turned out to be a really good choice.  Nobody else was out on the lake but from my vantage I could see numerous hikers on the trail.  That is one reason why I opted for the open space but it

wasn't the only one.  When I hike in the trees, the upper canopy does not allow the sun to shine through.  On the lake surface, the sun was bright and warm.

I created a big loop on the lake.  In some places, there was very little snow.  In others, the wind had created drifts but they were hard-packed and it was easy to stay on top of them.  As I made my way round the shoreline, I planned what I was going to do tomorrow.  The day is supposed to be sunny if the forecast is correct; making it a perfect day to try to snowshoe out to the island at Astotin Lake or take the skis out on the lake surface.  

I'll have to toss a coin to decide what to do unless I head out early which means ample time to snowshoe in the morning and ski in the afternoon.  That way I wouldn't have to decide!

It's a new year.  I don't make resolutions but will continue to make the effort to spend as much time as possible outside in the fresh air.  I am hoping to take a few more camping trips through the summer.  The snow-free days are a long way off.  I have to deal with snow shovel right now.  

After spending December 31 lazing around the house, I needed some exercise and fresh air.  The day began with shoveling the deck and driveway.  Over the past couple of days, there was another 4 inches of snow that came down.  There are still 3-4 months of winter ahead and I don't know where the rest of the snow is going to go.  The snowbanks in the yard are the biggest that I've had here in 11 years; that is after some melting that took place on +0C days.

The deer had cleaned out all the feeders and their grain tub so before leaving this morning, I refilled everything.

I wanted to start the new year off in the forest so I grabbed my snowshoes and drove to Elk Island National Park.  There were very few vehicles in the trail head parking lots so I knew the day would be quiet; just the way I like it.

I decided on visiting the Amisk Wuche trail.  It provides a variety of scenery and a good work out with all the hill-climbing.  After gearing up and hiking to the fork in the trail that creates the loop, I decided to start the year off as a rebel.  Yes, I hiked in the opposite direction of the arrow that marks the trail.  I've always hiked counter-clockwise but today I changed it up and hiked clockwise for a different perspective.  The trail is actually more scenic in this direction.

The light was dull and grey.  Snowflakes drifted lazily to the ground.  There was not a sound in the forest until I got to the first beaver pond.  The beaver lodge was snow-covered with animal tracks leading to the top of it.  The tracks continued east to the forest edge.  As I stood on the trail taking in the sight, I was entertained by a lone coyote.  Its haunting call echoed through the trees.

Further into the forest where the trees were closer together, a couple of squirrels chattered to each other.  A woodpecker worked to get underneath the bark on an old poplar tree.  Most of the hike around the loop was silent except for the crunching of my snowshoes on the snow.

As I neared the parking lot, three more hardy hikers were heading out and six more were suiting up by their vehicles.  I picked the perfect time to be out there.

On the drive home I saw a couple of coyotes loping across the frozen ponds, stopping now and again to hunt.  There were no other animals out today.

When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed that the deer had visited while I was away.  Before heading inside, I refilled everything.  The birds were very active. I decided to do a short bird count in the backyard.  I tried tracking the birds at all three feeding stations but soon learned that it was impossible to count that many.  

I chose to track the station in the middle of the yard where a block of suet hangs in addition to a feeder filled with striped sunflower seeds.  In eight short minutes there were 55 visits by chickadees, one by a downy woodpecker and two by nuthatches.  It's no wonder they empty the

feeder almost as fast as the deer do.  

A pileated woodpecker flew into the yard but it spied me in the window so it flew out just as fast.  A squirrel was raiding the seeds in the tray feeder.

I was succumbing to the fresh air.  My eyes were closing; telling me that an afternoon nap was in order.  Well, the nap turned into a lovely 2 hour rest.  I glanced out the window to see if the sky had cleared and noticed that the deer had visited again while I was asleep.

The temperature is supposed to warm up overnight.  If that happens, I think tomorrow will be spent on the ski trails.

 

Owl Prowl

Yesterday was a great day to be outside and I took full advantage of that.  The snow clouds moved on and the sun was shining so I headed out with the snowshoes to Elk Island Park.

Amisk Wuche is my favorite trail as there are lots of hills and a variety of things to see.  The boardwalk across the beaver pond was drifted over and in places it was difficult to tell where it actually was.  I made it across without ending up in snow that would be above my knees.

I was the first human on the trail.  There were lots of animal tracks including bison, moose, coyote, squirrel and hare.  It's always a great work out when you have to break trail and yesterday did not disappoint.  

On my travels around the loop, the only sound I heard was a squirrel nattering at me from a tree top.  The rest of the forest was silent.  I was looking forward to resting and having a nice hot drink at the only bench on the trail.

I got to the bench only to find it almost buried.  I won't be enjoying it anytime soon unless I bring along a shovel.  With it being -26C this morning, I don't think a big melt is going to happen today.

I decided to take a scenic route home so headed to the north park gate rather than the south.  The snow storm this week seemed to have hit areas north of me harder so I wanted to check it out.

The highway to Lamont still had an inch of ice on it places.  Highway 15 east was wet and slushy.  The range roads that run north/south got hit the worst.  Graders were working to clear the drifts.  They had the v-snowplows on the front to break through the drifts and then they were using the blades to push the snow to the ditches.  The banks in some places were as high as the middle of the grader cab door.  Some of the roads had 'road closed' barricades on them.  The drifts were as high as the barricades.

An owl prowl was planned for Elk Island in the evening.  I had it in mind earlier in the week to participate but with snowshoeing in the morning, I was hesitant to go back again.

Well, evening came and we headed back to the park to meet in the Astotin Lake parking lot for the prowl.  On the way we saw 2 moose, a deer, an elk and a lot of bison. 

There were not many people; only one guide and 8 of us in the group.  As we waited to see if more participants would arrive, we got to witness a beautiful sunset across the lake.  The colors were magnificent as the sun disappeared.

Our guide brought some pre-recorded owl calls.  He was letting us hear them before we actually left for the prowl.  The very last call was that of a Great Horned.  Just as he finished playing it, a great horned owl swooped into a nearby tree.  It remained long enough for everyone to get a peek of it through their binoculars.  I guess it realized that it was just a bunch of humans calling so it soared away in the opposite direction.
That was the only owl that we saw last night.  There were no other sightings and no owl calls.  That was okay because even though the night was chilly, the moon was shining brightly and the stars were out.  What a great way to spend a Saturday night.