Saturday, January 5, 2008

Rockies and the Weather

One of the highlights of my first week in Calgary, was a trip to the Rockies with Andrew and Mari. We snow-shoed in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. I was kitted out in gi-normous pants, boots, and snow shoes. And covered with many layers of clothes. It didn't take long though, walking through the soft delicate snow that sinks beneath the feet, before I was extremely, extremely hot - despite it being - 15 C.

Snow is such a beautiful thing. It looks so soft and inviting cushioning the spruce trees - except for the fact that it's cold and wet; and once you've fallen into it, it's very hard to get up!




After my snowing adventure we drove through the fairytale towns of Canmore and Banff on our way to the Banff hot springs. Ok so, a hot pool packed with people (human soup) is not that appealing, but the warmth was a perfect way to end a very cold outing.

The picture on the right is Mari and myself above Canmore. Gees, we were cold!


In general, Calgary and the area surrounding is very, very dry - low humidity. I've found that I have to lather myself in cream to prevent my skin from flaking away. For the entire time that I've been here, there hasn't been a wind. I've never experienced anything like this - it's so peaceful. It snowed last in Calgary in November, which still covers the roads now. It's been warm the last few days (nearly 0 C) and it seems the snow has melted a bit. This is rather disappointing. I hope that it snows at least once more this winter! Imagine how amazing that must be - as long as I don't have any chores to do that day!

At night the temperature drops, so even though I feel fine during the day, just a few minutes in the night air is enough to make me utterly freezing. I've been wanting to take many photos, but I must admit, having to take off my gloves to do so has been a major deterrent.


1 comment:

Sid said...

Hey girl, didn't think I would ever hear you say that 0 degrees Celsius is warm. After summiting Kilimanjaro, I too have become majorly infatuated with snow. In fact I dreamt that I was on vacation in a place with lots of ice and snow.
Oh do you think you can change your settings so that we don't have to do the word verification thing?