Snow

          Whenever I arrive back in Nordegg it takes me a few days to get back on mountain time...I of course don't mean like mountain standard time, no, I mean a slowed-down-forgot-to-change-the-batteries-on-my-watch.  So instead of watching the clock, I wake up when the sunlight trickles in my window, my day starts when I've had 3 cups of coffee and a bowl of cereal and life starts once I've had a good snuggle with each of the dogs.  Living starts when I'm hanging off of a couple small aluminium ice screws and a day is not complete without feeling like I've put myself in an uncomfortable situation that scares me a little bit.  My day starts to feel like its ended once the sun sets over the mountains and no day is complete without seeing something like this!

           The thing that really drives life out in the mountains however, is snow!  This past week my plans changed completely almost every day due to one huge dump!  Back on monday when it started dumping the fluffy white stuff I woke up with enough of it to justify ploughing even though it was still coming down...by the time i had finished with our LONG driveway and 3 parking lots it had snowed enough to do it all over again!  So the next morning I did it all over again, my plan had been to get a large portion of my papers written but hey, thats how things go out here!!!   This massive dump (about 1 foot in 24 hours!) also changed something else that would ultimately decide how the rest of my week went....this was the avalanche hazard of course!  A friend was planning on coming down wednesday with intentions to climb a route called "mixed master" that has been on my mind all winter but only recently have I been able to get over my fear of it and decide to have a go at it!  The snow changed everything!  Though this route is not below any significant avalanche slopes, enough snow can pile up on it to ruin your day if it were to come loose!  Justin decided to stay in golden and ski and though a little bit disappointed that this last chance to climb the route for the season disappeared overnight, in my mind I knew it was for the better and I settled back into writing papers.  

    

          Saturday morning I woke up in good time and loaded up the ice climbing gear and headed out to the cline river to meet up with Robyn and her friend Steph for a day of plastic ice and mixed climbing!  We had a great day running laps up the mixed line at the cline river gallery and enjoying warm enough temperatures that someone a little crazier then myself might consider climbing in the buff!!!  There was a big group of UofA students there and we had fun sharing ropes with them and even got one of the girls, that was enjoying her first day of ice climbing, up the mixed line!  After everyones forearms became essentially useless we headed back to the centre for dinner and a brew!  Upon our arrival Cheri greeted us with an emergency!  One of the other staff members at COE who does relief work for the hostel down the highway forgot her computer cord.  There is a new set of programming happening out at COE and Darci was working on this so without power for her computer Cheri was afraid that the website that was supposed to launch the next day wouldn't happen.  So we packed up dinner and the wrong computer cord and headed out to rampart creek hostel to save the day!  We had a nice visit out at what is probably the coolest hostel in canada!  We spent the next day at an ice climb called SARS on Ice but shut it down early as Robyn and Steph had to get back to Banff that night and I was heading to Edmonton with Elyse!

Anyways, enjoy some pictures of the ice!  And check out the new programming at COE here!!!

http://life.coe.ca/