A fun surprise!

It's been a surprising week for me.  First came the free bus ride on Wednesday, then came the unexpected surprise on Friday.

Friday was going to be another Friday for me, relaxing at home after a busy week.  I really don't mind doing that as sometimes I am really exhausted.  Well, my plans instantly changed when a customer at work dropped off an envelope for me and co-worker, Darleen.  In it were 2 tickets to the Toby Keith Concert which was on last night!  It's a good thing that I had nothing planned!

Surprise night out for me!

PG Transit Drivers are the best!

I thought that I would share another amazing story today.

It was a cold brisk day today, but I decided to walk to work anyways.  There was very strong Northern winds that would have made bicycling challenging (-35c WITH Windchill). While I was walking to work, a transit bus pulled over and the driver motioned me to board it. I took the driver up on his offer and hopped aboard.  As I was sitting down, I mentioned that I had a bus ticket on me that I use when I feel like taking it home, usually after work.  He said there was no need to pull it out.  Wow! This is not the only time that I've been offered a ride in time of need.

What is the coldest temperature that you've bike in? Or you have walked in?

I might take bus tomorrow, as it's supposed go down to -42 or so WITH Windchill, a bit cold to be on bike, at least for me.

I love living in PG, it's a decent sized city with not bad transit, but the people are so friendly like they are living in a small town.  Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?

I am still wondering where Spring is.

What a difference a few days make!

Streets are cleared and it's good riding.

What a difference a few days make!  It's still sunny out, but much warmer!  I didn't end up going snowshowing, but it looks like I missed a great snowshoe trip.  Oh well, what can you do?  I was a bit under the weather and it was -20C, a little too cold for me even though it warmed up to -10C later on.  I hope that I get a chance to snowshoe the Slim Creek Provincial Park sometime in the future.

I took out my bicycle again to pick up my glasses.  This time the brakes worked fine, the temperature sure makes a difference on how smooth everything works.  I wore my Canadian gloves which stand right out against the white snow.

I picked up my 2 pairs of glasses.  It's funny that they are very similar to the pair I broke.  I wish I would have been a bit more daring, but I find lighter colours work on me and circular style shapes work better too.  I am not sure how closely you have to follow the rules for picking out eyeglasses.  These pair are actually a slight bit different from each other..but it is very sutble.  Colour is different.  For those with eyeglasses, how do you pick out your glasses?  Do you tend to pick similar styles, or go crazy and take a chance with a totally different look? Maybe it's my toned down look...

It's good that it's warmed up, I wasn't at my best this weekend.  But, I heard that it 's supposed to cool down in the new few days.  Let's hope that this is the one time that the weather forecasters are wrong!

Accumlated snow plowed from the streets.

Ok, tired of Winter!

The sun was out but it was -32c!  Hard to want to leave the house.

I'm so done with Winter.  During the last week the temperatures went up to about 0C and then down to -32C yesterday.  I've been walking to work and taking the bus home as I haven't felt like taking the bike out.  It's a good thing that I had bought some bus tickets so I can use them whenever needed.  It was actually nice walking to work in the morning as long as I kept moving.  My mp3 player though, lost power the other day on my way to work and I thought that it had died.  I had taken it with me when we snowshoed at the Ancient Forest and I thought I damaged it doing that as the snow was so deep.  But after plugging it for a bit, it started charging and the screen turned on! Whew, I guess the subzero temps sucked all the power out of it.

The Ancient Forest Snowshoe Trip- Part II

Here is the Trip Report that Nowell wrote up as he was the leader.  I reposted here from the Caledonia Rambler's website as I think it's a pretty cool writeup!

Fourteen of us began our trip around the Ancient Forest by once again restoring the outhouse as a functional feature by freeing its entrance from the grip of winter.

After recent heavy snowfall, the snow was neither too soft nor too hard - it simply wanted to swallow us, as each of our steps sunk down into the snow 12 to 18 inches, and sometimes more. Consequently, it took 3 hours to travel a bit under 2 km. of trail, with people taking turns breaking trail.

Although Treebeard Falls was frozen and snow covered, the water under the ice and snow was evidently running.  At Treebeard we went off trail, heading due east to see some of the other ancient cedars that have made the area their home for upwards of 1000 years.

It doesn't seem to matter when you go to the Ancient Forest - it is beautiful any time of the year, and it was a pleasure to be a part of it for a few hours."  Nowell S.

Here are some more photos, to give you a good idea what it's like in the Ancient Forest during Winter.

Waiting to cross the bridge.

Circle of Trees.

Hard work breaking trail.  Also hard work 'running over' taking photo of this!

Group shot in front of Treebeard

Ancient Forest Snowshoe - Feb 13 Part I

It's this deep.  ;) ;) :)  Just kidding!

14 of us joined Nowell on the snowshoe to the Ancient Forest.  I've been many times to there in the Spring, Summer, and Fall, but never in Winter.  What a great time we had.  Check out all the snow!  Here's some of the awesome photos that me and Nowell took  More to come.. It's so hard to choose photos, but I hope you enjoy the views.  Heh, after seeing the photo of the outhouse, maybe the snow in the above picture was REALLY that deep!

Singing the Outhouse Blues.  And really digging myself!

I wonder how much snow the Outhouse Roof can hold.

I was going to 'dig out' my Grand Canyon of the Fraser geocache that I hid last November, but after seeing how much snow had fallen out here, I figured that the hidden geocache wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

The snow is deep, it was up to to my hips in parts.

It was easier snowshoeing if you were at the end of the group as there would be a nice packed trail created by them.  Breaking snow was hard.  I have a photo of someone breaking some snow at the front of the pack that I'll post in Part II (or III!)  While snowshoeing, we would sometimes hear and feel the snow rumbling below our feet, like an avalanche.  But not, just the snow settling below us, we weren't in avalanche vicinity.

Snow covered Cedar

Welcome to the Snowforest.

Petition: Preserving the Lochside Trail

From Pedaltalk comes news about this petition to save the Lochside Trail near Victoria, BC.  I've never ridden it, but now that I know a little about it, I'd love to bring my bike down and ride on it!

Check out Pedal Talk's  writeup about trying to save the trail from changes that could affect the trail in a big way!  And don't forget to sign this petition Protect Lochside Trail from becoming a truck route

Wembley's bathtime

Wembley and Gobo sure love their spraybaths. 

Livingston Springs- Photos by Nowell Senior

I'd thought I'd share a couple photos that our Hiking Club President, Nowell Senior took on the Livingston Springs Hike:

Now, just where are those springs?

You can read his trip report on the snowshoe trip at http://caledoniaramblers.ca/feb-6-snowshoe-report/#more-1011  He is an excellent story teller and has published a Children's Book about the Ancient Forest near Prince George.

Livingston Springs Snowshoe Trip

Ric shows us the way!

Despite the clouds and new snow coming down, it was another great day to spend on my snowshoes.  We hiked to Livingston Springs, which is located in the Crooked River Provincial Park, near Bear Lake.  It's about 1/2 hour north of Prince George.

We snowshoed near Bear Lake

There are many trails around the Crooked River Provincial Park

Nowell, our trusty leader (again)  He has hybrid old style snowshoes.

Me and Melanie.  I soon took hood off as it was too warm outside

There was over 12 that came which isn't surprising considering how much warmer it was then last week.  They all had different type of snowshoes.  You'd be amazed how many types are out there.  I will do another post just showing the different types of snowshoes available.

 We hiked through a lot of dead Pine Forest.  The dreaded Pine Beetle has killed a lot of pine trees in British Columbia.  You'd see red everywhere it was so bad!  Now you see just dead trees as all the needles have fallen off.  You wouldn't want to be walking in it during a bad windstorm as the trees break like matchsticks.

Dead Pine Forest

Dead Pine- killed by Pine Beetle

 This is the first time that I've been to the Springs and they were amazing.  Even though they are not Hot Springs, they are still quite warm, 10c.  I wonder what kinds of life live in it year round as there was no ice on this water.

Livingston Springs- full of life!

Lunch Break at Springs- there was this old decrepit cabin there.

Sign reads:  Cabin was built in 1945 by some Trappers

Trusty Leader having lunch.  Notice the gin bottles in background?

 (Gin Bottles make good drinking containers- easy to stuff in pants pocket!)

Love the snow layers on the fallen logs.  These are where the springs come from..

Love those snow layers.

BC Parks sign and barricade which keeps the cars out when closed in the Summer.

It sure was a fun day to be out and about.  We even met up with the local Naturalists Club and I recognized some of them, many are hikers too. 

I wore my lighter Sierra Designs jacket and just one layer of socks, my merino wool ones.  I also used my scarf.  By the end of the day, I had less layers as it got quite warm outside!  It started snowing near the end of the trip, so we had a slower drive home as it was snowing quite hard on the highway and the visibility wasn't that great.  I love snow, keep it coming!  ;)

A bit of a challenging two days

I've been biking all week as the snow hasn't come down so the roads have been clear.  But there were two things that stood out this week for me.

The first thing was a jerk encounter on Thursday.  The roads were bare, there were 2 empty lanes, no other cars on the road, and I had my helmet/led lights on.  Yet he decided to honk the horn at me.  What was I doing wrong?  Oh well...I kept on peddling.  At least he didn't yell at me.

And today, even though we got some fresh snow, I decided to bike to work.  It was frozen this morning and the side streets were really bad, there was sheer ice with water on top.  I realized that it was bad as I was biking down one side street, but couldn't stop and get off the bike for fear of slipping.  I went on to another street..and down I went!  I wasn't going too fast because of the ice, but I still went down good.  There was a car coming on my lane so I quickly picked myself and the bike up and went on to the sidewalk.  The sidewalk was more icy then the road!  I was resigned to walking the bike to work as there was no going back, but the sidewalks were so bad that when I got to the main street that I ride up to work on, I decided that it would be safer to ride on the road then to walk on the sidewalk.

Going home, it was good going.  Slushy and wet, but I was ok as I was wearing my full rain gear in anticipation of getting soaked.  I am ok, I just have a sore bum.  I need good studded tires I tell you!  Don't have any yet.  Do they help on melting sheer ice?