Jasper Mountain Trek: Windchill

Trip to Jasper to (Crystal) go skiing and (Trevor) go hiking. I met with wind, cold and a burly moment near the peak of a mountain...frostbite staved off for another winter adventure!

All the wintry fun was soothed with fresh pizza and a few malt-bevies in the evening... soothing the curse of winter driving in the Rockies and proving a victory desserts for a hard days trek through the peaks.

These are actually pics I took for my biology class, but I thought that they were pretty and tell a biological and evolutionary tale, so I shared them. This, above, is a close up of the female cones on the upper branches of a conifer. The lesson is in the location of growth of male and female cones, avoiding self fertilization...its all about the tree-sex.

Similarly, this shows the same tree only further back. In this shot you can see both the female and the male cones.

And, although nothing special in its own right as these punctuate every rocky vista upon the peaks, this species is truly the beauty of the beauties. Douglas Fir, not a true Fir, with its spectacular female cones.


ABOVE: Me standing at the eastern side of the saddle/ridgeline that runs the alpine gauntet to the peak. I was able to make it to the second tuft of conifers on the top right of the photo, almost directly below the peak proper, before having to turn back - going higher entailed glissading up an avalanche chute on the side of the cliff...I chose against that option.

BELOW: Me, mid way up the mountain, taking a pause after putting on another layer. The wind was agonizingly strong and cold, and walking in the vapid alpine allowed for much sediment to be freed from the ground and pleasantly flecked upon my eyeballs. Pleasant, that.

Religions Touting Hate: Part n

This, although not unexpected and not surprising, is disgusting.

Even if you want to go as far as suggesting that each may harbour their own feelings and post a pamphlet like this (which I severely do not suggest...but lets say you are ethically allowing yourself to let that go) there is no need for the ignorance of their proposed actions at his funeral.

I hope that his family has enough strength to get through this, the death itself, but also the raving lunatics who will try to sully his memory for their religious beliefs. Not only being gay, but pretending to be so is punishable by hell.

I can only assume, like most fundamental relgious people, that they are lacking education...and the plight of Texas and FLorida these days is not doing anything to bolster knowledge. We are not in for a rough ride, we are experiencing a rough ride with our society.

The darkening of the enlightenment - And the religions of the world rejoice, at the pain of innocents everywhere.

Meandering through the wintery days...

Well, well... what do we have to show for some three weeks of the new year?

I could, perhaps, start with the most recent: astronomy! Last night the moon and mars were dutifully aligned and about 2 degrees apart from our earthly position. I tried, ever so hard, to get a good shot of this but the trifecta of cold-snow covering everything-freezing cold did not allow for this. However, I did get a few naked-hand shots of the pair. They are both blurry, of course, but the effect is not lost.

Now I go back a few days (perchance a week or two) and dip into the skiing photo's - with a brief Bohemian Waxwing interruption. Our first night ski adventure was not at all overly welcoming as the cold became more of a burden than a delight, and the snow conditions (I am thinking also because of the cold) were not he greatest. So, add up two inexperienced skiers, complete darkness, unknown trails and trail conditions, and you have a martini-like mix of good experience and bad taste. It was fun, evident by our smiles, but it was more of a challenge. However, being out again in the dark I must admit that it is now preferred - being about in the dark and snowy wonderland of the northern conifers, guided only by fleeting moonlight, and following vistas of sessile constellations...it is a most wonderful experience. What a way to end a workday.

Above: Me, cold.

Below: More congregations of the Bohemian's.

Above: Crystal skiing so fast that even our camera couldnt keep up (or, more likely, the shutter speed was too slow!)

Below: Fancy feet of ski-tastic desire.

And then, it flooded. Much earlier in the year, to be correct it was last year, the Nechako river froze, jammed and flooded. It has been a political blight on our fair town up here in the north, and a reservoir of pain, damage and anger has been festering ever since. Everyone is blaming everyone, but the fact remains that this is nature, businesses and homes developed on a floodplain, and the mix therein eventually came to fruit - the river flooded its floodplain. There is no succinct amend to this disaster but to wait, it seems, until the spring thaw.

We took a drive to see the river recently, and have these pics to show for it.

Im standing on a berm that was built to keep the water off the roadway (the road only access a refinery and two mills). to my left is the river proper - covered with ice.

Another view of the river itself. The mill you see across the river has been shut down for over 2 months now I believe. There is a hectic effort by workers to keep the ice and water away from it, but nature has, and will, and will always, win over human desires. As it should.

That's the view from our latitude - happy wintery days!