Tumbling Virtual Cougar Hunter

A big meow to you all.

A fine dose of winter weather has been battering this neck of the woods for the past week. Not making for more comfortable avalanche conditions in the big steep hills (once more a feller died mid-week in an avalanche) things have got so absurd that the Canadian Avalanche Council has put out extra advisories saying something along the lines of "People, do you not get it? C'est tres dangeroux. Stay at home and watch the football!" or something to that effect anyway.

We got about 10cm of snow in Cochrane yesterday - I had to shovel the drive at midday as Brina was expecting people to come and see the Dayhome - but once I'd finished, the drive was under another cm that had fallen during the time I was out there - bit like painting the Firth of Forth bridge (only colder).

I had a wee jolly out to Bragg Creek yesterday afternoon, but left it too late in the day and only got an hour in as the snow fell, leaving me to retreat at sundown fearing that my car was burried in the car park - but the good ol' Focus made it out! To avoid such a fisasco today I was up at 6 and in Bragg Creek before sunrise. Hitting the deep trails whilst it was still dark. T'was a wonderful way to wake up, breaking trail in minus 18 degrees or so, waiting for the sun, not a soul around. Managed to ski out for 3 and a half hours without seeing anybody else around. The piccie at the top doesn't quite do the depth of snow justice, but it gives a sense of the dawn light trail breaking Sunday morning fun!

Midway around the trail - once the light was up - the trail had been flattened a bit by a snowmobile (the easy way to groom the trail). I'd passed the snowmobile grooming crew leaving the parking lot as I arrived (they work nights). So when I saw fresh animal prints atop the trail it was clear there was a critter around. I ended up following Cougar prints for about 2km along the trail towards Bill Allen Pond area - I'm no Ben Gadd, but am 99% sure it was a Cougar - easily as big as the palm of my hand, pads, not a Wolf as the prints weren't too far apart (Wolves stride out a bit), way too big for coyote, fox or badger and not the same shape as wolverine. Bear prints are way way way different (and they're all asleep) - this was definitely big cat and I checked up the print in my geeks' guide to animal tracks when I got in and this made me super sure.... Anyhow, you may've noticed my excitment at Canadian animal spotting from previous posts - and the thought of being so close to the Cougar just tipped me over the edge - well, tipped me off my skis anyway. I was 2 and a half hours into the ski, hadn't seen sight or sound of another living soul, and so got out the video camera in the over zealous expectation of seeing the Cougar around the next bend. Below are two video clips - the first of which is of a bloody lanky English twit falling arse over tit, makes me piss my sides and I'm sure you'll find it almost as hilarious (anything with me face planting into the snow has got to bring some humour!!!). The second clip is more of the same but I feel it slightly redeems my ski-ing ability - although I'm a far cry from David Attenborough on snow!

Ha ha ha ha ha etc..... I'd like to say that was the only time I fell over, but towards the very end of the ski I was getting a bit wobbly and the photo at the very end of this blog is a testament to my ineptitude.

All in all the day has been great fun (disregarding the piles of marking I've had to do this afternoon). Brina is getting the Dayhome up and running and the basement is looking like a veritable kindergarten. Brina's also doing a bit of sub teaching and has been out at Morley on the reservation, it's not been too bad for her but still, teaching on a reservation is more crowd control than academia. No-doubt we'll get out for a swish through the snow next weekend once we've battled through another arduous week of employment. That's about it from Cochrane for now, time to go and take the cat nip out of my ski-ing backpack.

Keep your eyes open,

You don't know what's following you,
S&S.