This past weekend Dallas and I got away ...wow, it's been a while. We headed out to Lake Louise in a desperate hunt for snow. There's only about a foot of the white stuff but the xc skiing was awesome. We had a late start to the ski on Sat, because we didn't leave Calgary till 12, but managed a good 2 hours of skate skiing. I must say Dallas, despite taking last ski season off due to knee surgery, you're skate technique has inproved immensely....I think you're a closet skier. We book a room at the Lake Louise Hostel, it's pretty nice, really log cabinish and cooked a huge gourmet pasta dish with chicken sausage. I was somewhat dissappointed with the food market in Lake Louise...I was expecting to find more then just sausages and hotdogs....then again, it's Lake Louise in not quite the winter season.

Our grand plan was to do a night snowshoe, but after skiing and supper we were both just about comatose. So we opted to tromp around in the snow until we found a big snow pile and proceeded to play "King/Queen of the Pile". Hehe, how old are we...yeah, I know. But there's something really fun about just goofing off in the snow.....I think I won.

Sunday was supposed to be an early start, but we didn't managed to hit the trails til 10, which suited me fine because it was a pretty frosty morning (-14). Because we had our classic skiies today, we went all the way to the end of Morraine Lake Road, right to the lake. I've never been down there but it was really beautiful and majestic. After returning to the car to pick up more water and drop off Dallas I headed out for another hour on a little side route that I'd never done before...day of exploring for me :) This trail ended up only being groomed for the first km or so...then it turned into rough backcountry...hehe, well kind of. There wasn't quite enough snow cover so a couple of the downhills were a little sketchy, but I managed to make it down white knuckled (not quite the body part used for skiing) and sore from the whole body tense trying to slow and steer my classic skies.

Have to say I was pretty tuckered when I got back to the car 4 hours after the initial departure....but for some reason decided it'd be a good idea to go climbing for 2 hours that night back in Calgary with Grant and Heather Eastman. I do have to brag though :) I lead my first 5.10b.