January 9th, Mahoney in the snow.

Finally…after a deep freeze that BC apparently just does not get (more snow than BC has seen in years ) alongside all the other world craziness we seem to be living through……it got warm enough to get out…….WOO HOO..!!!

We had borrowed some snowshoes from friends to try it out……so the Mahoney conservation area seemed like a good spot to try them out. This is the same trailhead as the Hawthorne mountain hike…and crossing some trails we walked before on our “off piste” hike in mid December.

We swiffed about 400 m in on the trail…and decided we did not care much for the snow shoes. Off they came and we trudged back to the truck. Having stowed them safely we started again in just boots. (The hiking poles really helped….LOL…the ‘slightly’ packed snow is desperately uneven and challenging to walk on.)

It was a spectacular day, very fresh..!!! crisp and sunny with blue….. really blue sky. It was tough going on the hips and the calf muscles walking in the snow. Sometimes disappearing in the snow. (its hard to describe how much fun it is wading through deep fresh snow..I just love it…!!!) Luckily I had picked out a trail that was only 5 and a bit kilometres.

It was such a lovely day….and the snow…aside from the slightly packed trail from other peops snow shoeing……was about knee deep. I was very glad of my short gaiters….but it was not long before the fronts of my legs were soaked through and cold (like freezing cold..⛄!!) We were thinking it might be time for some full length gaitors…..

A couple of km in…the trail we wanted headed off in to almost virginal snow (there were tracks from someone being through on a horse )…..oh I do love walking in snow, and it was not long before my shins were soaked up to the knee…….but it was great fun…..

Sparkly, twinkly white and ice…….long shadows…and a surprising vividness to the red of the pine tree bark….and a tremendous deep azure blue in the sky.

Even though we had walked this trail before …it was completely different…( the pool in the picture below is the one we saw the beavers in a couple of hikes ago…!!)

It was had work trudging through the snow….but we had a blast…..and a lot of laughter along the way……!!! ( Our legs are gonna be sore for a couple of days….but totally worth it….)

I don’t think we will be in the market for snow shoes tho….

Next post will be the return to the Kettle Valley trail and a hike in snow up to Little Tunnel again.

Extra pix