Helen and Geoff's Amazing Adventures

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Sun Peaks Holy Cow

Sun Peaks skiing 2017 – Week 1

by | Jan 26, 2017 | cross-country skiing, Sun Peaks

Mon 16 Jan 2017: Day-1. We are off to Canada skiing again. Quite a lot of preparation to get fit enough, which began in early December and included a few days riding bikes up Mt Kosciuszko and, at the end, daily trips to the gym for 1.5 hour sessions. Actually feeling quite fit again – at last. Will it be enough?
Today, Monday, we took the XPT train from Wagga to Sydney – something of an experiment – not to be repeated. The train ran late and clunked and clanked its way across NSW. The slack luggage official refused to check our bags into the luggage car for reasons known only to himself. Onboard food was atrocious.
We stayed the night at a hostel next to Central Station – Wake Up! Excellent. 7 floors of energetic young people – kitchen on first floor – friendly helpful staff at reception. Excellent views from the room looking down on the busy Pitt St – George St intersection. I liked it and a welcome change from the horrors of NSW trains.

Tues 17 Jan 2017. Day 0. Shuttle out to the airport. Checked through with no issues at all – 2nd in the queue. All too easy. Plane took off on time and then began the horror of the Boeing 787 seat for 15 hours. I could not get comfortable at all and did not sleep. Landed on time at Vancouver and painless through immigration. Our bags had been checked through to Kamloops, so we did not even have to clear customs – and that did feel odd. Quite a walk down to gate C42 for Kamloops. The fight took off on time and I slept all the way to Kamloops. The river is frozen over and quite a good scattering of snow all around Kamloops. When we did not land as expected, the pilot came on to announce that a truck was stuck in the snow at the end of the runway and we had a small tour down the valley while they towed it out. Picked up by the shuttle with a driver who liked to entertain with tall stories.

Dropped off at Cahilty Lodge and it felt like coming home. I do like it here. Met Nancy and Al in the lobby. A good cover of snow throughout the village. A trip to the store for supplies and unpacked in just a few minutes. Extremely tired and suffering from sleep deprivation.

Wed 18 Jan 2017. Day 1. An excellent night’s sleep. Then, the search to select the right clothes to wear outside – which we got right – not too cold. It is about -3ºC in the village.  We bought our season passes for Nordic skiing – they reminded us that we had not been here since 2009. We skied for just on 2 hours which completely wore me out. The lesson, again, is that nothing prepares you for Nordic skiing except Nordic skiing. Though I’m very glad we did as much prep as we did.

The snow is fantastic and while we were out, a further 5 cm fell on us. Excellent. Came home, had lunch and slept for 2 hours. I like Sun Peaks a lot. The photo left is a good example of the cross-country track – as wide as a road, with classic tracks on either side (keep right) and skating in the middle. I’m going up the right hand side in the classic tracks and Helen is stopped in front.

For those who have forgotten, Sun Peaks is the 2nd largest ski resort in Canada (after Whistler/Blackcomb) and has numerous awards for its alpine skiing trail layout. Consistently good to excellent snow. Groomed black runs. The best green (beginners) runs I’ve ever seen and they link with a great selection of blue (intermediate) and black (advanced) runs – which means people of different levels can go up on the chair together and come down their chosen runs.

Another excellent feature is that there are very few people here – so mostly there is no waiting for a chair lift. Which can be a good or a bad thing depending on how exhausted you are from your 500-600m vertical run.

We will explore the Nordic Tracks.

 

Thur 19 Jan 2017. Day 2. A good snowfall overnight. We skied for 2:35 hours today. Quite a good run out along the McGillivray Lakes trail and twice down the Black Bear (blue) run. Not quite as exhausted today as yesterday – managed to keep my heart rate less than 150BPM for most of the time – and that helps.

Looking back on the extensive prep, I think I should have spent more time on foot strength.

Friday 20 Jan 2017. Day 3. Classic skied up Black Bear and Lake McGillivray track to the lake and back. 2:30hours. Going very well.

Saturday 21 Jan 2017 Day 4. Day off. Lolled around like dead whales. This little fellow and friend cruise the window ledges for

goodies – in this case bread.

I wrote a little python program to generate Sudoku puzzles. It helps split up time reading and watching Oz open.

Sunday 22 Jan 2017. Day 5. Classic skied from the top of the Morrissey Chair lift down Holy (F@#king) Cow then along Great Grey and Vista back to the village. 2:30hours. Max heart rate 146BPM (much better). That made 10hours and 6,000 kcal for the week. 6,000 kcal! That is almost as much as a Big Mac. Snow at the top was absolutely perfect and great all the way down.

Very few people out though some skaters going up! Holy F Cow. Somewhere on the Nordic map it talks about the run down from Morrissey as the only lifted Nordic trail in Canada. A excellent run down along an old logging road – nothing too steep yet certainly down. Very enjoyable. An outdoor hot tub today followed by Cahilty Sunday drinks. Met the GAS group (Grumpy Asian Skiers). Good fun.

Monday 23 Jan 2017. Day 6. A repeat of yesterday plus a Black Bear because it was all a bit easy. An extremely enjoyable ski. Every day has been better than the one before. In by noon.

 

Tuesday 24 Jan 2017. Day 7. Temp has dropped to -5ºC in the village and -8ºC at mid-mountain. For us, a repeat of Day 5. Classic skied down Holy F Cow from the top of Morrissey then Great Grey and Vista to return to the village. Outdoor hot tub. Gets better every day.
Nordic Trail Map
Sun Peaks Webcams
Sun Peaks Resort Website

Shield Shrimp

When it rains across Australia’s vast inland region, temporary pools crop up all over the arid ground, giving life to a strange desert crustacean known as the shield shrimp (Triops australiensis).

Named after the formidable carapace that shields its head and upper body, T. australiensis can grow up to 7.6 cm long, and it uses its long, segmented tail and mass of 60 or so legs to propel itself through shallow water.

It also breathes through these legs – its sub-class Branchiopoda means ‘gill-legged’ – and in the females these legs bear ovisacs for carrying their tiny eggs.

Several pix in the Photo Gallery and a movie.

Acacia peuce

A rare and endangered plant. The tree grows up to 15 to 18 metres (49 to 59 ft) high, with short horizontal branches and pendulous branchlets covered in needle-like phyllodes adapted for the arid dry climate. It has a distinctive habit more similar to a sheoak or a conifer.

Although speculated to have been widespread across central Australia during wetter climates 400,000 years ago, the population is now mostly restricted to three sites, separated by the encroaching Simpson Desert. In the Northern Territory, the species is restricted to the Mac Clark (Acacia peuce) Conservation Reserve which is surrounded by a pastoral lease, Andado Station. The other two sites are near Boulia and Birdsville in Queensland. The tree is found in open arid plains that usually receive less than 150 millimetres (5.9 in) of rain per annum. They grow on shallow sand aprons overlaying gibber or clay slopes and plains and between longitudinal dunes or on alluvial flats between ephemeral watercourses.

 

Owen Springs Reserve on Hugh River

Owen Springs was a station on the Hugh River. The Hugh River flows into the Finke (when it actually flows). Both cut through the Western MacDonnell Ranges. The image above shows Owen Springs Reserve as a dot at lower right. The river it is next to is the Hugh. Hermannsburg, our next town, is near middle left edge. Hermannsburg is almost on the Finke River. You can see both Hugh and Finke Rivers cutting through sections of MacDonnell Ranges.

Palm Valley

Palm Valley is within the Finke Gorge National Park southwest of Alice Springs. Palm Valley has a smallish population of Red Cabbage Palms (Livistona mariae). The nearest related species is 850 kilometres away in Katherine NT. The average rainfall for Palm Valley is just 200 mm per year. Small pockets of semi-permanent spring-fed pools allow the unique flora and fauna (desert fish, shield shrimps tadpoles and frogs) to survive.

It had been assumed that the cabbage palms were remnants of a prehistoric time when the climate supported tropical rainforest in what is now the arid inland of Australia. Genetic analysis published in 2012 determined that Livistona mariae at Palm Valley is actually the same species as Livistona rigida from samples collected near Katherine and Mount Isa, both around 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away. It is now thought that aboriginal people brought the palms to here from Mataranka.

Mound Springs

Mound Springs occur around the Western edge of the Great Artesian Basin and represent a natural discharge of Artesian water that was captured many hundreds of kilometers away from rain falling along the Great Dividing Range and New Guinea. This article provides details. Dalhousie is an excellent example of a mound spring.

Great Artesian Basin map Great Artesian Basin diagram