The snow hit Southern New Brunswick after Christmas like an egg-nog hangover. And I've been having a blast everyday since it fell. The cross country skiing has been great and I've done some snowshoeing unfortunately the ice climbing has suffered from the warm temperatures. As the temperatures have risen in the past few days I even tried to go bouldering!
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| Great snow for snowman making. |
Wet snow fell on Monday so my family suited up and built a snowman in the fresh snow.
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| The Amphitheatre at Parlee Brook - looking scrappy. |
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On Tuesday I ventured in to check out the ice climbing conditions at Parlee Brook's amphitheatre. The snow was suuuuper deep in the bottom of the ravine. We swam and struggled in snow up to our armpits for over an hour trying to reach the back wall. Fun but exhausting. The ice wasn't worth climbing. We'll need it to be a lot colder.
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| Cutting a trail through deep snow. |
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New Years Eve was warm and sunny - a perfect day for being outside.
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| My Dad skiing behind our house on New Year's Eve. |
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I snowshoed into Parlee Brook again, tempted by potential ice. We were able to top-rope a route with some nice vertical ice bits. I got back to Sussex after dark and wanted to meet my goal of three sports in a day. So I drove out to the Dutch Valley towards Waterford with the hourglass hill in mind. I couldn't see it from the road in the dark, so I followed a skidoo trail hoping it would lead me there - it did. After 45 minutes of climbing, I turned my skis back towards the lights of Sussex and practiced my turns on a long downhill run.
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Top-roping a bits and pieces of a route at Parlee's amphitheatre.
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The New Year began sunny and warm. It was great weather for my first Polar Bear Dip. It wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it would be - just a few cuts from a the ice in the river.
I had planned to cross country ski on New Years Day but we thought it may be too warm (turned out to be great skiing - just like spring conditions). Instead we went to check out some newly found granite boulders west of Saint John. We drove in on snowy roads and found snowy boulders but I still enjoyed hiking around to look at the boulders. Still a great day for hiking!
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| Legitimate granite boulders in New Brunswick! |
On Sunday I got out for a short cross country ski at my parents house in Corn Hill. The snow was melting and it even sprinkled a few rain drops by the conditions were actually quite good. Fresh snow around the melting point can be a sticky mess but older snow that has warmed and froze and started to melt again is great - just a bit slow. I'd call these spring conditions.
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| XC skiing in Corn Hill |
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| XC skiing on my parent's trails. |
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