Exploring new areas in the winter

Taking advantage of the cold weather and hoping the the river will be frozen enough for us to travel as far as we can get before the trail stops us in our tracks. The equipment we used for this trip was a variety of old light gear that included, cross-country ski that was wax or wax-less and light touring gear from the seventies. We had a couple mishaps that destroyed our poles.

The head wind was a killer making the temperature cooler than it was. Once in the canyon, the wind was reduced to a light breeze, just in time to focus on the open water. Warning to the ones who want to try this adventure, at anytime you can fall through the ice, so be fore warned! We just send our heaviest for our test…lol. We were lucky to hit it at the right time with the cold temperature and low snow fall. Heavy snow fall tends to insulate the water from freezing over.

Rewarded with amazing ice formations, we decided to push on through the narrow canyon, but cautiously with lots of open water pockets and quite a good flow underneath our skis. We pretty well reached our limit for this exploratory trip, as the river just past the ice falls was impassible with open water right across the canyon. This canyon is 5 km from the Snaring campground.

Updated 2021 – 50 photo album

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