Snowshoe Trek

My daughter Erin took today's photos. The camera froze up halfway through the hike. Earlier today she started her return trip to summery New Zealand for school.

 We got new snowshoes for Christmas. Yesterday we went to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve for a trek through the back hills of the preserve. It was a cold day (-30C) and while you get a little tired of the cold after two weeks that's no excuse to stay indoors. We felt the pinch on our cheeks when we arrived but within a few minutes of starting out we were warm and enjoying the bright sunshine.

The Preserve has lots of Yukon wildlife wandering  the preserve. We saw caribou, mule deer and a cow moose and her two year old bull calf. But the most impressive sight were the great steaming hulks of the bison. Their breath hung like a fog before their face and the height of their shoulders and thickness of their coat was most impressive. When I was little kid in Winnipeg in the 1950s (when the winters were cold) all the policemen on the beat wore full length buffalo coats. They weighed a ton but we never lost a policeman to frostbite and I suspect the coats were also bullet proof.

We took a two hour walk up the hills at the back of the preserve and enjoyed a great view of the Takhini River Valley from the top. We then wound our back down the hill and around the Preserve making the hike back to the parking lot just as the sun was setting. We could feel the temperature beginning to drop and were happy to head back home and fire up the wood stove.