Sunday, January 23, 2011

A backwoods ski

Refusing to fall

Today I self-diagnosed myself with a double dose of Mother Nature. I had been fighting at least two different colds now since Christmas. It hasn't been a very enjoyable time for either myself or my family. As mentioned in previous blogs, my personal "cure-all" is a jaunt in the great outdoors.

Ski bridge IMG_4826
Family of porcupines Making duck prints

Originally my intention was to head up into Gatineau Park but after spending 20 minutes in a traffic jam I bailed and opted for another ski location Ontario-side.

The Kanata Lake Trails have been fending off the encroachment of urbanization for several years now. I skied down each and every side trail I could find and several were cut short by various construction projects in mid-stride making the odd bushwhack necessary but that just added to the day's adventure.

One of my side treks brought me to a large rocky hill with lots of nooks and crannies, one of which was home to a family of porcupines. The babies were all jammed inside making some very loud grunting noises while mom was left forming a rather uninviting door with her backside. I took a short video but unfortunately the microphone was turned down low from the last moe. concert I filmed. Anyhow it was an interesting find and I'm thankful that porcupines can't really throw their quills or I'm sure I would have been plucking a few out of my camera after this close up.

As a side note, we still need more snow. My skis took a couple of nasty nicks thanks to some rocks that were camouflaged under a thin blanket of powdery snow. Arg.

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