Trail tramping

 Our Christmas celebrations started with a very fancy Christmas Eve dinner at the Rimrock, a fancy restaurant about 10 minutes down the road from Whistler. We all got dressed up (as much as you can whilst travelling) and were treated to one of the best meals we have experienced. It was Erin’s Christmas gift to us and it set a very high bar for my culinary efforts on Christmas Day.

At the Rimrock on Christmas Eve. The kind of establishment and clientele that would frown on food “selfies” ….so we had to be discreet.

Magnificent meal and we ordered the dessert thinking of Mike.😋

A traditional roast pork and trimmings is much more suited to this climate.
Seems there are no Brussel sprouts on my plate🥴

Our next adventure beckoned the following day and it was quite an experience……snow shoeing along The Medicine Trail in the Callaghan Valley. It is a sort of re-creation of how the trappers in the early days worked the mountains, but with a First Nations theme of how the plants of the forest provided medicines and food.

After being shuttled to the valley, about a half hour drive away, together with others going riding on snowmobiles and some dog sledding, the guides fitted us with our snow shoes and we headed off into the wilds of the valley. There had been quite a dump of snow overnight ……and the landscape was blanketed …..white, fluffy and silent. We had a guide and only a small group but even so, as Aussies, we were well out of our comfort zone.

After a little while we got the hang of the snow shoes and were able to concentrate on the magnificent scenery we were tramping through. It really was something special, even the snow dumps that randomly dropped out of a tree with a rush and a whuump resulting in a cloud of snow covering everything …..including us.

The following pictures show the landscape we were in but not really the experience. 

All kitted up and ready to go. The instructions for snow shoes were as follows:
Walk 10 steps and you know how it works.
Walk with a wide stance.
Back up like a 3 point turn.

It didn’t take long to get the hang of it.

So beautiful.

Some of the group were having a sauna experience.Those little barrel things are the saunas

Under the “portal” to the trail.  Just after Mel, the guide, kindly took this shot,
a HUGE dump landed just behind Wendy. It was a shock!

We got a few breathers along the trail when Mel did her guide thing and fed us all sorts
of info about the forest, its history and how people have used it over the years.
We even saw a woodpecker in a tree (very strange sound) and discovered
why they don’t give themselves concussion.

So much beautiful scenery.

The rivers and creeks are almost frozen over. A couple more weeks and they will be.

A re-creation of the old trappers huts dotted through the valley.

The silence was only interrupted by the sound of snow shoes sliding …
and a bit of puffing.😮‍💨 

Gorgeous!

At the end of our trek we were able to see where the sled dogs live and a little about them. 

The Husky dogs (Alaskan not Siberian) reminded us of Muktuk Kennels when we visited the Yukon in 2012.Feeding time is Chicken broth apparently. Sounds good after such an outing.

It really was an unforgettable experience……one that will live with us for many years to come.