March 20, 2012

Spring into Winter

Today marks the first official day of spring.

But not in Lake Louise. Our March came in like a lion, and does not look like it will go out like a lamb. While snowshoeing this past weekend near the lake, we measured the snow to be almost 160 cm deep!

This deep snow is wonderful for skiers and snowshoe-ers, but it does present problems for animals who don’t come equipped with big feet. In Waterton Lakes National Park, in the southern part of the Canadian Rockies, one of the park’s remote wildlife cameras recently captured this image of a female mule deer trying to get from point A to point B.

We almost never see deer tracks in the deep snow environments where we snowshoe, and you can see why: it's too much work for heavy animals with small feet. Instead, elk and deer in the Canadian Rockies do small scale migrations, moving into the low valleys or eastern foothills for winter – places with much lower snowpacks. Obviously, this deer missed that lesson.

With all the snow, we are extending our snowshoeing season through the first week of April. If you'd like to spring into winter, give us a call.