This was a family/Karen day. That means we tried to snowshoe. The day was sunny, but continued the trend of being very cold. The challenge was to find a good venue.
I thought of this as a shakedown trip for snowshoeing. We knew Sara would be the limiting factor since she was on her own legs. My experience with Lost Lake, the nordic groomed trails near the Village, is that they were far away from the parking lot. I thought we’d use up Sara’s legs just by trying to walk to the beginning of the trail. We had remembered a flat, road that was popular with joggers, XS country skiers, etc. around Alta Lake. So we pulled out our maps and headed to the Blueberry Hill development off Hwy 99. We followed the signs and found the parking lot to Alta Lake park. It was just not plowed. All the signs in this development were vehemently, “No Parking!” We could see a plowed trail known as the Valley Trail. We essentially drove in circles for awhile with our daughters sweltering in full snow suits.
Wayne finally found a place to park. Sara darted out and immediately stuck her hands in the snow before I could put gloves on.
That got us off to a roaring start. She was crying and upset. I eventually got her hands warmed and gloved. Her emotional state was still one of sadness. Not even kicking snowballs on the trail made her less sad.
We ended up mostly walking on the road of this developement and just a small portion by the lake. We did find this dock and the “no diving sign” which I found ironic.
At the end, we were tired, cold, and a little frustrated. It was a tremendous effort to get all our gear together and cloth the girls. It was a beautiful day and all told, we walked half a mile. It was a shakedown.
Wayne was tired at this point. I herded us on to my desire which was lunch at Crepe Montagne. It’s one of my favorite places to eat. We had a nutella crepe, a bratwurst crepe, and a savory crepe. The whole experience was delicious. It left Wayne feeling a little claustrophobic. It’s an awefully small place to wrangle 2 tired girls.
Naps! Yeah! We all napped. Then we got in our cute Westin robes and enjoyed a family swim at the pool. Wayne and I exchanged trips to the hot tub!
The day ended with babysitting. Babysitting Whistler changed the nanny on us. We got Kate instead of Rachel (due to sickness). We went to La Bocca. We had an amazing brie appetizer and split a salmon dish. Desert was a chocolate cake. Then we walked around Whistler Village. It was wickedly cold. We ended up going to bed early for our 5am departure.
