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Baja: Escaping Alberta's winter cold
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Baja: Escaping Alberta's winter cold
My name is Adam and I grew up in Alberta, Canada. I worked a few years in commercial fishing and recently came back home where I am working in construction with an eye on going back to college and finishing my degree in civil engineering.
I love this area but as I get older, I noticed my tolerance level for the cold, snow and ice is wearing thinner each winter season. Over 12 meters in annual snowfall here seems to start in early fall and often lasts until late, late spring.
Right after Christmas I need a break from it and Baja warmly provides my fix.
Friends and I try to make a trip down a couple of times in winter if possible and usually every summer for an extended adventure of mountain biking and dirt bikes; then surfing and fishing our way back up the coastline.
This seems to be a pretty friendly and helpful group that manages to keep most conversations civil, something not found easily these days.
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20 Replies
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Welcome! My paternal grandfather was from Canada (Saskatchewan) and after he met my grandmother on a trip down to Texas he said that was all the excuse he needed to leave the snow behind. Although I should add that they later acquired a summer cottage on a lake in Saskatchewan (Mission Lake?) where I spent some memorable summers as a kid growing up.
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I know where Mission Lake is, it’s right by a Catholic mission called Lebret and some people call it Lebret Lake. It’s really nice.
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Welcome to the party Adam! Just curious – what is the meaning or significance (if any) of your username ScreeSki?
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Scree is what we call loose, slippery rock on the trail or a hillside. Some people actually try to “ski” through it on purpose. I am not one of those people but often fall victim to the scree when mountain biking, on a dirt bike or hiking and when my friends catch up to give me a hand up they usually kid me, reminding me “we thought you were giving up on scree skiing”?
It’s actually quite painful at times and I still have some permanent bruises from one fall.
Here’s video that might explain better.
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I noticed in the video, he fell too near the end.
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There are no such thing as ScreeSkiers without permanent scrapes and bruises
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I was wondering the same thing about your name.
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And I don’t blame you about wanting to get away from a long winter of the white powder. That’s what made me leave Michigan 25 years ago.
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I have a love-hate relationship with the snow. I love it in September, tire of it already October and am seriously hating it by November. But there is so much I love about this place too so I don’t think I will ever completely leave here.
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Welcome to the forum Adam. You come all the way from Canada just to get away from snow?
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That’s just one of my motivators.
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Welcome Andy. Looking at that photo of your vehicle buried in snow I would be looking south too!
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That’s not my SUV but I love the photo as it is so representative of winter here. When I get buried like that, the last thing I am thinking about is taking a picture.
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I like the snow – for a weekend – and then I’m ready to come back down off the mountain to California weather but it sure is beautiful up there where you live in the summer time.
Glad to have you here with us.
I suppose I am going to have to write an introduction. Tomorrow.
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I di it it so you should too. It’s not that hard once you get started.
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Thanks for sharing Adam, nice to put a story together with your profile / posts.
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Thanks Bill, I look forward to seeing your intro post.
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Having spent two winters living at the 6500′ level in the California Sierras, I got my fill of winter snow. I did however, learn the fine art of installing snow chains so well that I was able to make some small modifications to mine where I could literally install them on all 4 tires in about 2 minutes time, 3 minutes on a slow day.
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Most people up here modify theirs too. Use quick disconnect links?
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Exactly, did some searching to find some heavy duty links that would hold up to the stress and abuse and learned to lay the chains out in front (or in back) of each tire, stretched out and placed exactly right which allowed to just drive over them, attach the quick disconnects and the stretch cords and bam! I was back on my way in just a couple of minutes at most.
I will never forget when I was first learning how, it would take me about 10 minutes per tire while I was getting wet and cold from the falling snow the entire process. So after about 3 days of that I started working on improving the process.
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