A few more ski vids on the Inuvik track

Sorry, no steady cam, just a point and shoot on a gorilla pod with the legs stuck in a pocket

Few more catch up pix from last weekend and week before...

Lots of opportunity to take sunset images these days, ha ha. The first series are on the last sunrise day of the year at noon, by the boat launch on the river, just past the ESSO station.

This set is back by the truck out by the cliff and some further down the Dempster by the territorial park at Campbell lake and the next campsite further south at Carmichael Lake. Interesting to note the sculpted clouds indicating high winds aloft. Don’t usually see those up here, the Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, on the other hand these lenticular cloud formations occurring over the main ranges are very common. One last shot of me leaving the climbing area for the year of 2013, won’t be back until next year.

The other feature of note that evening was the mirages of cold and warm air mixing over the south part of the Delta. The shimmer was visible and the patches of warm and cold air intermixing is quite visible in the still shots. It makes one wonder if there is a cold air trap at the start of the Delta and of course also at the base of the Richardson’s. This is twice now that there has been prominent mirage formation caused by variable air masses. Likely katabatic winds play into this but on this day it was evident that the winds aloft were causing the mixing. The shadow towers are quite interesting.

Another ski video from the weekend...since the skiing has been good

Just a quick piece on the lower trails and heading back to the cabin / club house. This was shot about 11:30 AM so this is pretty much the light of the day. It gets a bit brighter by the middle of the afternoon but not by much. Temps have now fallen, so not much skiing to be had at todays high of -30 Celsius.

Mild weather on the weekend

Whilst it has been -30 in Calgary and -32 in Edmonton; it was a balmy -11 in Inuvik. spent the morning on Saturday skiing at the Inuvik ski club trails. Afterwards I headed down the Dempster to the crag and did a few laps on one of my lines. Not much opportunity for pix given the limited light this time of year.

No sun now till next year

So....this is how things are shaping up until Jan 6 2014. Though it is worth mentioning that Astronomical Sunset is 15 degrees below the horizon.

Taken from

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1145&month=12&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1

Track skiing December 5, 2013

More sunday Dec 1 pix

After getting all the gear off of the cliff the snow from last night's snowfall was lying heavily on the willows, lengthening shadows as the sun was setting, all of 3:30 PM.

Also a took a timed shot of one of the new radio telescopes, near the airport, that seem to be tied to the meteorological services of Canada.

Climbing on Sunday, still enough light in December!

I went to the crag on Sunday, nice day, -20 but calm. I was able to finish putting in the lead bolts across the short traverse under the roof to the chain anchors (hangers in pic number 2). The traverse is thin but there. The line that leads straight up the same anchors has a hard start, delicate moves on very small pick holds, popped off the lower part numerous times. This brings to number of bolted lead routes to 3, and total number of mixed routes to 8. Not bad, these are very probably the only sport bolted mixed routes in the NT at all. As far as mixed routes in general, the Cirque of the Unclimbables or there about obviously has mixed lines and nothing in Inuvik will ever compare to that, lol.

Just some quick shots due to the need to be a bit efficient climbing since it’s light a 11:30 and dark at 4:09 PM. The hanging rope is my set up for top roping. I rap down to the midway ledge where the directional bolts then rap a bit further to tie the rope off to the anchors, to prevent catastrophic abrasion, then weight the rope with a coil to facilitate the jumar moving along the rope. The rope is lying along the harder line.

The whole thing is reversed when I do the route, hence the pics from the half way ledge.

November 30 and Dec 1

The cross country ski track is finally being groomed, due to a paucity of snow, not maleficence. The grooming equipment consists of 2 large frames which are pulled behind a skidoo, a traditional drag. It works well but a roller would be better this time of year, though I’m sure the drag is the tool of choice later on when heavy drifting occurs on the track. Regardless, the skating is quite nice as the snow has decent humidity in it and the glide has been quite good, snow isn’t too squeaky yet as it hasn’t been cold enough. The track is even lit; well part way it is, the upper loop seems to have an open circuit somewhere so half the track is headlamp only territory. Was out Friday after work and Saturday morning.

After skiing I took the sled and went out on the unofficial ice road (ie on the river) over to Aklavik, overcast skies made things a bit gloomy scenery wise. I went as far as the main channel (passing a nice cabin en route) where I met a vehicle coming over from Aklavik and heading to Inuvik. They said that the road on their side was in much better shape and was quite drivable. The side channel that leads over to East Three is frankly suspect, with deep snow and the beginnings of overflow. Regardless, people are driving it. There was even a traffic jam at the western mouth of the side channel as one vehicle heading to Aklavik met the one leaving. Ha ha.

I sledded around the channel, then headed up a short way towards Tuktoyaktuk on an unplowed channel but turned around as sunset i.e. 3PM was approaching and there was a fair amount of overflow – water laying on the surface of the ice but under the snow.

I headed back to town, stopping by one of the larger barges tied up for the winter, and did a little exploring of the sled paths leading over the Big Lake then decided to do a tour of Boot Lake just to make sure the machine was running Ok; it kind of coughed a few times trying to turn around over by Big Lake. So…sledding on Boot over exactly where I skied and snowmobiled just 8 days ago, had massive overflow and I almost sank the machine, major throttle prevented this sorry event from happening, just barely mind you, lol. Interesting end to the day’s sledding.