Snowshoeing Gone Wrong

While listening to the news this morning, my ears perked up to hear that someone was lost on the Fundy Trail. "I've been there", I thought. The shock though, was finding out that ther person was actually someone that I knew fairly well and in fact had gone hiking and snowshoeing with in the past with the UNB wildlife society. The good news is that they found him and he seems to be alive - although apparently he's listed in serious condition and may lose some toes. This is at least the 3rd bad thing to happen to someone I know, doing something that they do well in the last year - Last fall a friend was in a bad climbing accident, and Andrew Desmond, a close friend from high school, was killed in a motorcycle accident.

Hopefully things work out okay. He's a strong athlete who I remember for conquering Katadyn in 6 hours, when it took the other group 12 hours, and we limped in exhausted, in the dark, at about 8 pm. (although in our defense, we slowed down to accomodate a member who'd sprained their ankle.) Although, amusingly, we ran into communication problems that time too - the FRS radios each group had had to communicate failled to work even when we were both down and in the parking lot - complicating our finding them after the hike and letting them know we were back.

More surprising is who widely this is making the news. Here is a link to the star article.

Ground Hog's Day Forgotten

I was suprised that no mention of groundhog's day was immediate obvious from the front page of either the Star or the Globe. Perhaps I should be surprised it was one of the first thoughts I had as the alarm went off this morning given the lack of fanfare leading up to the event. One might posulate that the growing concern about global warming and the strangely warm weather leading up to the current more winterly fare, has made people unsure whether to hope for more winter or its early end. I haven't gotten any skiing in yet, and I can't afford to go out to the rockies; So I have to admit I'm in no rush for the end of winter. Then again, I always liked it better than that deadly heat of summer.

So, who knows. I haven't heard yet what our friend Wiarton Willie has predicted this year. I'm guessing not much in the way of shadows given how overcast it is here. I've made a link to a cbc posting on the event.

Happy Ground Hog's Day,

Jennith