Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: explore2008December29

Four of us set out at 7:00 a.m. (actually, I had left home at 6:30 a.m.) to drive around the area near Cochrane (north west of Calgary), to record birds and mammals seen on the Cochrane Bird Count. We found only 12 species of bird but 6 species of mammals, including two Moose. We did a pretty brutal hike at Big Hills Spring Provincial Park, often following the partly frozen creek seen in my next photo. Lots of snow on the ground, of course covering those nasty fallen branches and rocks : ) Around mid-afternoon, we called in at a farm to see what birds might be hanging around. However, our vehicle got stuck in the snow in the long driveway and took forever to get it cleared. The owner of the farm got his son to drive a piece of equipment to help clear some of the snow and get us out of there. Our temperatures rose to around 4C this afternoon, but there was a very cold wind. This gorgeous sunset started off our day to perfection : ) Straight out of the camera, by the way : )

There is only a tiny bit of vapour rising in this photo, so it doesn't really give a very good idea of what -30C (-40C windchill) is like, LOL! This was taken on a day's outing eight days ago, to Canmore, near Banff in the Rocky Mountains. Trust me, it was COOOOLD!! Five and a half hours of walking in it was just brutal!