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On the Road: Snow close to home

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Probably should have just stayed home.

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With the temperature falling almost as fast as the snow and wind bending the big spruce trees across the street, it was obviously going to be a pretty miserable day to be outside. But ya know, I kinda like miserables. So I grabbed my gear and headed out.

On the Road: Snow close to home Back to video

I knew it was pointless trying to make it out of the city as soon as I got the truck moving. The snow, fortunately, was pretty dry so though there was lots of it, it wasn’t all that slippery. The problem was the wind.

Things don’t usually get all that blustery here in my little mid-city hollow. Wind tends to blow over the surrounding rises and it’s just swirls of breeze that get down into my neighbourhood. The tops of the 20-metre spruces across the street get bent but down at ground level things are much less gusty.

Unless there’s a north wind. And that’s what was blowing today.

There was already a snowdrift on my hood and on the street in front of the little truck. If things were piling up like that here, the places I had thought about going would likely be even worse. But I was already dressed up in my winter gear — had to do some digging to find some of it after that last month’s warmth — so I shovelled the snow off the hood and headed out.

As soon as I left my neighbourhood I knew I wasn’t even going to try to get out of town. The roads were a mess and if they were that bad here, they would be worse out in the countryside. So, since I was already rolling, I decided to see what I could find in the city.

The first stop — or slowdown, at least — was the Elbow River. Even in the coldest weather there are sections where the flow doesn’t freeze over so I headed there first. And, indeed, there was open water.

But nothing else. The ducks and geese that would usually be there had obviously found a less-exposed place to hang out. So I went to look for one, too.

Thankfully, Calgary has a lot of small urban parks so I headed for one not too far from the river. My hope was maybe I might find a couple of the city deer that like the river valley or maybe even a coyote. Nope, none of those. I did see a flicker fly by but beyond that it was just sideways snow embedding itself into the bark of the poplars.

OK, there was another place close by I could check out so I rolled past the lovely houses and lovely snow-packed yards. Many of them had mountain ash trees out by the boulevard so I stopped to photograph the bright berries in the falling snow.

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There’s a drainage outlet that channels groundwater from under the surrounding buildings back to the Elbow River and in its transit, that water picks up a bit of heat from the ground. Please note that I said drainage, not sewage. This underground stream is like a spring-fed creek that carries water from one part of the Elbow to another.

As a result of that warmth, the area around the outflow has its own microclimate. The water here never freezes and the flow stays pretty constant. So it was no surprise to find birds.

Closer to the outlet there were mallards huddled down out of the wind. Several of them had their beaks tucked under their wings and were sleeping with their feet in the warm-ish water and snow on their backs. A little further out on the outwash gravel by the river, there were geese doing the same thing.

Mist swirled around them, but they looked far more comfortable than me. I’d barely been out in the wind for 10 minutes and my fingers were already seizing up. Back to the truck.

Snow was coming down harder now and the temperature had dropped another couple of degrees but I had a couple more places I wanted to check before I gave up and headed home. The first was a nearby cemetery.

On a less snowy day I would have headed for Union Cemetery but with conditions the way they were, I knew the steep, narrow roads between the lovely markers there would be impassible. So I headed across the street to the flat Burnsland Cemetery instead.

Why a cemetery, you ask? Well, because they are good, quiet places for wildlife to hang out. I often find jackrabbits and the occasional deer in both these places and with the variety of trees planted around the plots, birds abound. And I usually have the cemeteries all to myself.

Corporeally speaking, at least.

Today, the weather was against pretty much everything. Snow was drifting around the hundreds of fallen soldier markers in the military section and the wind was making the spruce boughs bounce. If there were any hares here, they must have been huddled under the snow. I found one magpie gorging on what looked like ornamental apples but that was it.

I was still chilled from my brief walk by the river and the roads between the markers were hard to see. The snow was getting even heavier now and the wind showed no sign of abating. So even though it was just getting on toward noon, I left the cemetery thinking it might be time to head home.

But the Bow River was close, so I drove over for a look — could barely see the far bank — shot some snow swirling around the trees and shrubs, and then headed back to the Elbow River for one more look.

Parking in a summary execution zone, I quickly jumped out of the truck and walked along the Elbow. There was open water here and several ducks and geese. A flicker flew by — never got a shot of this one, either — and magpies had their yakks torn away by the wind, but I spent a few minutes shooting what birds I could see and then walked back to the truck.

The tops of the downtown buildings were invisible in the blowing snow as I drove through, and my street had snow piled axle-deep. Chugging through, I pulled up in front of the house, plugged in the block heater, and headed inside to thaw out.

It was -23 C when I headed out on Wednesday morning. The snow had stopped and the sun was shining but there was still a bit of wind. I’d dressed better today, heavier boots and a cinch tied around my waist and jacket to keep the cold air away from my core. I was still gonna be cold but it should be tolerable.

It had been nearly two months since I’d driven in cold like this and neither I nor the truck liked it. The dry snow from the day before had been compacted by traffic and was now a series of icy ruts and ridges. The main roads were better but the truck’s cold-stiffened suspension banged with every bump, big or small.

The bit of open water I’d found along both the Bow and Elbow Rivers was now running with slushy ice and over where I’d parked by the Bow the day before, water trying to move downstream against the thick slush was flowing over the ice that was already there. That kicked up walls of mist that spun and twisted in the frigid breeze and dissipated among the willows along the bank.

I could hear geese honking from somewhere, and magpies were flitting around, but nothing else moved. Except for a guy in a little snowplow that was clearing the drifts from the bike path. But maybe the ducks might be looking for spilled grain by the big elevators in the rail yards. I headed there.

There were too many trucks loading up with chop from the big mill by the elevators for the ducks to accumulate but the pigeons were still there. A couple hundred of them call this area home, and today most of them were on the sunny side of the tall mill building. The ledges were crowded with them trying to soak up the sun’s radiant heat while the wind wafted exhaust from the mill grinders around them.

From there, I went to one of my favourite places along the river at Douglasdale, but alas, no birds. Interestingly, though, the ice shelves that had been there a month ago were gone. I wonder if this cold snap will bring them back again.

The snow squeaked under my boots as I walked along the Bow down at Fish Creek Park. There are usually bunches of birds here: geese on the islands, goldeneyes out in the current, mallards in the eddies along the banks. Ravens and magpies, too. Eagles, often.

Today, not so much. There was just a handful of ducks and geese right up against the shore. And one flicker that I also didn’t manage to photograph. A female merganser among the ducks and geese seemed to be having a good time, though. She swam along with her face in the water just like it was a spring day.

Which, of course, it wasn’t.

Down at Policeman’s Flats, it was even less spring-like. The wind here was stronger, the air colder. It had been -23 C when I’d left the house. Here, it was -25 C. After just a couple of minutes taking pictures with the windows rolled down, the wisps of hair sticking out of my hood were covered with frost from my breath. The back of the camera was iced over.

And the birds on the river ignored it and splashed around like they always do as the icy mist blew by. Tough guys, those feathered friends.

Tougher than me. I’d had enough of this. I was hungry and cold, so I headed home.

Where I probably should have just stayed in the first place.

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