Snowshoes and Engagements

Alright, it's time for me to spill the beans. Garrett and I got engaged on New Year's Eve! Since I'm such a modest person, I didn't want to just talk allllll about myself here, so I put off writing an entry. However, I can't avoid it anymore! Well, I could, but I won't.

On New Year's Eve, Garrett and I took our brand new snowshoes out to Kannaskis country for a day hike. The weather was thankfully warmer than usual, with temperatures around minus 7, although the wind was pretty strong. While driving to the trailhead, we were faced with some tricky driving, since the blowing snow completely obscured the car ahead and behind us. We were a little worried a few times when we couldn't tell if we were about to rear end the car in front, or whether we were about to be rear ended by the car behind us! Fortunately, there weren't any morons on the road and we all kept our distance from each other.

Once at the trailhead, we suited up. It took us a few minutes to figure out the bindings of our snowshoes - they were new, after all - but other than that we were ready to go. We were going to hike the Chester Lake Trail, which was approximately 8 km round trip and boasted both snowshoe and cross-country ski trails. The start of the trail is common for both type of trekkers, but shortly we turned off onto the snowshoe trail. Here is Garrett hiking ahead of me:There was a lot of nice fresh snow to hike through and the trail was fun to travel - lots of twists and turns. We hiked up and up for a bit, traversing some steep terrain. Our snowshoes, however, had heel lifts for climbing, so we snapped those into place and had an easier time of it (although we both found our fitness levels to be sadly lacking - haven't been exercising enough lately!). Here's Garrett in nearly the same stance as the above picture! We're just about to leave the trees into a large clearing, where the howling wind ended up giving my face some wind burn.This is near the top in an open meadow.Garrett played in the snow here by going off the trail. It was actually pretty deep out there and he sank down below his knees.I made a movie of him trying to climb back to the trail.

Here's a shot looking down the trail back at me. I always tend to follow Garrett when we hike, since he sets a better pace than I do.Here's a shot of Garrett's head with some snowy mountains in the background. He had his camera along as well, and took some shots of me, but they are at his house and I don't have them for this blog yet. I'll post them later sometime.More snowy mountain.At the top we ran into a lot of people. The trail was quite busy that day, but we managed to find our own spot to sit and have lunch.Although it looks comfy, it was actually quite cold to lay around and eat our lunch. My hands got really really cold, although the hot chocolate thermos Garrett carried up sure did taste good and warmed us up a bit. This is a shot of my feet:I have girly snowshoes, all nice and blue and pretty. Garrett's snowshoes are manly colours, like red and black.

Once we had eaten our lunch, we packed up right away and headed back down the trail. We were just that cold - my fingers took awhile to warm up after lunch, but eventually I got feeling back. After heading partway down the trail, Garrett suddenly turned off the trail and starting walking around a tree. I followed him, not really sure what was up, but it's always fun to wander around in the snow with your snowshoes on, so I thought that was what we were doing. He stopped walking soon, though, and took off his backpack.

"What are we doing?" I asked. "Am I taking a picture of you in the snow?"

"Sure," he replied. So I took this picture of him standing:Right after this shot, he reached into his backpack and pulled out the ring box. After some appropriate words and getting down on one knee (with his snowshoes on, in the snow), he asked me to marry him and I said "Yes!".

Pretty exciting, hey?

So, now we're engaged. I'm not sure how much I'll write here about our wedding plans and whatnot, but eventually we'll have photos up once the big day arrives.