Geek that I am, I've been mapping my running routes. And so I've been having lots of fun with on-line mapping applications like Google Earth. Resolution increased dramatically even in our neck of the woods a couple of years ago. We can now see our house, and even make out our fruit trees on the lawn when we zoom in. The higher resolution gives out once you stray just 2 km further up the highway, so it seems the Province of BC, which contributes the hi-res images to GoogleEarth, thinks we live on the very edge of what's worth looking at.
Above is a screen shot of where we live. Not much here except the forest.
- Carpenter Creek, flowing off the bottom of the image on its way from mountains higher up the pass towards New Denver and Slocan Lake. It's a raging river at this time of year. "Creek" is a bit of an understatement even in October. It passes through a deep canyon at its nearest point to our house. It's no more than 200 metres, horizontally speaking, from our house, and we can hear it, but it takes a good 45 minutes of hiking down steep switchback trails to get to it.
- Turris Creek, a tributary of Carpenter. We get our water supply from just above this spot. Every spring a snow slide comes down on our water intake and cuts off our water supply. It happened this week. Chuck is an old hand at jerry-rigging solutions until the snow melts enough that he can get in and properly clear the debris.
- The highway. Two lanes, steep and winding, it connects New Denver to Kaslo, 44 km away. During the summers it is one leg of an amazing road tour that is very popular among motorcylists and RV'ers, meaning a couple of vehicles a minute go by during peak hours. Most of the year it's more like half a dozen an hour. The Nature Boy avalanche that closed the highway for more than two weeks this winter was another mile off the top right of the map.
- The Galena Trail. A linear regional park, basically just a trail, built upon the old K&S Railway bed which was abandoned 80 years ago. The views are amazing, the exposure overlooking the creek is quite something, and the grade is a gentle 2-3%. The trail is my favourite running route, and it is also the location of the geocache we maintain. So far there's too much snow to run more than the lower half of it. The cable car (2005 post & photo) that crosses the creek is farther up and I'm looking forward to getting there as the snow melts.
Oh my goodness that cable car looks terrifying!!
ReplyDeleteI'm longing for a glimpse of spring chez toi - how about a bit of the Galena Trail over at Here and There Slocan? Since the trail runs past 'our' temporary house, I'd love to see some more of it.
ReplyDeleteMiranda,
ReplyDeleteI've been reading and enjoying your blog for some time now. I have a daughter who is home schooling for grade 1 and who is also doing Suzuki piano. It's been interesting to see what sort of things you do with Fiona and to look at your older kids as possibilities for the future.
Having said that, I'm really concerned about this posting. You have no idea who reads this blog and you've just given them the exact location of your house. Just something to think about.
Shawna, if you put my name and town in Canada-411 you can get my exact street address which would be a much quicker and easer way to find my home. The same is true of most people. A motivated person could find me very easily indeed -- much more easily through other routes than through a blog image.
ReplyDeleteLinda, my camera is a full SLR with a big lens. I haven't relished carrying that on my runs. But thanks to your nudge I have borrowed Chuck's point & shoot and will start gathering and posting shots on H&TS.
ReplyDelete