Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Training

Time is marching on and we will be in Peru in ten weeks.  You could almost say the countdown has begun and we continue to train six days a week.  Snow on the lake is about 18 inches deep.  Because of the dramatic changes in temperature, ranging from -30 C to 0 , the snow has developed a crusty top which collapses with your weight and the snowshoe sinks into a bed of heavy and at times slushy snow.  It is easy to trip as your foot often catches.  The going is heavy and unforgiving.  We now snowshoe from the beach at Black's Point to Little Grindstone Harbour, a three hour trek.  We then hike back to the cottage via the roads which takes about 1 1/2 hours.  Our goal is to be able to snowshoe back to Black's Point.

Al spent a day in Winnipeg shopping for our gear.  Being a true Winnipegger, he managed to find great a sale on jackets.  We also have day packs, duffel bags and head lights.  We have been trying out everything and are very pleased with everything so far.

We have also done a fair bit of reading about trekking and South America.

This is the site for the company we have signed on with.  The tour we are joining is the Inca Trail and the Amazon  Rainforest.  We are leaving April 16 and returning May 1.

http://www.exodus.co.uk/countries/peru-holidays/inca-trail?DCMP=EMC-Jan11_Episodes


Next is a video from Google Earth covering the area we will be in.


http://www.exodus.co.uk/assets/swf/trips/flash.html?width=610&height=519&nopad=true&code=tpjj


If anyone has interesting information about trekking or Peru we would be interested in hearing from you.