Trails Across The Prairies
Hanging on
With the temperatures across southern Alberta forecasted to be in the +7 Celsius range on this day (Feb 1, 2021), I took advantage to get out with my hybrid longbow and tramp around in the grass hills bordering the Bow river valley south of Dalemead AB, as the forecast is for a change in the weather over the next couple of days with snow and cold temperatures in the forecast for southern AB.
Of course it was a given that along with the warm temperatures, the wind would be putting in an appearance. When I arrived at where I would leave my truck, the wind was blowing up a storm, my Kestrel handheld weather instrument was indicating the wind gusting to 32 km/h out of the SSE.
Still, even with the temperature sitting at +2 Celsius, it wasn't all that bad as I was wearing my wool pull-over jacket over top of a MEC windproof inner jacket, the perfect combination for warmth and keeping the wind at bay along with insulated pants and gaiters over my hiking boots.
Once I arrived at the south facing ridges overlooking the valley, the wind was doing a real number on everything including myself when I set up my pocket camera for a quick photo. Not apparent in the photo is the grass and myself being pushed about by the wind, requiring that I set a high shutter speed on my camera to keep everything from blurring due to the camera mounted on its snow-peg mount also being battered by the wind, while I attempted to keep still while observing the view to the south.
Regardless of the wind, I enjoyed a couple of hours out and about, although it was tough to keep my arrows flying to their intended targets when released from my bow with the wind calling the shots.
Expand the photo for a closer look.....
