Spring, Summer… Winter?

As the weather’s  been getting cooler here in Jasper, I started getting excited about the beautiful fall colours coming up. We had a couple of days where it was sunny, and warm, and the leaves were starting to turn yellow.

And then on Wednesday morning, I woke up and stepped outside to this:

 It snowed steadily throughout the day. By lunchtime, it looked like this:

Despite the snow, we were still riding. That morning we tacked up about half our horses (not expecting a busy day) and then I raced around taking photos, convinced the snow would melt and wanting to capture how pretty the yard looked.

Photos from around the yard:

The barns: 

The swing sets outside the office: 

The barn next door to us:

Our rides started headed out at the usual 9a.m. We made sure everyone was wearing gloves, warm clothes, and one of the large, waterproof slickers.  The first ride, heading out in the snow:

I was supposed to have a two-hour ride that morning, but my four guests decided it was too cold to ride that long and unanimously decided to go for a one-hour ride instead. (I was very happy with their decision. I love the snow, but I’m not crazy – it was cold!)

Some views from our trail yesterday. Bert was a trooper, and trucked through all the slippery snow and mud without complaint.

Start of the trail:

Walking through the snowy trees. The branches were all hanging low because they were so heavy from the snow. I tried to knock off some of the snow so that my guests wouldn’t run into the snowy branches, but we were all covered in snow by the end of it.

My guests, who were from Holland and Australia, told me they thought it looked like a Christmas card. They were exceptionally good sports about the weather, enjoying the beauty of it despite being very frozen. They joked they’d have to come back again sometime, to see what Jasper looks like in the summer.

Views from on top of the ridge:

That’s the Athabasca River far below. Normally we can see mountains from up here, too, but they were all covered by snow clouds.

Aspen forest near the end of the trail:

By about 3pm, with heavy snow still falling, it became too slippery to ride on the trails and we called it a day. We all went home to take hot showers and spend the rest of the day inside, drinking hot chocolate and watching movies.

The horses were pretty happy to head home too: