What's up hive
Can't sleep, the heat will melt me! Seriously tho...this is nuts, even for here in the land of barely any moisture whatsoever winter or summer (Yes we are the desert of Canada, we are just not all sandy...well it is under the top soil but anyways). We have cacti, badlands, permanent clear blue skies with days that last forever. That's why I live here but it has it's setbacks...when it gets hot, it gets hot! Normally things cool at night but not the last few days. We have set up the air mattress in the basement where it's cool-ish because this is too much even for me.
Being pretty close to a desert, we don't get much rain and it gets real dry. When it's like this, it's real bad for wildfires. Normally when we get a heat wave as severe as this, we get brutal thunderstorms that set wildfires in the middle of the forest and spread quickly. Been a while since we had rain, this isn't going to be good. At a critical point on the ongoing Residential school searches have revealed over 100 more unmarked graves in B-C and churches are being burned down. Not that I have a beef with that per say given the recent findings but it is dangerous conditions to be setting fires and it could really get out of hand and fast. I think when the beast tore thru Fort Mcmurray, it marked all of Alberta forever, at least for our lifetime until no one is alive to remember it. I hope we don't see another devastating event like that again, especially not now after what we have already gone thru globally for the past year and a half.
One small town in B-C wasn't so lucky tonight, recorded some of the highest temperatures during this heat wave. Today, the town caught fire and burned down in 15 minutes, the whole town gone. They don't even know if everyone got out all the phone lines are down naturally and they have no idea where everybody went. It had to be a pretty fast evacuation. The cause of the fire isn't yet determined. My heart goes out to the folks of Lytton B-C.
Again in B-C, there has been a surge in sudden deaths due to the heat wave killing 500 in the last few days, over double the norm. If you are living in western Canada or US (or anywhere hot), stay hydrated my friends. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables especially those with high water content. It will help. I can't seem to be able to drink water fast enough but I made some pasta salad with mostly vegetables in it including lots of cucumbers (ewww but super hydrating and cooling). It does make me feel a lot better for a little while. I want to go cool down in a river somewhere but I'm still all sunburned from the hike so I better not go in the sun for a bit, my skin is super itchy as it is now that it's healing.
They are announcing some relief for us in Alberta tomorrow with a cool 24 Celsius, I would normally call that hot but not today. Almost jumping for joy. The highest temperature recorded was Jasper at 41, glad I baked in the rocks of Wilcox pass at almost half of that! I wonder how much snow this is going to melt up there. I'm gonna spoil a few details from future posts but not too much. The Athabasca glacier (the hill with the steps) recedes 5 meters per year, these super heat events must aggravate it something fierce. To be honest with you, I think it will be gone in my lifetime given what it looked like when we hiked. we noticed some things that I will get into soon I'm sure. I plan on making a post just for it alone.
Lake Agnes was full of ice when we did the hike less than a week ago, I saw a picture taken yesterday and it was completely melted, that was fast! I'm just happy we went wen we did, this heat would have poo-pooed all over our hiking plans. There might be some dum-dums out there baking in the rocks regardless, not this dum-dum! When I say it's like walking in a clay oven. it really is. The rocks just reflects the sun and heat right at you, so does the snow. When we did consolation lakes the trail was flooded and we had to Indiana Jones our way across a boulder field, I don't want to image touching them rocks when it's 40 degrees and crossing that giant boulder field.
I remember doing a hike in Kananaskis a few years back when it was like 35 and there was a large portion of just rocks of a 20 km hike, I learned my lesson there on out. Dried me out so much I felt like a raisin for days. All the dust sucks the moisture right out too, that rock flour (glacier dust) is real fine. When I say, don't go hiking in 40 degrees, this is real. You don't want to heat stress on top of a mountain or on a trail. I'm getting hot just talking about it!
Yesterday when I had my slurpy bath daydream, we chose for the healthier option of going to Tim Hortons and order a couple of frozen strawberry lemonades, super delish by the way but it came up to $9. What? For 2 glasses of icy juice? What a rip off. They are good but not that good! Today we took our 9 dollars and bought 2x 2L of strawberry lemonade, stuck one in the freezer, give it a shake every so often, wen it gets just right, back in the fridge and switching it back and forth every few hours gave us the perfect frozen drink. Pretty refreshing...Take that Timies with your 4.5 dollar glass of juice. I swear that's how I survive this crazy heat wave. Stay cool my friends, wherever you are! Time for me to take my chill lemonade to my chill basement! xox