The boyfriend and I had one absolutely incredible day at Blue Mountain scenic caves yesterday, all thanks to my cousin Natalie who invited us to attend in the Tubb’s Romp To Stomp snowshoe event. I have a massive amount of photos to post, it was so difficult to narrow them down. Just wanted to show you how amazing it was there.
I hadn’t worn snow shoes since I was in grade school and back then we had massive heavy tennis racquet like things strapped to our feet. I remember it being difficult. So I had no idea how to put on these new devices. I borrowed mine from Tubb’s, and the Boyfriend received a free pair from Tubbs, (thanks to Natalie for hooking him up).
Keeping leg warmers in style. My legs were super toasty since I had wool socks up to my knees, thick leggings from Mondetta, and then leg warmers.
We had the absolute picture perfect day for Romp to Stomp. So sunny, not a gust of wind and freshly fallen snow after Friday’s 30-35cm snow storm which hit a lot of Southern Ontario. Great conditions for a 5k walk in the park ;)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
I wasn’t sure how many people to expect, and was pleasantly surprised at the number of people in snow shoes waiting to start!
Romp To Stomp brought out so many fun people. I was smiling throughout the whole walk with people carrying on and being funny. I mean, check out their fun dress-up gear everyone was wearing. Loads of feather boa’s, boobie scarves, tutu’s and bras outside of their clothing. Plus, there were volunteers every few hundred meters with Romp To Stomp signs and keeping us all motivated to finish the walk.
This was only the 5k walkers. Not including the 3k race, or 3k walkers!
The boyfriend reveals himself from his internet animosity to showcase he was truly there with his Tubbs snowshoe’s. Ha!
I swear this is a little downhill. You can’t tell in the photo, but I was scared —thus holding onto the tree to help me down this decent. Believe it or not it’s easier going uphill in snowshoes.
The walk seemed longer than 5k. At the halfway mark I thought we were done. Oops. Walking in snowshoes clearly isn’t as fast as a 5k running race. So, I decided to break out in a little dance for everyone. Just kidding I was completely falling on my butt here and The Boyf took the photo mid-fall.
I wasn’t left out though, other’s also had a difficult time with the snowshoes. Woman down! Part way through the trail, we had to go on a suspension bridge. I smiled through my tears, promise. Just kidding. No tears were shed. Thankfully I’m not afraid of heights but imagine if some people were? The walk across the suspension bridge worked out well, until someone started jumping on it and terrifying me. It was swaying so much I literally had to hold onto the hand rails.
Awesome snowshoe signs everywhere on the trail.
I let the Boyfriend be the photographer-extraordinaire shortly after. I didn’t want to bail on my ass again and ruin my camera.
Look how sunny and bright it was on the trail! Like I said, a very picture-perfect day.
Posin’ for photos!
Getting ready for the last ‘climb’.
The last part of the trail was the hilliest, but we managed! Here I am coming across the finish line. I think it ended up taking us the better part of an hour and a half due to all the stopping for photos and just admiring the views from the mountain.
A total of over $40,000 was raised for the Canadian Breast Cancer foundation at yesterday’s event. Afterwards, participants were given out snacks from the Maple Lodge Farms crew that were there with the huge trailer. My chicken hot dog was wolfed down.
Also spotted my cousin Natalie! Natalie the event planner, Nancy the event attender.
Upon waiting for our shuttle back to our vehicles, we were greeting with loot bags! Loved how they even have personalized Romp To Stomp pink bags. Not only that, I spotted my favorite snack in the entire world in there. Popcorn from Kernels. No joke. I’ve said it before on the blog. But when the Boyf goes away for work, I sometimes have popcorn for supper.
I want to thank eventSing and Tubbs for hooking us up to attend Romp To Stomp in Collingwood, which benefited the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.
I will be putting another blog post up about the Tubbs Journey snowshoes The Boyf received. We literally had zero accumulation of snow until the weekend of Romp To Stomp, and the event was the first time he wore them for more than 10 minutes. Stay tuned for that.
I’m going on week 7 of being here in St. John’s Newfoundland, and I’m making the most of spending time up here in my old hometown during this super cold Canadian winter. Last weekend my climbing buddy Lori (who visited me last year for our Yosemite Climbing trip!) and I went snowshoeing around Pippy Park.
Lori already owned snowshoes, and me being illprepared for how long I was going to be home, didn’t have much snow-gear besides a winter coat and hat. So just like old times, she brought over everything for me to wear to snowshoe.
I wore her Arc’teryx snow pants, and her two shell jackets that were super warm, along with a buff to put around my neck, and I even wore her mittens. Man, what a pal… let me tell ya. I had a time! I didn’t even have proper footwear to wear (I leave my UGGs at home, and I only brought my riding boots which aren’t insulated). So I popped on my Mother’s winter boots and went off for a bit of snowshoeing.
At Pippy Park you can rent your gear whether it be cross country skiis, or snowshoes + poles by the hour. They keep your ID and once you get back you pay your fee. It’s so inexpensive too: $5.00/hour. We ended up doing all the loops of the trails (about 4 or 5 loops) and we were going at obviously a walking pace, stopping to take photos, and to chat – and it still was only about an hour to do it all. So for $5.00 and a bit of fun, it was well worth it!
I filmed some footage of our adventure, but I don’t have the software here on my Mom’s computer to upload it to YouTube, so that’ll have to wait until I get back to California.
(By the way, had a family friend ask me if anyone in St. John’s was paying me to shout out to local companies. They are not. No one knows I am writing about them … and I don’t get paid for ANY blogging I do – so I suppose you can honestly say you can trust my judgement when I mention places? Lol)
