Shirley's Dip Snowshoe Trip - Jan 9, 2022

A beautiful winter day in the McQueen Lake area today on our quest to find Shirley's Dip - a curious name. Last summer we hiked the Community Grasslands Trail (a 14 km trail from McQueen Lake to Westsyde) starting from the McQueen Isobel Lake Road end. We enjoyed the lakes and forest in this area, so we returned to explore the McQueen Lake trails area later in the summer realizing that this would be a great area for snowshoeing. Of particular interest were Smiling Pond and Shirley's Dip identified on the trail map which we set as our destination for today. It was only -3C today so we were shedding clothing layers along the trail. For those that know the trails, we were on Blue, Yellow and Red cross country ski trails and working up a sweat for the better part of 3 hours. Early on we saw Bobcat tracks (big paw prints - see photo). Heading towards Shirley's Dip (a small pond) we saw moose tracks (see photo) - that beast was at a full speed going across the grassy area headed for the Dip! Hope to get a summer photo of Rena in Shirley's Dip to match the one in the snow...