Monday, July 28, 2008

"best hike ever" C-dawg.

I got a bunch of stuff on the list and this week I checked off 3 things. Number one was get to the top of mt baker, I did that with Toby and Kurt on Wednesday morning. Then #2 was to kayak the canyon in Chilliwack, so Saturday I did just that with Kurt and Jon and it was sweet, I killed some rapids and made some sweet moves. But half way down I kind of messed up and flipped up side down and just could not roll up and I had to pull the cord, so yes full on SWIMMMER!!!!! and I made sure I swam right in front of all the rafts that were coming down. I guess I just like to swim with a audience. Sunday was #3 when I did the lions with Kurt, Nathan, and Claire. The day started off as any good day should with waffle breakfast made by my mom then we drove out to van just loaded on coffee and waffles and chocolate syrup then we went to the top of the lions. There was a ton of fog at the start but the sky was in full on bluing mode and it was one for the books! Kurt said it was the best hike he has ever done “best ever!”







Thursday, July 24, 2008

Too Much Fun

So I got this new job working for pac sport doing these summer kids sport camps. They kind of pay me to play fun sports with 8-12year olds. Highlights of last week were gymnastics, archery, beach volleyball, and the real kicker is I got to water ski on Friday. Anyhow there is no camp this week and I got the whole week off. So I have been hitting the adventures hard. The last couple weeks have been filled with skiing on baker with Marty, Racing Padden lake(on the same day as skiing baker), doing the grouse grind in 29:35, Racing the Bear mt challenge, Hiking mt Macfarlane, Kayaking Alison Pools to pointa vista, and hiking mt baker right to the top! Here are a bunch of photos.
Racing BC cup on Red mt in mission, I won and had fun and the course was wicked technical and my arms were worked, I won this race due to the fact that I got huge pipes! ha.
The top of mt Macfarlane in the Wack with Tara and Nathan, thats Slesse over Nathans right shoulder.
Macfarlane log book.

foot skiing on Macfarlane, weeeeeeeeeee. Tara was a little freaked out.
Kurt, Toby and I just got back from doing baker. We had no idea how long it would take so we gave our selfs lots of time to get it done. So we went up Tuesday morning at like 9, you know post tour and waffle breakfast at the farm. We pissed around at the ranger station asking questions for a while, most of the questions were based on how to poo in the blue bags. We then figured out that we would just repel into a crevasse and yell bombs away and use the blue bags for food. We hiked up to the base of the glacier and it took only 1hr then we set up camp and it was like noon, then we played in the snow for the afternoon practicing how to rescue each other in case we had problems. It was then 4 and we ate some mr noddles and went to sleep at 6pm. We woke and 3am and ate oats and coffee and hit the mt. We got to the top of baker at 8 and waited for the fog to clear for a hour but Kurt was about to freeze to death so we then went down and were back at the car at noon. No view. I think you could do it in a day with no problems, baker is not very hard, I want to ski it!
C-dawg and toby about to get to the top.
The boys at the top, view of Abbotsford in the background
Hey Marty, how is your Fernie mug doing? my mug was loving it on the top of baker!

Padden lake, it is true what they say, nice guys dont always win.
Skiing baker the morning of padden lake race.

More Macfarlane.



Sunday, July 06, 2008

Almost getting killed then going to Whistler.

Thursday morning at 7am I go for a paddle with Anna and Bret. Bret is kind of new to this whole white water kayak thing so he just ran the shuttle for me and Anna on the upper part of the river and then he was going to join us when the water calmed down a little lower down river. The river is raging cause its been like 35c out for the last week and that snow that I have been skiing on is now on its way to the ocean. Me and Anna put in at Tamihi, I got worked right away, but my roll is solid and I used it like 5 more times and I even got stuck in a hole and almost swam but no swims for me! Then we get to this place were there is a bunch of wood in the river and Anna goes first and gets stuck on this log and I am floating towards this log just watching Anna get worked and then she pulled the cord and swam from her boat. Long story short I huck huge air off this log and float upside down under the rest of the logs and roll up on the other side, total fluke but I will take it now I fallow Anna's boat down river and get it out like 4km later. Bret almost called search and rescue when he saw me float by with Anna's boat with no Anna in it. We all made it out alive and all we lost was a nice kober paddle. So if anyone finds a paddle talk to Anna. After this is was time to pack up the car with all outdoor gear know to man and go to whistler and have some fun for 3 days.

Once I got up there I stayed with the Routley's. As soon as I got in the drive way Keith Ray was there and we went and floated our kayaks down the uber high green river. After that it was off to the weekey thursday night loonie race. I have never done a loonie race before, but I have heard all about it. What normally goes down is 300 people pay 2 bucks and they race around for like an hour and then do a post race apres. This weeks race was a little different because they were doing a fund raiser and there was no official apres cause the money they normally spend went to the charity and same with the prize money I would have won for winning. Yeah, thats right I won the loonie by 11seconds, I broke my chain and had to ran the last 10minuts and barely hung on for the W! I guess thats what you get for throwing down the power. Normally you win 50 bills for winning but it all went to the charity, so I feel a little good about myself, its all good. So no official apres but there was plenty off food and drink that people brought to the finish and the post race BS is always top notch. They raised $2,300. everyone should do a loonie race in there life time.

Day Two was going to be a epic day out on the road bike. We are going to ride up the duffey lake road and back to whistler its like a 140km road ride with a 14km steep climb up to Joffre lake. Tony and I meet Tyler Alison at Dusty's and some how ran into a injured Jeff Beaty who was just waking up off the sidewalk from a late night bender at Dusty's. Tony is in the 50-60 category and has won medals at master world championships and Tyler is 16 and is the great hope of the nation to win medals at Olympics in like 4years. We rode out and I just tore those guys a new one up the climb up to Joffre. The weather was so nice the whole ride but it just pissed ran on the decent into Pemberton and we all froze to death then at the bottom the sun was out and it was 25c. We stopped at the gas station 35km from home and loaded up on some sugar to get us home. Tyler being the Junior it was up to him to get the crazy stuff so pizza pretzel and a family pack of licorice was the order of the day. We had an insane head wind on the way home and I had to tow those boys back, for Tyler it was the longest road ride he had done ever. Tony and I get back and Tony opens up the fridge and one of the sponsors for Team Whistler, Whistler brewery gave him a bunch of beer and we sat there and drank it, what a great day. Oh yeah before the ride I kayaked down the river again but we went at 7am and was riding road bikes by 10, sometimes you just got to pack the adventures in.

Day three I had just one more thing I wanted to do and that was go on a epic whistler single track ride. So I meet up with local legend Eric Crowe, aka “crowe man”and we did “thrill me, Kill me” and its all just rocks and roots and little bridges and short ups and short downs and hard, hard single track. Thrill me kill me took like 45-1hr to do then it was up to “comfortably numb” and its more of the same. CN is 24km long and they say it takes 4-7hrs to do, so its not for the weak. Crow man ran out of gas and cut out early but I kept it rolling and finished the trail in about 2hrs and 15min. After this ride my arms and worked, and my hands are so sore from braking and shifting so much, you are just on the gas the whole time, its quite a ride. OK I am going to pass out for a couple days now.
4-7hrs, yeah its the real deal!
I was loving it!
Crowe man was worked! time to go home
team whistlers recovery drink of choice
go to your home ball! monday night I watched happy gilmore then tueday I played a round! four!!!!!!
just before the take out of the green river. so much fun!
tyler and tony just before the climb.
the white water course at Rutherford looks like its pumping eh?
eating food after thrill me kill me. mmmmmm

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

I have now skied in all 4 seasons!

This past weekend was just unreal! So Friday the day after the redneck BBQ I went and rode baker from chilliwack, it was 214km when it was all said and done and it was so amazing, the road up to artist point was not open all the way but the excavators cleared a single path for quite a ways up the road and it was like riding single track with 20ft walls of snow on each side. On the way way home I some how lost my birth certificate so if anyone finds it out there please return. Then saturday night I a group of us went to run the river from Alison Pools to pointa vista. The river is raging cause its 33c out and all that snow that I have been skiing on is really melting. The top of Tamihi is very insane, the raft company even lets people get out and walk if they dont want to go down it. But I went for it and the first little bit went good then I got tossed upside down, but I rolled up and then was backwards but I still made it. So I went down the hardest part of the river upside down and backwards. The rest of the run went smooth. After that I had to go clean out my shorts. Then Sunday wast the ultimate day. I went for a wicked mt bike ride first thing on Vedder, I rode my favorite run. The Den, REFFER, Mongoloid, mexican ninja, and Femur. Then I went and kayaked down the river from tamihi to pointa vista and I was on fire! Its so hot out I was just busting rolls to keep cool! Then after that I went home and ate some food and packed my snow skis in the car and drove up to cheam. Somehow out of the blue I ran in to my Cousin Cam on the quad and he said that the rest of the family is at this camp site so I drove there and told them what I was doing and they said they would drive me up to the top! I would sure rather spend the 2hrs skiing on snow then hiking up some gravel road. The quad ride up was insane, my uncle rick drove the quad and he was flying, I had no helmet on and am trying to hold on to my pack with my skis and poles and he is just hucking the quad off all the water bars and just flying. Then I skied/hiked/scambled for 5hrs and my cousin Craig picked me up and drove me down. The ride down was much more sane. Thanks Craig. Once I got down there was a camp fire and they even feed me some left over BBQ chicken, mmmmm. I went cliff jumping yesterday and today I am golfing at the falls. Then I am going up to whistler to bike, paddle and ski. If anyone out there knows anyone in Squamish/Whistler that might want to take me out on a river run please let me know. Here are some photos from the skiing on cheam/lady that I did.

The best way to get up mt cheam road!
skiing with shorts on! note the tan line!
View of cheam from the top of Lady peak. I just skied down that!
Top of Lady looking at mt baker.
top of lady looking at the Fraser Valley.