A big weekend in Chilliwack

Ricky and I both spent a lot of our racing careers in Chilliwack.  It's a great training venue for both mountain bike and slalom racing, but other opportunities abound.  For my part, I didn't quite realize to what extent until I 'retired' and pursued a more diverse set of interests.  I was in Chilliwack again this weekend, the river was at a great water level, and I didn't go paddling. 

After an all-nighter in the car, I arrived on Saturday morning and needed to stretch my legs out and get some fresh air.  So I drove up to Elk Mt. and ran up it.   35 minutes and you're here, with big views of the Fraser Valley.

(Elk Mountain)

Then we got down to business.  

We're racing RedBull's Divide and Conquer next weekend.  This year, we've teamed up with Joren Titus, a man not bound by gravity - this dude can run uphill - and we aim to repeat.  Last year's race was super fun, with three hard legs and a very strong field.  This year will be no different - we're going head-to-head with lots of old friends and sparring partners.

Anyway, we're working with Mt. Waddington's Outdoors and Clearbrook Coffee Company this year, helping to promote their Fraser Valley businesses.  So we have a team car.

We painted and stickered it up on Saturday afternoon and put on a barbecue for the whole crew.

Sunday morning brought the Vedder Mountain Super-D race for Ricky and the same ride for Connor, Melanie, and I.  Vedder has some of the best mountain bike trails in the world and they were in incredible shape.  So many bridges, stunts, and bermed corners.  Places to open up and places to hang on for dear life.  From the high trail, The Den, you can stretch the downhill out for 20 minutes!  

(Race start)

There were over 100 racers.  I think that's the FVMBA's best turn-out ever.  Ricky broke his bike about half-way down and coasted to 8th place, less than a minute off the pace.    

(Ricky, sending it)

Straight after the race, it was back in the car and off to ski Mt. Cheam.  

The dudeman car was packed to the gills, with Ricky, Nathan, Melanie, Connor, Jon, and I, and Max the dog making the trip.  Nevertheless, with a little pushing, tailpipe collateral damage, and some strategic rock placements, we got it all the way to the snowline.  

(Oops)

With just a few km to the base of the mountain, we made quick progress and were up to the saddle in a few hours.  It was late and the weather wasn't so great - we were socked in a few times on the climb - but the snow was, so we turned it around and got in some good turns on the way down.

(A man and his dog)

(Nathan Etsell, Ricky, Connor, Melanie, and Max take in the view of Lady Peak and Jones Lake)

 (Connor, hucking it out of a natural booter)

 All in all, about as good as weekends get.  And all right in the backyard.

Dudeman, where's my car? continued

A few months ago, we wrote about the ultimate Dudemobile.  Since, several new candidates have emerged:  

(The Legomobile.)

Compact, fuel-efficient, with excellent feel for the road, the Legomobile speaks for itself.

(Mel's Hotdog)

The advantage of Mel's Hotdog is obvious - it has the highest front-end crash safety rating of any car ever.   

(The Popemobile.)

If the pope had died, I might have thought twice before making fun of him.  But he retired.  And the new pope is too humble for this kind of car.  It's perfect for the Dudeman on display.  

(Find your path.)

This Pathfinder probably crashed Kijiji.  Any Pathfinder is a solid choice; this one, as described, is perfect.

(Tried and true.)

Miraculously, this 1947 Toyota Tercel 4x4 has withstood the test of time.  It requires no muffler, it's a beauty, and it easily goes 70 kph.

(A poor imitation of Mel's Hotdog.)

Did you know that some cars have aerodynamics that rival those of golfballs?  It's true.  Just leave any car out in the hail.  

What's the right car for the dudeman?  You decide.

free polls

The Waddington Hut trip

This past weekend, we went into the Waddington Hut in the Birkenhead area north of Pemberton.  

Ricky has the full report on rickyfederau.blogspot.com already.  

The hut was busy and another group wrote a trip report too.  They neglected to mention the incident and so I did.  They took it down, so here it is again.  

"You didn’t tell us about Sunday night, Louie.  Please, allow me.

To start, the Waddington Hut has a voluntary registration system.  There were 14 people registered to stay last weekend and around 30 at the hut.  If you plan to go, register here - http://www.ubc-voc.com/wiki/VOC_hut_registration.  You don’t have to, but you should.  It helps everyone to plan and know what to expect. 

On Sunday night, 29 of us listened to Kyle Miller drone on and on and on about himself as we tried to go to sleep.  Never before have I met such an obnoxious, self-absorbed jackass in the backcountry.  (Go to the hill!  You’ll fit right in.)  The quintessential FIGJAM (Fuck, I’m good.  Just ask me), a BIG DEAL.  He’s got a website:

“The “Where is Kyle Miller??” Project is a backcountry initiative dedicated to the exploration of new lines and dramatic descents in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.”

You call it a project, an initiative.  I call it a weekend.  Whatever.  I doubt this is the first time Kyle has referred to himself in the third person. 

Anyways, eventually even Kyle gets tired of listening to himself talk and we all go to sleep.   For an hour.

Then Louie gets sick.  He throws up.  On himself, on a few other people.  He looks like he’s going to do it again and he doesn’t move.  Someone says ‘Dude, you gotta get out of here’ and he wanders downstairs, leaving behind a loft packed tight with groggy skiers and a big mess.  It’s mostly box wine.

Most of Louie’s party disowns him, since they ‘all only met a few days ago’.  And they start making excuses - like ‘Well, he skied all day’.  Um, like we didn’t.  That’s kind of what people go to huts for.  We just didn’t get drunk on box wine.  Louie doesn’t come back upstairs.  Those puked on start cleaning themselves up, until KYLE TO THE RESCUE!  To be sure, Kyle helps, but he won’t stop fucking talking about how great he is for helping while he’s helping.  He also memorably says ‘Look, we’ve all been here before’.   We have?  Nope.  I guess that’s how the pros are different from the everyman.  Eventually, someone asks him to shut up and just go back to bed. 

Louie won’t talk to anyone the next morning.  No clean up.  No apology.  He just pretends it never happened.  Like in this trip report. 

Communal huts don’t work unless everyone acts as if they’re part of the community. 

Check your egos at the door."

For the record, Louie has since apologized.  It happens that huts can be busy and people get sick.  No one is pissed about that.  

I'm just bringing everyone back down to earth, where the mountains are big, the people are small, we forget about the rat race, and just have a good time.  You'll be a better skier for it, and (much more importantly) a better person.

Dudeman of the week - Vince Osborne

A few years ago, I got a call from Vince Osbourne.

Vince - Do you want to do this 36-hour adventure race?

Toby - OK.

Vince - Anything else you need to know?

Toby - I don't think so.  Oh wait, I guess I need to know when it is.

And we went from there.  

In that race, the harder it got, the more tired I was, the faster he seemed to go.  This guy saw briars and bogs and he put the gas pedal through the floor!  We've been chasing each other around the mountains on most weekends since.

Last weekend, Vince - whose age now starts with a 4 and with a baby on the way - is up front breaking trail, holding his own in a pull-up contest, and sending it down big pillow lines.

Photo: Yannick Letailleur

Full dudeman, Vince Osborne, full dudeman.

The Yaar! traverse

Earlier this month, Andy Traslin got some play for climbing both Yak and Nak mountains in the Coquihalla ski area in a day.  We see your Yak - Nak and raise you a Thar.

A few days ago, we considered doing the Nar (Nak - Thar) traverse, but once up there, we wanted to see it from the other side before we skied it.  So yesterday, Ricky and I set out to do laps on Thar to check it out.  This is what we ended up doing

No GPS.  Just great drawing with a mouse.

the Yaaar traverse, or Thar - Nak - Yar.  

There was already a skintrack in between Thar and Nak, but it eventually broke left and contoured around Nak.  We used it to start up Thar and then traversed around the bowl.  

From the back of the bowl.  Nak front right, Yak behind.

After skiing Thar, we returned to the track and took it all the way up Nak.  

Ricky scopes it out.  Nak and Yak from the top of Thar.

The weather wasn't great on top of Nak and there's awesome glades to ski below, so we did a run all the way down off it.  

As we climbed back out, vis improved and we decided to give Yak a shot as well.

The last pitch of Yak.

The climb up Yak is somewhat exposed, but less so if you go all the way to the saddle between Nak and Yak in the trees and then traverse across the face.  That's what we did.  The last 150 m. are steep, but yesterday, snow conditions were good.  That made for fairly straightforward climbing to the summit and great skiing right from the top.

Ricky, from the summit of Yak.

If you're just in it to bag the peaks, you could do it much more efficiently.  But there's great skiing on all three, so it's worth taking a few runs down along the way.

Hey Snowshoes! Step off my track, bro.

Last weekend,  we climbed up Nak at the Coquihalla to ski it.  A few times.  There were also some snowshoers there.  They apparently didn't want to break a trail.  So they used ours, and wrecked it.  So we made another one on the second lap.  Then they came down, used our new one, and wrecked it too.

Besides for safety, there aren't a lot of 'rules' in the backcountry and that's for the better.  I don't like people telling me what to do either.  But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any etiquette.

The quintessential nature of the backcountry is of self-reliance.  When you go into the backcountry, you should be prepared to take care of yourself, fend for yourself.  That means, be prepared to rescue yourself, get stuck out there by yourself, and to blaze trail for yourself.  Not prepared to do that?  Go somewhere else.  There are resorts, lodges, guides, and trails that cater to exactly those folks.

These were those folks - for all intents and purposes, lost without the skintrack and not going very far if they had to do it for themselves anyway.

Now, I realize that someone else's trail is often the path of least resistance and, if it's there, I use it too.  But skintracks and snowshoeing trails are two different animals - one is for skiing; one is for walking.  I'm not going to ski all over your trail, and you shouldn't walk all over my track.  I also won't cut any overhead slopes on you or spray you in the face with blower pow.  Deal?

There's plenty of room in the backcountry to go around.

Dudeman, where's my car?

Vancouver won a prestigious award this week:

#2 in traffic!

The obvious solution is the triplet the Port Mann.

Or, people should just live closer to where they work.  If you work in Vancouver, live there.  If you live in Abbotsford and you're going to get in your car at 6 AM, it better be to the Coquihalla.  There is never a traffic jam heading east.  Ever.

The dudeman doesn't commute.  Rule number 8, or whatever rule we're on.

But the dudeman does need a car.  He's going places, just not to work.

I present three fully capable options.

The Classic Tercel wagon

Conquering the Mt. Cheam fire road.

It's four-wheel drive, it's got loads of space, and it's cheap.  This car will tackle anything, at speeds up to 80 km per hour.

The hail-damaged insurance write-off

It's ruined.

This can be any car, per se.  The important thing is that, although there's nothing actually wrong with it, it has no value.  Hence, there can be no further objections to racking up tons of miles and taking it places you probably shouldn't.

This Pathfinder

Dudeman makes a compelling case, which requires no further elaboration.  Unless you're this guy, he's not going to sell it to you.