How to ski for free!

Monday was a day off for the rest of my classmates who are doing their wilderness first responder course so of course everyone was heading to the ski hill!  I met up with a couple of the powder hounds in our class and we hit up some slackcountry (backcountry skiing out of bounds at ski hills).  Here are a few pictures from monday!

After a couple of rest days my legs where back to shape so it seemed like as good of a time as any to head back to the ski hill.  Me and my roommate Justin found a ride out to the hill with a lifty but she was staying the night so we needed to find a way to get back on our own...well paying for a hostel was too expensive and a hotel was out of the question, so what does every good mountain man do?  Snow cave!!!!  We spent thursday skiing all day and just before it got dark me and justin put on our climbing skins and crossed the out of bounds line to find a good place to dig in for the night.  After a little bit of uphill work we found a nice snow drift and dug in for the night.

There was a minor miscommunication leaving us with food a stove but no fuel for the night so after eating a few granola bars and apples it was off to sleep.  Our snow cave was cozy but the design we chose didnt quite work out the way we wanted it leaving us sleeping on a slanted platform...we were fighting gravity all night but managed to sneak in a few hours of sleep.  We woke up to one of the most incredible views I have seen since my trip to the bugaboos this summer.  We were treated with a wonderful sunrise and then started packing up our frozen gear.  Needless to say we got first tracks on the hill and then headed to the lodge to warm up and dry some gear.  A few friends joined us in the late morning to enjoy the fresh snow we got over the night!

 

School is done!!! Back to playing!

Well the past week and a half I've felt like a real student!  All fun aside it was time to buckle down and get my papers written, my exams studied for and completed...But now thats all a distant memory!  While most of my fellow students are doing their  80 hour wilderness first responder course...a few of us are feeling pretty lucky that we already did that course.  So to pass our time while we wait for everyone to finish its long suffering days at the local ski hill sun peaks!!!!  The weather was looking nice saturday morning when me jessie and justin loaded up the car and headed out.  It was all smiles as we headed up the lift for our first run of the year!

The trees where white, the snow was thin....but we were not in class anymore!  After a few runs I heard my phone ringing mid run...Another classmate arrived at the base so we sped off to meet him and complete our team to make an even four.

We skied all day and learned where to good runs were on our new hill...it was smiles all around and you could hear shouts and WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE's all the way down the runs...we were treated with beautiful views everywhere we looked, so without further adue...i will stop talking and let you see the goods!

Well Ive got a week of nothing but skiing to look forward to...hopefully my muscles will forgive me for it!

ICE IS IN!

Well, for the past month I have been in school mode.  Listening to lectures, speakers and writing papers out the wazoo!  Putting a 30 or so adults who still suffer from sitting still for more than 45 minutes is a recipe for disaster!  To handle this the teachers make sure we have breaks every hour...for some of us however, this is not enough.  We remedied this for the first part of the month by pushing the rock climbing season until the bitter end but once we received our first blanket of snow we had a bit of a problem...the snow was too thin to ski, the ice was still water and there are no established drytooling areas that I know of.  Well a couple weeks ago I was doing a bit of a day hike and I came upon this only 20 minutes of walking from my house!

What a find!  Kamloops has plenty of interesting outdoor 'stuff' around it but my lack of car(or drivers license for that matter)  make it difficult to get out sometimes.  Well, problem solved!  But not only is this find great for my lack of transportation but this means I can run a few laps on my way home from school every day!  So ever since the find I have been going back to see how the freezing process happens.  On saturday me and Scott headed down and things were close!  But still too wet to climb.  well two days later and consistent cold weather brings me to this morning...I woke up to a cold morning after a cold night.  Scott called me telling me he was in for a look before class(with ice tools this time!).  I was tired and he was leaving fast so I bailed on him but decided to head down on my own when I had properly woken up.  After a small breakfast and quickly packing my gear, I was out the door greeted by a crisp morning cold!  After hiking into the valley and two somewhat simple rappels down to the base of the falls i was given the good news!  Now for those of you who have never paid attention to how water falls freeze up, here is what those two (seemingly) small water falls turned into only a couple weeks later.             

                                                

I fixed a rappel line down the main falls and quickly zipped down!  After a couple of laps up my hands were cold and papers were calling my name.  I was pleased with the climb so i hauled up my frozen rappel line packed up my gear and started walking home.  Well now its back to writing papers but what a great start to the morning...some people wake up to a cup of tea, some like a cup of coffee...but frozen water is my preference, and ill take mine double double!

Heres a few more pictures from the day.

Sorting out my gear at the top

View of the highway that cuts through kamloops from the

top of the climb

Notice my gear on the tarp, the rope was coated in ice

and the screws were completely clogged with ice.

Ending one season in order to recover for the next

Well today was a bittersweet end to the rock climbing season.  Three of my fellow students and i pulled together a somewhat last minute trip out to marble canyon today....The weather looked good enough and though chilly we decided that one last climb for the season was in order.  

Well it all went well for the first four pitches and then we got on the hardest part of the climb and something about the day just shut me down and my head just wasn't in this climb that i had climbed two weeks earlier!  So rather than push things we admitted defeat and began heading down.

As i began pulling the final rappel rope down someone looked up and realized there was a knot tied in the end(for those of you not fluent in rappelling systems, this situation would mean the rope would be stuck in the anchor)  Well we were fortunate that the rope was just within reach of a bolt protected climb about four bolts off the ground.  So once again I began climbing up.  A few moves up I felt a shot of pain through my left hand, forearm and finger.  As they lowered me down on the rope I realized that rock climbing was over for the season.  

So here I sit trying to learn how to type with this chunk of metal on my finger as I have many papers due this month.  

Though climbing is done for the season, things arn't so bad.  As temperatures start to drop ice climbing is beginning to creep on to everyones mind and skiing is just around the corner.  But for now its back to the books and climbing one handed at the gym!  I wish everyone joy as the cold creeps in and hope that some of you are as excited for it as me!  Until next time!

Follow me

Follow.  A word that means trust.  Trust in my experience and trust in my knowledge.  Trust that I am paying attention to the world around me, that i can read the signs around me.  Trust that I can lead you.  Trust that you can follow me.

Plain and simple I am working towards becoming an ACMG(association of canadian mountain guides, www.acmg.ca) Full Mountain Guide.  After wandering around since high school I have found a job that satisfies my restlessness, constantly evolves, requires constant learning and inspires and excites me.  Though i grew up seeing the mountains on a regular basis, still to this day they make my heart race and over the last couple years i have indulged myself in learning both the hard and soft skills of mountain travel.  And what have I learned?  That i will never have learned enough.  But what an exciting world to live in.

I am currently at the Thompson Rivers University in the Adventure Guide Diploma(http://www.tru.ca/tourism/adventure/adventurediploma.html).  To become a full mountain guide i will need to spend the next 10 or so years developing and perfecting my skills in the areas of rock climbing back country skiing and mountaineering.  So far I have spent alot of time perfecting my rock climbing skills and plan to spend the next couple of summers getting ready for my assistant rock guide exam.

But enough boring talk.  I said that to follow, one needs to trust the experience of the leader.  So I invite you to follow me as my experience grows and if nothing else let me give you a glimpse into a world that many only see in the cliche mountain photos they use in inspirational calendars and perhaps, someday, you will follow me into that world and allow me to provide you with the adventures that inspire me so much!