my last little while in kamloops for the season

Well school has come to an end...finished my last field courses, handed in my last assignment and tied up any loose ends i had.  Im currently packing up a bag for rock climbing that should last me for the next month and a half!  Ill be leaving kamloops tomorrow skaha bound!  Ill be bumming around there for the month of april mostly just climbing for myself getting myself in top shape for my top rope instructor course at the end of may, however i will be assisting on the first section of rock climbing 1 from april 3rd-april 10th.  I may have a couple people coming to visit me for a bit of climbing but mostly just climbing with whoever is around from my school!  After that  pop back into kamloops just in time to head off down to smith rocks in oregon and red rocks in nevada...we have our final expediton for two weeks and after that i will have completed my first year of school.  If everything goes right after that i will be heading to canmore as fast as i can to do my top rope instructor course and after that i will be in nordeg teaching climbing all summer! For anyone that wants to learn to rock climb and is in the penticton area next month let me know and we can meet up and go for a climb!  Otherwise hopefully i will see some of you in alberta this summer, maybe ill even make it up to edmonton if i have time!

As for photos and such i have been pretty busy these past couple weeks finishing up my last projects for school but i did manage to get out rock climbing on one particularly warm day(sorry no photos) and yesterday at noon i noticed my roomate was being somewhat lazy so i laid down some pshyche and we zipped out to sunpeaks as fast as we could for some spring skiing!  The snow was variable but we managed to get a solid 3 hours of skiing in and when the sun allowed we go to strip down and do one of my favourite things...topless winter sports!!!  Enjoy the pictures and wish me luck over the next couple months...will try to post photos in between trips!

Christian and his outrageous Beijing t shirt

new ski fasion

intense snow storm made it uncomfortable to ski

Demonstrating perfect ski instructor form

Canadian Avalanche Association avalanche operations level 1

Im back from a week of learning about avalanches and what causes them, both in class and in the field.  14 of us headed down to Revelstoke last tuesday and quickly dived in to the snowpack to start looking at the different layers in order to discover the secrets that are to be discovered within!  We spent our days between Revelstoke Mountain Resort (great hill!) and a classroom in the town of Revelstoke.  We dug many snowpits and learned the proper CAA way to analyze the different layers...and then back to the class to learn about weather snow science and terrain in order to put it all together and predict which terrain would be safe and what terrain would not be.  After a week we were all ready for our exam and after a full day of examining our snowpits, how we recorded weather and a couple written exams we were free!  Everyone passed the course and are certified with the minimum level to begin working in the avalanche industry!  The highlight of the week was definitely our heli-lift from Selkirks Tangiers heli skiing into their incredible terrain.  After digging pits all morning and afternoon we dove into the trees to ski some of the better quality powder I have skied in awhile!  Well thats it for school for me this year!(other than a final expedition) So let me know what your up to and maybe we can go on a trip!  Here are the photos!

Touring into the catski operation next to RMR

Skinning into a cool gully feature to dig a pit

Loading the van with skis at the bottom of RMR

Grapefruit antics

The heli landing to whisk us away to powder bliss

Im still getting used to helicopters landing on top of me...

Inside the chopper

Glad my job isnt this complicated

This is a lot less complicated....

Pit fun!

Skinning to the other side of the mountain

Came across an old lodge

Adam ready to dive into the powder

Waiting for the heli pick up...we were bottom of the priority list and waited around for an hour or so

And thus the snowball fight began

Finally the heli came for the first group

Last shots of this mans beard

back in the classroom

dropping in

in transition

Ice season is coming to an end around kamloops

Well ice season is close to being over here.  Me and sean decided to make one last attempt at ice climbing today.  We had big plans to spend the two days starting by climbing a mellow route as a warm up and moving on to one of the biggest routes in the area on monday.  We woke up early this morning and drove out past cache creek to a route called energizer.  There was alot of snow last night and we arrived in coolish conditions but straight from the car conditions felt a bit on the variable side of things.  We arrived at the base of two ice choked gullies and decided to give the right one a try not knowing exactly which route was which.  After two moderate pitches we came to the base of a grade 4-5 curtain that looked great but as we were planning on soloing our route we decided to take a pass as we didnt have the proper equipment.  We down climbed and rappelled out of that gully and started up the second gully.  The ice was different right off the bat...it was a mix of snow and ice we call "snice" which meant that every time we swung our axes we got good sticks but we were a little concerned that the ice was delaminating from the rock behind it.  We climbed pitch after pitch without needing to rope up at all until we came to a section where the ice had fully delaminated from the rock and we were left with a rock face with a bit of ice on top.  After attempting an alternate 3rd class line up some of the most crumbly loose rock ive seen sean pulled off a big chunk of rock and got it right in his face and after some minor first aid we decided to bail....until i spotted a possible line further right of the ice.  I gave it a go and found a moderate but loose line that brought us to the top of the pitch with the ice missing.  We continued on some more moderate pitches and one short but vertical pitch until we got to a steep pillar pitch that had broken off and feeling that we had a good day, we made the call to turn around.  After an hour or so of rappelling and down climbing we were back at the car smiles on our face ready to head home!

The first pitch of the day(turned out to be the wrong route)

sean following

sean climbing up behind the pillar in the next photo

the last pitch of happy boy...we didnt come prepared to climb this

the first pitch of Energizer

really amazing rock features on this route

endless moderate ice

beautiful terrain around this area

interesting ice formations on the branches

beginning the downclimb

this is as far as we made it...we could see all the debris from the pillar that used to be there

the damage to seans nose

Well the conditions certainly meant that it is too warm here currently  for good climbing, but we are going to try a smaller route tomorrow.  We have some friends in the program that climbed it today and depending on their report we may be climbing, resort skiing or ski touring!  I start my Avalanche operations level 1 on wednesday and will be busy on what will be a tough course.  In other news I passed my CSIA level 1 ski instructor course on friday so anyone that needs to learn skiing, im your man!  Heres some photos from the day, they are all of sean unfortunately but enjoy!