A Month and a Half in a Few Paragraphs

Life has been flying by…as I seem to usually report.

We’ve been painting the house, getting the yard ready for winter, taking Pico for walks, and Dee has been growing a baby. Makes me seem rather pathetic.

Biking season has essentially come to an end, though I have been heading out on a few epic rides over the past few weeks. Pico has needed walks, so he has led me up Knox Mt in the dark after work as well. While riding up in Smith Creek 5 or so weeks ago, I was coming down way too fast and not paying close enough attention, I hit a jump and went for a fly. When I landed I hit a tree, a rock, and an old log, severely hurting my shoulder breaking my front wheel and filling the entire landing area. Unfortunately for me, I heard Loїc coming down and was out of his view until he was airborne. I rolled out of the way and before I knew it had him as my nurse placing his camelback under my head. I took a couple minutes to recover, picked my self up, and walked down to the truck. Loїc drove me home and I left for hospital. Dr. Eppler took good care of me there, and though he initially though I broke my humorous he later confirmed I had only mildly separated my shoulder (thankfully it went back in on trail without my knowing it was ever out). He sent me home and told me to rest. Little did he know that I’d play a game of squash a week and a half later! I guess it pays to be built like a brick shit house sometime.

Squash season is ticking along well. Our team has been doing very well, but more importantly, we’ve been having fun! I’ve been enjoying the challenge of playing number 1, and attempting to keep up with my opponents on court.

I’ve also started playing basketball again. What a weird sensation! Games are in the Mount Boucherie gym, and the last time I played was 10 years ago in that gym. Kind of surreal, but I’ve really been enjoying it and have found that while I no longer have a jump shot, my passing and ball handling isn’t all that bad.

The most exciting part of life right now, other than the kid situation, is that it is November 23rd and I went skiing today! We went up to the Roger’s Pass today and had an epic ski. Ian, Chris and I were chasing Loїc, Tess, Peter, Yannick and 7 others who we didn’t know due to the fact that they left an hour and a half earlier than us. We set a good pace and headed towards Balu. As we passed the trail leading to Ursus Major we noticed something unusual. Chris’ last name was printed in the snow with an arrow…obviously leading us up in to Urus. We followed and climbed, and climbed and climbed. As we approached Bruin’s Pass we saw the herd that we were chasing. Unfortunately for us Loїc’s radio wasn’t working and they left 10 minutes before we crested the pass. It was unbelievable, I have never seen so many people up there, particularly as the climb was quite strenuous and involved a boot pack up a narrow ridge. The ridge was safe but boot placement was important. When we arrived at the top there had probably been close to 40 people descend before us. Thankfully however there was plenty of fresh knee high pow after the first 50 feet of decent. We rocked it down to the valley bottom avoiding bands of rock, other skiers tracks, and cliffs.

We skinned up and summated Balu as the light was fading. One long run down and then onto the bobsled track that was the skin track up. With some many people on it before us, the track was well beaten, icy, and ridiculously fast. My legs were tired and I felt uncomfortable about the potential for injury…having just recovered from a separated shoulder. I skinned up to go down, which was rather weird, but effective. I still count believe that we had such good conditions this early in the season…though I won’t tell you about how I got terrible base deep gouges on my skis. Stupid lack of attention!

We got back to the parking lot and finally caught up to the herd that we’d been chasing all day. Smile and stories were shared, and then we headed home. Check out some of the images, though you may note that there are none on the way down...we were having way too much fun to stop and pose.