we spent last week in courtenay, BC, househunting, working, mtn biking and hanging out with our friends matt, monique, liam and torr. we havent found our dream house yet, but we love the community. our friends' place backs directly onto a river, offering hiking, biking, exploring and tubing right out their door.
liam had fun walking niko, and only fell over once. torr is already running as fast as he can, even though he hasnt really learned how yet... he fell a lot. we loved playing with these boys, they are so well behaved and absorb so much. liam asked me about a mary poppins silouhette on my shirt and really latched on to the idea of a magical babysitter. i sang supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for him and he was hooked.
courtenay seems like a young, vibrant community. we were there for market days and the downtown was packed. quite a change from chilliwack downtown.
as mentioned, matt and monique have a dream backyard that looks onto the river. the last night there we had friends over for thai food. mmm... spicy coconut soup...
i went for a bike ride every full day we were in town. the first 2 days i did some crosscountry/downhill with matt, and the 3rd day i checked out what mt. washington had to offer. the 4th day i drove out to a property we were looking at purchasing and rode the trail network accessible directly across the street! the comox valley has every type of riding in abundance; rooty xc and gnarly downhill northeast of cumberland, downhill and NS stunts in forbidden plateau, and sweet smooth freeriding and technical downhill on mt washington... i was in heaven.
this is from the top of mt. washington. not too many ski hills look out over the ocean. they had just opened up a new run called back in black, off the classic wizard, and it was smooth and fast, with big hits and fat ladder drops. after scoping the run out a few times i was hitting 10 foot gap jumps and 8 foot drops like butter. i was getting a lot of respect on the hill for riding a hard tail, but the trannies were so smooth it hardly mattered! i took kylie's advice and pulled out a bit early (my legs were shakin and my forearms were achin) and although i crashed hard a few times, i avoided getting hurt.
on the way home from courtenay we picked up our friend heidi, who we stayed with in thailand.
we wanted her to have a good alpine hike before she returned to bangkok, so we took her up cheam.
it was a hot clear day, which made for perfect hiking weather at altitude.
it was great to hang out with heidi again, and to return her hospitality. her bubbly energy is infectious and our politico-religious discussions revealed that after all these years we still have a lot in common.
niko loved her as well. there's something about a girl who knows just where to scratch. he even gently woke her up at 4am to get a little extra attention; something he has never done to any of our guests before.
we reached the summit with no falls and no bear sightings.
the views of the surrounding peaks were incredible, although the smoke from the kelowna fires really started to fill the fraser valley in the afternoon. we did some glissading and kylie froze her bum.
an excellent hike with a great friend. next scheduled visitor is josh for mid august (not counting mom and dad and shareen and craig who are with us right now in seattle) so we will have to up the ante for him.
we spent last week in courtenay, BC, househunting, working, mtn biking and hanging out with our friends matt, monique, liam and torr. we havent found our dream house yet, but we love the community. our friends' place backs directly onto a river, offering hiking, biking, exploring and tubing right out their door.
liam had fun walking niko, and only fell over once. torr is already running as fast as he can, even though he hasnt really learned how yet... he fell a lot. we loved playing with these boys, they are so well behaved and absorb so much. liam asked me about a mary poppins silouhette on my shirt and really latched on to the idea of a magical babysitter. i sang supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for him and he was hooked.
courtenay seems like a young, vibrant community. we were there for market days and the downtown was packed. quite a change from chilliwack downtown.
as mentioned, matt and monique have a dream backyard that looks onto the river. the last night there we had friends over for thai food. mmm... spicy coconut soup...
i went for a bike ride every full day we were in town. the first 2 days i did some crosscountry/downhill with matt, and the 3rd day i checked out what mt. washington had to offer. the 4th day i drove out to a property we were looking at purchasing and rode the trail network accessible directly across the street! the comox valley has every type of riding in abundance; rooty xc and gnarly downhill northeast of cumberland, downhill and NS stunts in forbidden plateau, and sweet smooth freeriding and technical downhill on mt washington... i was in heaven.
this is from the top of mt. washington. not too many ski hills look out over the ocean. they had just opened up a new run called back in black, off the classic wizard, and it was smooth and fast, with big hits and fat ladder drops. after scoping the run out a few times i was hitting 10 foot gap jumps and 8 foot drops like butter. i was getting a lot of respect on the hill for riding a hard tail, but the trannies were so smooth it hardly mattered! i took kylie's advice and pulled out a bit early (my legs were shakin and my forearms were achin) and although i crashed hard a few times, i avoided getting hurt.
on the way home from courtenay we picked up our friend heidi, who we stayed with in thailand.
we wanted her to have a good alpine hike before she returned to bangkok, so we took her up cheam.
it was a hot clear day, which made for perfect hiking weather at altitude.
it was great to hang out with heidi again, and to return her hospitality. her bubbly energy is infectious and our politico-religious discussions revealed that after all these years we still have a lot in common.
niko loved her as well. there's something about a girl who knows just where to scratch. he even gently woke her up at 4am to get a little extra attention; something he has never done to any of our guests before.
we reached the summit with no falls and no bear sightings.
the views of the surrounding peaks were incredible, although the smoke from the kelowna fires really started to fill the fraser valley in the afternoon. we did some glissading and kylie froze her bum.
an excellent hike with a great friend. next scheduled visitor is josh for mid august (not counting mom and dad and shareen and craig who are with us right now in seattle) so we will have to up the ante for him.
