events of the past week have involved a lot of rain, but also a lot of shine. we had a day of solid rain for biking at whistler and a day of solid sun for camping on harrison lake.
first the biking. chris, chad, justin and i all woke up bright and early to get out to whistler for a day of screaming downhill. unfortunately it poured rain the whole day. fortunately we had a fantastic time anyway. we were soaked to the bone on the first run and didnt dry off until we showered after sitting in the hottub. we only ventured to the very top of the hill once and it was so cold we couldnt feel if we were braking or not.
we didnt take any pictures on the hill b/c the camera wouldnt have survived. i dont know how these guys all look so clean... they must have washed their faces or something before i took this picture. look at me with my coffee:
the waitress couldnt talk to me without laughing. we all got filthy muddy and bruised up and tired, then took a long lunch break to drink hot coffee and eat brocolli soup and burgers, and then went out and got even more muddy and bruised. after washing off our bikes and ourselves with the provided pressure hoses we retired to chris' girlfriend's condo hottub where we recovered and chatted pleasantly with older couples about bear tourism and the upcoming olympics. poor chad was too polite to go in the semipublic hottub in his boxers and bleached his brand new biking shorts instead. sorry chad! the new colour looks good at least.
now on to the sunshine! kylie, niko and i spent the weekend camping at an abandoned logging camp on harrison lake.
on the way there i gave the 4runner a solid 4x4 workout, navigating some extracurricular loops entirely extraneous to where we were going. there were multiple occasions where kylie was screaming and clutching the oh shit handles while i was bouncing, laughing and gunning it.
when we first hit gravel though, we were stopped at a police checkpoint. when they found out we were planning on camping on crown land, they made us pour out all our alcohol on the side of the road. there were 2 teenagers pouring out their 24 packs of kokanee and budweiser already. i added my 4 st. ambroise apricot ales to the thirsty soil, but declined to mention my fin du monde. extremely lame but i did appreciate the police presence to cut down on the yahoos in the bush a bit.
5 minutes down the road we were given a ticket by 2 cops on quads for going 50 on a forest service road where the speed limit was 40. that was just lame. we also got to watch the cop pull his gun on a possibly imaginary bear.
20 minutes later we saw a bear crossing the road. when we arrived it ran up the hillside as fast as a deer. we ran into him again while backtracking a road and followed him down a side trail for a while.
after exploring the northwest side of harrison lake we settled on this spot to camp. we had it entirely to ourselves and the views were magnificent.
i did a bit of swimming, but we didnt hike or bike anywhere or do much of anything aside from sit and read, make food and take pictures; we must have spent about 2 hours just watching niko engaged in one of his favourite pastimes of digging buried sticks out of the shallows and bringing them to shore... scan, dig, dunk head underwater and pull stick out of the mud, bring to shore, drop stick, return to water, scan, dig, dunk...
this is me reading about the original commissioning, translating, compiling, editing and printing of the king james bible... maybe if i would have shown the cops this book they wouldnt have made me pour out my beer.
this is kylie reading about household robots that ingest insects to power their fuel cells (i suggest clicking on this picture for the full effect).
i reoriented the fly on our tent and made a great shaded breezy gazebo with a view. go tarn3!
we forgot sunscreen, so in the afternoon of the second day i wore this getup a lot to keep the sun off my head and neck. kylie thought it quite fashionable and requested to take my picture. in the interest of fashion i assented.
the ridge immediately behind our spot.
we had plenty of dry firewood and unlimited smore supplies. anyone familiar with le chatelier's principle and my stomach knows this is not wise.
our spot.
our temporary veranda's natural floral arrangement.
our perpetually wetfaced dog.
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.
