Canadians Kicked My Ass!

THANK YOU SEEGS, NORM AND TY!

well i'm back from british columbia and i can't seem to shake the cold shiver or the perma-grin i got while there. i also can't shake this feeling that i am truly lucky. although i don't have that million dollar house in the burbs i would have had if i stayed at microsoft... honestly i don't care.

as you could probably tell from my last two posts, i had an amazing time. seegs, her husband ty and norm were the most gracious hosts you could imagine. i got the full monty tour of what squamish was about.. and it still wasn't enough time.

my canadian adventure tour guides - seegs and norm

after the epic tour on sunday norm and i hit up the diamond head area again for a quick morning ski tour. we skinned up past red heather hut and to the high point on paul ridge. the clouds seemed to follow us up to top arriving at the same time we did. the ski down was great snow and just enough turns to wet the whistle and wish there were more before the freezing skiercross down. the rest of the day i caught up on work online and just chilled. the canadians were wearing me down.

norm skinning up to paul ridge

today before heading home to seattle ty hooked me up with a free ski pass and some salomon sand storm 182s... oh my goodness. these skis were sweet. super stable at high speeds, rolled over way better than i thought a ski could with 99mm under foot. they were 135, 99, 125. i would have guessed this would be just too much fatness.. but it seems there is never too much fatness. i was blasting groomers on em to keep up with ty, we skied the shit out of the trees, lauched some pillow drops and found some powder. the skis were great in all conditions and i think they'd be a heavy but super fun backcountry ski. one thing is sure, my skis in comparison are totally obsolete and camberless... dead. you know it's a good ski when it makes you think you are actually skiing better than you should be. ty is an ex freeskiing coach at whistler... so let's just say he knows this ski resort. he took me to a hand full of the secret stashes. so much fun. one was a creek bed and waterfall with massive boulders in it. this made for pillowy 5 foot puff drops into perfect soft snow that no one had touched. we skied this twice. the second time we skied a pretty sweet and crazy line ty had been to with some film crew. i skied it pretty well... ty shredded it.

all this has me wanting to get some new skis. my rossi bc scratches have been good. but they are now 4 years old, dead and simply not phat enough at this point. i've been eyeing the black diamond verdicts. since my 05/06 winter in jackson hole. this years version is 4mm wider. however the sand storms did leave a great impression.

the day at whistler really rounded my trip off ~ 5 amazing days in british columbia. truly more than one man deserves, i feel blessed.

i missed getting to hang out with nuun ultrarunner bruce grant and helly hansen adv racer gary robbins however.. next time fellas!

two things are for certain ~ the canadians kicked my ass and lit a fire under it as well to get out and ski the backcountry more this season (now if the avy danger will come down below HIGH i'd be all set).

Cerise Creek Backcountry Ski Tour BC

this was my first real backcountry ski tour in british columbia. and by that i mean it didn't involve lifts at whistler/blackcomb... and i couldn't have asked for better tour guides than my crew of norm hann, adventure guide and college basketball coach and jen segger-gigg, professional adventure racer and endurance bad ass.

this ski day started very different than any backcountry ski tour i've ever done. it started as a "coffee shop tour".. or "tour de coffee" as seegs called it. a coffee in seeg's neighborhood of brackendale (this place is awesome) and then we were off to pemberton (north past whistler). not to ski.. well not quite yet. we hit the most amazing "brecky" joint for some pre ski fuel... then our second coffee shop for americanos all around... then we were off to ski! notice i didn't mention the names of said coffee shops. it was either i swear to keep them a secret, or i would have been blind folded the entire morning... hence the intentional non-disclosure.

the ski tour was called cerise creek, and that is where we started. about an hour into the tour the sun came out causing uncontrolable giggles of excitement and instant stripping of clothes down to our base layers. our ultimate goal was a col off vantage peak at the foot of anniversay glacier that norm had on his mind. as we skinned up out of the woods we were greeted with amazing views of mount joffre. we were traveling in the lillooet range, which is a subunit of the coast range. amazing jagged peaks and unlimited backcountry ski touring options. a virtual playground. i made a promise to myself to thoroughly explore these mountains ~ in both seasons.

with norm charging up front at his "easy" pace, jen and i hussled to keep up. jen's a long time snowboarder now converting to the ski touring lifestyle of earning your turns. i was pretty impressed with how quickly she's become a backcountry skier. it doesn't hurt that her husband is an ex professional freeskier and whistler freeskiing coach. speedy, fit and now powered by nuun, norm was on his 21st day in the backcountry on skis. this was just my 2nd this season and it showed.. but of course no one cared ~ we were still faster than anyone else there!



after climbing up near the col we decided for a bit different route and climbed 3/4 of the way up a big, partly wind blown ridge. our first turns were incredible... i mean.. absolutely insane knee deep and light. i thought our late start would have allowed the sun to make the snow heavy like the oh too familiar cascade cement. not the case. it was super light and fluffy. how could this get better? after a short skin back up another little knob the second run was some of my best turns ever... everything was in sync. the snow was buttery, my turns felt effortless and smooth and there was no avy danger on my mind. just me and my endorphins.



wanting more, but not wanting to skin out in the dark we decided it was time to head back through the maze of trees.. trying to keep our speed without killing ourselves.

and finally... all the photos.. phew.

My Last 7 Days

"you have two choices in life. be a lamb, or be a lion." - quote from steep, which i saw last night... great flick.

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first off i'm having a blast watching rod bien close the gap in the hurt 100 miler right now. check out the live updates - go rod!

**** update ****
rod won the hurt 100km. congrats dood! here are the rest...
100 Mile race winners:
Paul Hopwood 27:17
Suzanna Bon 31:56

100 Km winners:
Rod Bien 17:02 100Km
Jamie Donaldson 20:30

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training has been good lately. i got 30hrs in this week which is my longest in a long long time. i'm starting to feel like an athlete again. the highlights of the week were sunday's long day and today's 55km fat ass race (see next post on cap forest 55km). sunday i took my coaching client cheryl out for a great 11hr+ long session. perfect overdistance winter training for an athlete who is preparing for the 400+ mile primal quest in july. i don't like cars. i'd rather use human power to get around. and i've always though it would be cool to ride a bike to mount si for a hike/run. so after a 2hr kayak on lake union and lake washington cheryl and i mounted our road bikes (with 25lb backpacks!) and rode the 100 miles (round trip) from seattle to mount si. we tackled the 3,400ft hike in the dark then returned home. it's been a long time since i've ridden a hunge. great day out and cheryl did awesome.

another highlight for me was signing my 2008 contract with the montrail ultrarunning team. this ad on the right is from this months ultrarunner magazine, it announces this years team ~ of course meissner is in it.. but i'm not sure who the woman is (lots of new teammates to meet!). as you can imagine this was a tough decision with other interesting offers and options. after talking to paul and getting some good advice from sean meissner i'm super excited about this year. it sucks that we have a smaller team as they had to let a lot of great runners and people go, including my adventure racing team DART-nuun (where i got my start). but the smaller team will undoubtedly be more manageable. montrail sounds dedicated to the core user and making the best trail shoes on the planet. they want the ultrarunning team to be a part of that process - this is important to me. companies that don't employ athletes to test outdoor products.. well they simply aren't making very good products.

Steep

i love the quote - "i tried to become a normal person and have a normal job, but that didn't work." ... tell me about it.