Vancouver (April 18 - April 20, 2008)
Roanne and I had been planning to make a trip to Vancouver for a while, to visit her sister Mer (and her boyfriend Ben-o) and my brother Fras (and his lovely wife Carla, and her brother Kyle who is presently living in Vancouver). We finally booked it for the end of April, so I flew into Seattle on Friday night and met Roanne at the airport, as she had arrived earlier for work. The weather was nice at the airport, but just north of Seattle we ran into a heavy snow storm which was a bit strange for two reasons: 1. It never snows in Seattle, even in the winter, so why on earth would it be snowing in spring, and 2. Fras had assured me that the weather would be perfect all weekend so that we could go bouldering. The snow abated as we continued north, but then picked up with even greater fury as we entered Vancouver. We went to Mer and Ben-o's place where there was a birthday party being held for two friends, Abbie and Martin (a.k.a. problem Bear). It was super fun to see everyone, but as we gazed out the window at the several inches of snow that had accumulated outside, my unwavering trust in Fras's overly-optimisitic weather forecasting was beginning to show signs of cracking. We agreed that we would wait until the morning to decide, but that bouldering was probably going to be canceled.
I got up at pretty early the next morning and did some stretches while waiting to call Fras, and when I talked to him he assured me that it had not snowed at all in Squamish, and urged us to check the Squamish webcams. Ben-o and I fired up the internet and had a look, and to our amazement it did look sunny and clear in Squamish. At this point Ben-o confided in me that he thought these were probably archived versions from last week that Fras had saved and sent to us for the express purpose of tricking Ben-o into spending another day with him freezing his stink-dogs off at the misery boulders. Despite my last Squamish bouldering experience with Fras having consisted of walking around wet boulders in the rain for about an hour, I decided to trust Fras's instincts, and the two of us headed north for Squamish. The lovely ladies (Roanne, Mer, and Car) and Ben-o had decided not to join us, but Ben-o was kind enough to offer to lend us the use of his crashpad (which we gratefully accepted) as well as the stink-dogs (which we politely declined). On the way up we picked up 8 fresh donuts at Safeway, so this combined with the solid chocolate Easter Bunny that Fras had brough along meant that we were fully stocked with provisions and ready to roll. Upon arriving in Squamish it became clear that the webcams had been telling the truth, and it was a perfect sunny day (albeit a little on the cool side). We decided to do a tour of the lesser-traveled North Wall boulders, since neither of us had done much bouldering in those areas and it is always fun to try new stuff.
We started off at the Clean Boulders, which is a collection of really nice boulders all in close proximity, with nice flat landings. I hadn't been climbing much since hurting my shoulder (stinkin' rotator cuffs) in the fall, so it was to be a day of mostly moderates. We started out on some fun V1s and V2s, here is Fras sending a nice unnamed V1/V2:
We then moved on to some stuff that was a bit harder, here are shots of each of us on a fun unnamed V4 arete (same problem, different view points):
We then started eyeing a V7 to the left of this problem on the same boulder, called "Close Shave". It was supposed to be a classic moderate day, but this particular V7 was rumoured to be a bit of a soft touch for the grade, so we gave it a shot. We worked out the beta for a while, and to my amazement I ended up sending! Fras followed soon after, we were pretty stoked. It is a short but fun problem and probably easier for tall men (like everything is, according to shorter people); here is a photo of Fras getting on the send train:
We then moved on to a different boulder, here is a photo of me sending a V4 called "Ground Beef", and Fras walking off after sending the same problem. Check out all the moss on the trees, Squamish is like a magic forest, so awesome! I'm a little surprised that I don't live there.
Fras then did a really cool V7 called "Meatgrinder", to the left of the V4. Here is a photo of him psyching up for the final toss on that problem:
We then did a fun, tall V0 called "Candle Stick Maker" on the same boulder as the equally high and much scarier "Kung Fu Fighter" (V4). Here are a couple photos of me on the former problem:
We finished off with some attempts on a really aesthetic arete called "The Butcher" (V5). Neither of us ended up sending even though the friction was tops, it ended with some sort of a funky mantle that wasn't in the cards for us that day. Here is a great photo of Fras on the opening moves of that problem:
From the Clean Boulders, we moved down the road to another area called The Farm. Fras sent an amazing looking V4 (maybe harder now as some holds have broken) called "Chicken Lips", I definitely need to come back for that one. We also got on a really fun V5 called "Hogwild" that Fras ended up sending, and another one for me to come back for when I have regained some of my powers. Here are photos of that problem, with me on the opening (traversing) moves and Fras headed for the topout:
We finished up at this area on a really fun but hard unnamed V3/4. Here are some photos of us on it, Fras on the start and me looking down from the top. This one involved some intense leg squeezing (the move Fras is shown on), and our groins were quite sore after trying this problem (and for the next 3-4 days).
From here we moved on to another area called the Dark Side, but it didn't offer that much in the way of well-traveled classics. After a lot of bushwhacking and one good V5 called "Miracle Whipper", we moved on to an isolated problem called "The Tugger" (V4). Fras managed the flash, and I came really close on my second try but by that time what little power I had started the day with was starting to fade, and I had to cede defeat to the Tugger and vow to come back and seek revenge at a later date. We finished at the Action Man area, where Fras had a V5 called "The Serpent" that he wanted to send (he did), and finally ended the day with a really nice V1:
We arrived back in Vancouver a little on the late side, and the ladies had been kind enough to pick up some stuff for dinner so we had a really good dinner of stuffed pasta and salad. Roanne, Mer, and Ben-o had all registered for the Sun Run the following day, which is a big (really big) 10k run that happens annually in Vancouver. This year there were over 59,000 entrants, so it must have been quite a sight. We got up at 7:30 the next morning so that the runners could get a good breakfast and go over the game plan for race day. Here is Roanne talking strategy with Ben-o as he struggles to stay focused on the task at hand:
And here is a group photo of the soon-to-be Sun Runners:
I dropped them off as close to the start as we could drive so they could walk the rest of the way. They had a great time, all running and finishing together and slaloming through the crowd during the entire race. After the race they went out for a good brunch to celebrate a race well run.
After dropping off the Sun Runners I headed over to Fras and Carla's hideout, because as it would turn out, myself and fc had decided to forgo the Sun Run and instead had registered for a full day of North Shore Extremetm mountain biking. Fras had recently acquired a Specialized SX Trail 1 (full suspension with 6 inches of travel front and rear), and also had his hard tail mountain bike in Vancouver (which used to be my bike at one point in time), so we each had a pony to ride for the day. After stopping to pick up 2 kilograms of double chocolate chip muffins for lunch, we headed for Mt. Seymour. We rode across the mountain on a trail called The Bridal Path which was super fun, and we traded off bikes so that I could try Fras's new full suspension. We then headed up a wide gravel trail called Old Buck to get to the top of the trails. The way mountain biking works on The North Shore, is you ride up a wide and technically easy trail (aerobically challenging, especially on the heavy long travel bikes that are pre-requisite for the North Shore), then bomb down on amazing technical/hairy/insane single track with numerous man-made stunts/obstacles/opportunities-to-seriously-injure-yourself.
I rode the hard tail up the climb and Fras rode the full suspension (hereafter referred to as "the tank"), and then he was nice enough to let me have it for the way down, which was super fun. Here is a photo of Fras at the top of Old Buck, showing visible signs of fatigue:
As you can see, there was a fair bit of snow, because while the snow storm did magically avoid the fantasy boulders at Squamish, it most certainly did not avoid the north shore mountains. We then traversed across a bit and arrived at the trail head for a blue/black trail called Team Pangor. The trails on the North Shore are rated with difficulty ratings similar to ski runs, ranging from Green (equivalent to the most technical trail you will ride anywhere else) to Blue (is your health insurance up to date?) to Black (you will probably die) to double-Black (more suited to base-jumping than to mountain biking). Here is a photo of us at the top, ready to head down:
We then headed down, which was super fun, here are some photos of Fras and I riding some of the constructions on the upper parts of the trail. If you look closely you will see that we are each wearing one shin guard, as that was the most reasonable way to distribute the protective equipment that was available.
Here is a photo of me coming down a rocky section:
We then headed back to the car, and continued our tour of the North Shore by heading over to Mt. Fromme (which is a sub peak of Grouse Mountain). We rode up the dirt road, and arrived at the top of another Blue/Black run called Pipeline. This run was super fun also, here is a photo of Fras riding a teeter totter:
One really cool feature of the North Shore trails is that many of the drops are "paved" with large "cobble stones" to prevent erosion. It looked really awesome, was fun to ride, and made me feel like I was in Paris-Roubaix. Here are photos of Fras and I riding some rollers that had been paved with cobblestones, super fun (and a bit scary as the last one was quite steep):
Here are a couple more photos of Fras riding some stuff that was a little to sketchy for the tastes of this North Shore charlatan:
The Pipeline trail spit us out onto the Baden-Powell trail, which we traversed over to get to the top of another trail lower on the mountain called "Natural High". This trail had much less snow, which made it pretty fun. Here is a picture of Fras getting excited for this one. Notice in this photo that, while assuring me that these trails were easy as cake, Fras had surreptitiously slipped on his full-face helmet, and is grinning in order to instill me with a false sense of confidence.
Here is a photo of me coming off one of the entertaining bridges:
Here are photos of Fras riding a rad looking A-frame followed by a drop (seen in the next photo):
And finally here is one of Fras doing a drop onto some cobbles and me coming off another of the bridges:
We then headed back to Vancouver, where we made some really good pizza for dinner before Roanne and I started the drive back to Seattle in preparation for the early morning flight back to Salt Lake City. All in all it was an amazing weekend, serving up full doses of climbing and mountain biking. We'll definitely be back for more.