Can I ski with you?

I am not spewing anything. I don't think TGR wants to ski with me. Don't really have time or energy to find publisher so you're getting it for free. You don't have to read if you don't want to. I am supplying video where applicable.

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Originally Posted by carpathian

I am not spewing anything. I don't think TGR wants to ski with me. Don't really have time or energy to find publisher so you're getting it for free. You don't have to read if you don't want to. I am supplying video where applicable.

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Your stories are a good read regardless of what steaming poopy pants says. The videos are cool too, keep it coming.

Long ago I said that Rasputin was Jer. Could still be true. As long as you guys are entertained... Jer is Jeremy Nobis, right?

Vesna is officially 8 months pregnant now. Our little cabin is beginning to feel small. I am scrambling to finish the main cabin before the baby comes and everything is going great. The driveway is mostly mud and there is a huge pond of melt-water and a winter worth of dog shit in the backyard that is kind of gross. I am about to Tyvek the outside of the building and then start with cedar siding.

I keep telling Vesna about how we can tell the baby stories about how things were before its life began. Assuming that things have stabilized somewhat, we will look back with nostalgia on some of our serious and not-so-serious misadventures.

I can clearly remember a day in the mountains that seemed to be cursed by one small thing after another but in the end everyone still had a good time.

We had six people with three snowmobiles. We were trying to sled in an area that was closed to motorized vehicles, so that is where our trouble began. As we were pulling Ryan’s sled off the truck, my pinky finger got pinched in between the ski and the tailgate and the skin got crushed off into a bleeding flap. I cursed with pain as I used duct tape and toilet paper to bandage the wound for the day. 50 yards up the trail, Ryan’s little sled got stuck and it was clear that it was not going to make it. Jared’s sled had trouble as well and only made it another 100 yards before getting stuck for good.

Adrian’s sled was the only one that could get anywhere. I was fortunate enough to get a ride as Abe, Aaron and Jared skinned. Ryan did not bring skins because he was planning on using his sled, so he had to boot pack.

Since my finger was throbbing, I opted out of skiing for the day and would man the camera. Abe, Aaron and Jared all made it up to the alpine bowl quickly and started to climb up a nice 1500ft coulior. I sat in the sun while Adrian took off up valley on his sled by himself. It took about an hour for the guys to get up towards the top of the run. Right about then Ryan labored up the final roll and joined me for the show.

At one point I looked up valley to my left in time to see Adrian dig him self out of a huge pile of avalanche debris in the bottom of a gulley. I wondered what he was doing but he was too far away to communicate so I focused on filming Jared as he dropped in.

Jared expertly ski cut a fair sized avalanche and scooted to the side as the slide rolled down their boot pack route. He negotiated through some rocks and triggered another slide but this time just straight lined and raced the snow all the way down.

In the meanwhile Adrian showed up and relayed what had happened. Apparently he high marked of the back of the bowl and jumped off with his skis at the high point and let his sled ghost ride down. He then boot packed up the rest of the face with his skis on his back. Right at the top of the run the whole slope slide with him battling to stay on the surface as he rode 1000 feet down to the bottom, where I saw him.

Now Abe is dropping in. He straight lined the entire run and almost exploded in the avy debris at the bottom. Aaron decided to take it easy and made 100 turns or so. All I wanted to do at this point was get the heck off the mountain and go home.

Living in Alaska was good and great but there comes a time when you just have to get out of there. The isolation, the long dark ours…they can wear on your psyche. So on January 2, 2004 Abe Ryan and I embarked on a journey that would, in the end, shake the the Indestructible Few to the core.

Hans had disappeared the year before. I awoke one morning to find a pile of videotapes and a three page manifesto type letter explaining his haste departure and general take on the world. The short story is that Hans felt after three years of pushing his own mental and physical boundaries in the mountains of Alaska, he had reached a critical threshold. He did progress at an alarming rate from dumpster diving, new age bohemian to a lean, mean mountain slaying machine. And that was the problem. He figured it was a number game and the longer you played the game, sooner or later your number would come up. So he left Girdwood without goodbyes and relocated to Las Vegas to follow his other passion of rock climbing and later verified rumors of male exotic dancing. To each his own! I was hurt for a while but got over it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRUxfrUXSMs&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Philosophy in Skiing[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBY9vPUOeKY&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Philosophy in Skiing Part 2[/ame]

Fred was also having some issues that pulled him away from the mountains. He had been diagnosed with a rare and serious form of brain cancer. He moved to Seattle to be near family and specialized medical treatment. I could only catch word of his activities 3rd hand and was sorry to see him go.

So now it was up to Me, Abe and Ryan to carry on the legacy we had created and endured. We drove for sixty hours nonstop, through –50C in my parents RV that we had rented for the two-month trip. We pulled into Whistler at 8:30am in the morning and went straight to pick up our season pass and get on with another season of skiing and filming.

We had successfully pulled off filming and editing a ski movie the previous season and had a movie showing in Girdwood three days before leaving town. I was still somewhat burnt out from the whole thing and we tried to ‘just ski’ for the first month we were there. You know, get back to the roots and away form the business aspect.

On one hand I wanted to build on the success and experience we had gone through. On the other hand I subconsciously yearned to see and do new things that might not include skiing and filming every single day.
We did manage to get some good stuff on film. One of the best runs I ever skied was during this trip. Ryan and I did not have anything to special planned that morning. I was going to go up and ski a line on Citation that I had been checking out and he was going to film from under the Corner Pocket. Abe was out of commission because of his back.

On the way up Peak Chair we were drooling at the mainline that comes off Whistler Peak. It is a nice ribbon of snow suspended above exposure on the left and some shark teeth and rocks on the right. The ribbon of snow ends in a 5-6ft air to 10x10 patch of snow and then off a 20 footer to the clean run out. There was a groomer down low to watch for.

As I sat there, I realized I should just go ski that run while it was in perfect morning light! It was my last day on the hill for the year, so what did I have to lose? Abe and Ryan had been poaching into all sorts of crazy shit for the last month but I had been lagging. I was a bit gun-shy because the season before I had got caught poaching on my home hill of Alyeska. The result was that I could not ski at the hill from Feb 22 on. Right in the heart of winter and I was booted. I had spent a fair amount of time thinking about the decisions that led to my getting in trouble. Abe and Ryan were so pumped on the zone they were poaching that they convinced to me to go in a few times. The threat of getting caught weighed too heavily on my grey matter and I declined their tours of the area.

I suppose skiing the line was redemption of sorts. Prove to my buddies, if not myself that I could still be daring. An outlaw perhaps…

Ryan posted up right along the ridge so that he could see me on the peak and have the chairlift, full of Saturday skiers, in the foreground. We did not have any radios so we went by hand signal. I could hang out right under the weather station and watch as Ryan prepared the shot. I could see his arm in the air. I put my arm up in response and made my move for the rope. I ducked and started side-stepping as fast as I could while still looking cool. As I came over the rise, all I could see was the base of the Peak Chair some 1800ft below. Beyond was the Village and the mountains towards Pemberton.

I spotted the rock bump that was to be my entrance marker and started hanging skiers right as I eased over the edge and could see the entire lift line jammed with people. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was just moments away from skiing one of the most coveted lines on the mountain. Had an audience too. At this point I assumed Ryan saw me so I made the 100 foot traverse in/ski cut.

A delicate, satiny hoar frost layer some 10cm thick was my palette. By the time I had made the ski cut I could tell the snow was not wind affected so I dropped in with four fast turns while my slough was building under my left. On the fifth turn I turned them straight and skipped off the second patch and arced through the air into a parallel fall line with my now racing slough. There was a moment in the air where I heard one lone hoot come from the chair. Straightline! Racing slough on left while dodging rocks on right while keeping speed in check as groomer is coming up fast! Harrrrd right, hit the groomer… tuck down mountain to the Winnebago in the parking lot.

After hiding out on Blackcomb for the rest of the day on the ol snowboard we packed up the Winnebago and started driving home to Alaska, fleeing the scene of the crime.

Everything had already changed since I met Vesna on the chairlift three weeks into our trip. She was 30 and I was 24 so naturally I was taken by this woman… the first woman I had really encountered. I had spent time with girls but this woman was something different. Abe and Ryan sensed the shift in balance and I saw it too but there was nothing I could do. I wanted the new adventure that Vesna had to offer. There was some tension and words were said. In the end we did get some solid footage but I was more interested in my beautiful Canadian bride to be. It took some easy convincing for Vesna to come back to Alaska with me and that is when the whole thing really got dicey.


We got back to Girdwood in the end of March and moved into a little shit hole of a trailer on the same property where Ryan lived. It was a classic case of Yoko Ono and the boys. I wanted to go charge out into the mountains, but I did not want to. I wanted to keep doing what I had been doing for the previous ten years but I did not want to. Vesna and I were happy to just do nothing if not just be in love. Like I said, classic case.

We were searching for new things to share and new foundations to build our relationship on. My mom was more then happy to bring us to church with them on Sundays and we enjoyed it. We enjoyed it so much that on Easter Sunday the pastor was scanning the audience for people who might be moved to accept the lord right then and there and would you believe it?! We both raised our hands at the same time! Sooo we were born again Christians for three days while something was not sitting right. Over the years I had moved into a place of ‘post modern/ new age/ holistic/ shaman’ sort of thinking and here I was taking huge step backward for the individual but a leap forward for the group at large, namely the Christian republican group. As I recall it was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that catalyzed my first inkling of political thought. It was also precipitated by my living with a pseudo feminist/ neo liberal/ Canadian woman. I became confused.

Confused is light word. Over a one day period I swung across the political spectrum to that of a soon to be ex-patriot and imaginary draft dodger. Not that I was really a patriot in the first place as I was only loyal to the gods of snow and mountains up until three days prior. Girdwood, AK was the center of my universe and as far as I could tell, I was the master of the universe and now it was all falling down around me.

We drove around Anchorage with a video camera filming cop cars and military jets and huge American flags and it was all evidence Big Brother, nationalism run amok and George W Bush was evil incarnate. We had to escape America and unfortunately for Me and my previous set of conditioned values, Alaska is part of the USA so we must go. It took three days to pack, buy a camper, quit my job, seriously traumatize my parents and hit the road. My soul would not rest until we crossed the Yukon border. Welcome to Canada.

It's true. Rasputin = jer = jeremy nobis

:fm:

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Originally Posted by YetiMan

It's true. Rasputin = jer = jeremy nobis

:fm:

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Damn, I've been found out. :wink:

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Originally Posted by carpathian

My soul would not rest until we crossed the Yukon border. Welcome to Canada.

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You came to the right place , the Bulkely valley has a fine tradition of hippies and draft dodgers and apparently the kispiox was a favorite of paranoid ex-pat Americans because the prevailing out flow wind of the Valley would blow away the nuclear fallout

and its actualy "welcome to Canada eh?"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YetiMan

It's true. Rasputin = jer = jeremy nobis

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Raputin = Jer = Nobis = Witherspoon = Vidar Vaer = Clint Eastwood.

It's true.

When we got to Canada on May 15, 2004 we kept the camera rolling and ended up filming a total of 65 hours of footage. By September I started the intense process of logging and capturing all of the footage into a coherent piece of work. In the end our movie was called “Escape from America?” We premiered it to a crowd of 137 people in the Roi Theater in Smithers. For the most part, people appreciated our effort. We pegged it as an evolution in thought and politics. If you could not keep up with the movie then you were obviously not up to speed with that evolution, a litmus test of sorts. We had to rationalize it like that for our own sake. In the Smithers show seven people got up and left the theater.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9jsUrIPxnw&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Intro to "Escape from America?"[/ame]

We did two shows in Prince George, BC and only a few people left early. A week later we did a show in Terrace, BC and ten people left out of the 100 or so that showed up.
Our most successful show was out on the Queen Charlotte Islands in the town of Masset. We played at the Green Church and the people loved it! The last half hour of the movie is filmed in the Charlottes and the small town people really enjoyed our take on their community.

Another week later we traveled down to Rossland, BC to show two movies at the Rossland Mountain Film Festival. The first was the last ski movie I had made in Alaska the year before. It was a hit and the ski crowd liked the classic Alaska powder ski footage. “Escape from America?” was the very last movie to show over the weekend of movie watching. Apparently The Grey Cup was on TV at the same time and, well, about 75% of the people left the theater, or about 75 people. It was tough as the ‘artiste’ to watch the people simply not ‘get it’ or not care to try and ‘get it’. All we could do was sit in the back and watch one after the other or entire groups all get up and leave.

At the end we were sitting there feeling slightly sheepish but also understanding. It is an hour and a half of talking, talking, talking. Politics, Iraq, religion blah, blah… Honestly I was pretty sick of the whole thing by then myself. Right as the lights came on I saw a little man sitting a few rows up from us. We were chit chatting with whatever entourage had accumulated around us and this little guy came over to us. He introduced himself and as it turns out he was our number one fan. He was dirty and wearing a little backpack and had some black garbage bag material attached as a patch or something.

When he started talking, I knew I had better film what he had to say. I ran the camera for two hours straight as he lectured on in the theater and then later outside in the parking lot. Months later I crammed though the whole interview and edited together a 13-minute clip that became a mini movie called “Inner Visions of a Mountain Man.” This guy was a mountain man in the truest sense. A year later we ended up touring around to the same venues with this short flick and a couple of other films we came up with. The following is the transcript from “Inner Visions”’ broken into three parts.

My name is Gary Donald Commozi and I was born in Rossland, BC. My father was a Kootenee and my grandfather was a Kootenee. I’ve been here a long time. The message that we want to hear, I’m sure, is that we want to find that God within. I’m very glad for your movie. It was a great deal of that emphasis in that movie. And that was really the important thing, more then anything else.

Global changing, global warming and all that sort of thing, uh, is a very good possibility and that sort of stuff. And we see that the time is coming when we may see that global shift, again. Not just in human consciousness, but in the actual physical movements of the Earth. And I think at this point that then we should be really aware, as we always should, is that we are spiritual people. At first we are spirit and we should concentrate on that and perhaps if we all do daily spiritual practice, in what ever form that took, each one of us, that would make a great difference in the world.

For we do in fact control and affect and so on, the weather and everything else. And that is what I would kind of like to say as far as the summation of your film, my reaction to the film.

As far as the Freemason go, they sometimes trace themselves back to the Commozi Stonemasons which was an architectural school in Lake Como, which disbanded or so around 400 a.d., when Rome was conquered by the Barbarians. But it would seem if my family was related to that Como, which is a name all over Italy, in the north. So that is just kind of a personal thing.

I am a little wary about saying this… (looks over his shoulder) I went to Rainbow this year in California. I went to the original Rainbow and several others and that Shasta one 20 years ago. And it is Hopi prophecy that there would be a people that would come that would have long hair and beads and headbands and they would be the first non-Indian friends of the Indians and they would have a name something like Hopi. So their name for the white people was the Hopi, Hipi, Hippie. We were that prophecy.

And that is why we came to this time of galactic realignment or galactic alignment. When the sun goes across the plane of the ecliptic of the galaxy.

“December 21, 2012?” I chip in.

Yes, and that date can be moved by a few years forward or back by a number of factors. Such as, what is the true center of the sun electro magnetically, ultravioletly and the same with the galaxy? So, uh, one of the estimates from Jan Miess, U.S. Naval Observatory, was saying that May 1998 was when this happened, but this factor can be extended by a number of years both forward and backward even up to about 2240. Depending on these other factors that we are no fully aware of.

Never the less, the Mayans made the statement, and if anybody was obsessed by time, it was the Mayans. I think that when we look back, I’m a stone mason, we look at all the things that we have built and we don’t know how to build them here today. We don’t know who built of them and we don’t know how they were built. And if we knew why they were built. I quote Gerald Hawkins in “Heaven’s Mirror.” He says, right on the first page that “they were built for immortality and astronomical alignment.” That is the reason those monuments were built. So they are our reminder that there were great civilizations in the past. One was Atlantis and they sank and did whatever. They were destroyed by what ever forces. And maybe we got to look at some of those forces and maybe we are responsible for some of those forces and maybe something as a reminder in this really incredible time that we live in.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQrQ0MJsSD0&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Inner Visions of a Mountain Man Part1[/ame]

"Yeah, yeah, yeah” he mutters under his breath as we make our way out of the now empty theater. We go to the back parking lot where he wants to stand on solid ground before continuing his stories.

I thought about it… you stay there. I’m just gonna see if there is any Earth to stand on… this is really interesting. My parents bought the house so I could be born. It got hit the next day after I complained to city council about how much they were charging me to tear down my house. They were trying to tear down my house. And I guessed it was $33,000 or something in that range. And the house got hit the next day by a BC Tel truck that rolled down this hill and hit that house. And that is my parent’s house, it is a new house now. Here I am born and raised and here we are doing this outside! (laughs) You want to talk about Sasquatch, okay.

“Now Jake, you said something about Trout Lake?” he asked.
“Yeah” I answer.
“You said you are going to stay up there for a few days or something?”
“Uh, potentially we have land there.”
“You have land there! So Trout Lake is Kootenee.” He tells me.
“Is it?”

Well sure, Trout Lake is Kootenee. And as I said about Kootenee, I said it is the crown chakra of the world, the thousand-petal lotus, part of the original Garden of Eden. And I believe this from what I can see, from the evidence that I have experienced. Actually, I have said about 26 things the Kootenee that have come true. Including the Precambrian rock and stuff. But it is just like if you are in harmony with God, then God, however you conceive God, then you get these answers.

I had a theory years ago that the moon affected avalanches. It is now accepted by the avalanche community. Basically both new moon and full. That is the part that I missed. The new moon is even more stronger then the full. I got my national avalanche degree and in the next year, 1974 or so, I developed this theory that the moon affected avalanches. And it is based on astronomical principal. It is basically electromagnetism and gravitation. And yes, it will change that gravity, it will change that avalanche.

You can imagine a slope and you got this new moon or the full moon coming over the eastern horizon and you got a slope that is ready to go anyway, maybe. And you got that snow and that snow maybe on a molecular level, an atomic level or may even on a macroscopic level, the level of the snow crystal itself. Whatever. If you got layers in that snow and one of those layers is suddenly pulled away from another layer, then maybe, you know, an unwary skier or snowboarder could cause that whole slope to go.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN5PjLZRb3M&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Inner Visions of a Mountain Man Part2[/ame]

“Yeah, the Sasquatch is like the Freudian personification of the ‘Wild Man’, which is just the unknown aspect of existence in general, that is scary.”

So the Sasquatch. So you know my name is Gary Donald Commozi. I was born in Rossland, BC. I went out one time in Rossland, one night when I decided I would go sleep in the bush. It was a nice summer night in August or something like that. I didn’t want to sleep in town. As all I had to do was walk a couple of blocks and I was over there on Red Mountain and I could go camp somewhere in the trees. I just threw this old American Army sleeping bag over my shoulder. I had better ones, but this one I could just rough around in. I threw it over my shoulders and went for a walk about four in the morning. I went to this place I had never been before. I knew the mountain, it is full of mine shafts and stuff. I just kind of walked where I wanted to walk. Dark of the moon, couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t see the hand in front of my face and I got to this place. I said this is good. This is good. It was kind of a little copse in the trees. I could feel just this little copse in the trees. This is good here.

I took my shoes off and stood at the top of my sleeping bag. I uh, just wanted to let everything know that I was there so I would not be hassled. I wasn’t making a fire or anything or peeing around camp to let the bears know I was there. Just to let everybody know I was there and sleeping for the night I said

“Don’t no body fucking disturb me!”

And I laid down. And I was there about five minutes when all of the sudden,

WaaaaaAAAAAHHHHH!

This is where I decided to end the edited version for the movie. When he screamed in the camera, I felt like I had literally caught a fastball thrown by some major league pitcher. He screamed with such animal ferocity, I was blown away. He was imitating the apparent Sasquatch that had come to yell back at him. As his story continued, the creature proceeded to circle him and scream at him from all four directions from about three feet away in the black night. And then it was silent, except for the stench of the creature’s breath lingering in the air.


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vYH2rdbRx8&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Inner Visions of a Mountain Man Part3[/ame]

Good stuff Jake. When I emerge from my own writing hell, I will come back to read everything you have posted here.

In the mean time, a quote from Nietzsche to ponder:
“Sit as little as possible; give no credence to any thought that was not born outdoors while one moved about freely – in which the muscles are not celebrating a feast, too. All prejudices come from the intestines. The sedentary life – as I have said once before – is the real sin against the holy spirit”.

That's pretty much the reason I am so fascinated with Sasquatch, Wendigo, etc. The world needs way more monsters.

This thread just keeps bringing it.

I enjoy the wierdo stuff . I also have met and had people in my life that society deems unstable but the things you learn from them is worth it sometimes.
And sometimes they drive you fucking crazy.

So I had s light existential melt down?! What is the big deal? It felt I had slipped away to a new life in Smithers, BC. We kept the camera rolling as we interviewed anyone and everyone on the nature of politics and how they evolve into a universal understanding. Whatever it was it was a welcome change from the obsessive-compulsive reality I had shaped for my self in Alaska. For the first time I slowed down enough to smell the roses. I did not have to charge out into the mountains every single moment of every single day in order to satiate this bottomless hunger in my soul for more, more, MORE!

I was curious to see how people lived and spent their time not in the mountains. After a couple of months though I became bored. I eventually became bored of existential naval gazing and political argument. My politics had by the way, swung back 180 degrees to a delayed appreciation for my well off Christian republican upbringing. I felt slightly embarrassed that I basically had shat on everything that had molded me into who I was. And even though I could expect no sympathy from the liberal minded proud Canadian masses of BC, I came to appreciate people for whatever they thought. For my sanity I had to become neutral and as the mountains called I yielded to the sirens cry.

Smithers is different then Girdwood. I have the tendency to view and judge places on their proximity to mountains. Girdwood is surrounded by steep mountains on three sides with the ocean at the front door. Smithers is in the interior of BC and the mountains are way more spread out. Specifically Smithers is on the interior side of the Coast Range and that means less snow and colder temperatures in general. Hudson Bay Mountain is in Smithers and it is on the absolute edge of the Coast Range, so from there I can look west and see huge stand-alone peaks all the way to Terrace and the coast. The mountains become taller and the valleys become narrower and deeper the farther west you go. To the east are the huge interior plains that stretch to the Rockies, 500 miles away.

Hudson Bay Mountain is actually a huge stand-alone massif by itself, that is slightly removed from the Coast Range proper. From town, it rises 7000ft to the aesthetic summit. Its eastern flanks are broad and smooth while on the north, west and south it is very rugged and generally inhospitable. Inhospitable is a very good word to describe Hudson Bay Mountain. The top 200 feet is tall enough that it actually pokes up into the upper atmosphere, so for 9 days out of 10 there is a ‘storm cap’ cloud that obscures the peak from view. The lenticular cloud seems to be the boiling emotion or personality of the peak.

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...2deb7403c0.jpg
I actually tried to climb up into the storm cap once and was nearly blown clean off. Down on the lower flanks it was calm and sunny. I skinned by myself under the warm sun until I got right up to the threshold, where it is like walking into another room in a building. Only once did I venture into the cap. Over a one hundred-foot distance the wind picked up to about 90 mph, I would guess. I actually became afraid that I would lose a ski or backpack off the edge of the peak into oblivion. Retreat! Retreat! Ever since that trip the storm cap = do not enter.

On the rare day that is clear and calm to the summit, it is totally magnificent sight!

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...502e1dd764.jpg

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...226b450ff2.jpg

You can walk right to the edge of the world and look into the huge Hudson Bay Glacier bowl that is ringed by chute after chute.

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...5cfd4c0f54.jpg

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...39a85e0218.jpg
Amazing skiing that I have not yet enjoyed. So for one mountain there is a lot to offer and the carrot is still on the stick for me at least.

The terrain on Hudson Bay Peak goes from fairly mellow to super gnarly with not a lot of medium terrain in between.

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...c21f879b66.jpg

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...a8a95e602a.jpg

It is like going into another world when the opportunity comes up to drop into Big Simpson Drainage. You climb up across the mellow east flank and come up to the edge of the world, right near the summit.

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...d35197fb16.jpg

One day five of us decided to make the big move. Bill, Taylor, Dev and I were on skis and Greg was on a snowboard. When we got up to the summit drop in point, it became clear that that we had to descend was super steep, wind scoured and over rocky exposure. It was definitely a no fall zone for 2000 feet. We were unanimous in deciding that Greg should not drop in on his board. The one edge and no poles would make one slip on his part potentially fatal. He agreed and cruised back to the lift area to wait for us at the end of the day.

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...ba205fd273.jpg


We dropped in one at a time. Any slip or tumble would have sent the unlucky skier cart-wheeling through a scoured field of rocks laid bare by the high winds that rip through on a regular basis. After ten tight turns you have to hang hard left to access the skiable snow. There is a definite rush of relief once you make it into the safer zone and the skiing becomes fun again! We cruised down the belly of the main drainage and then stopped to gear up for our next objective, Hudson Bay Middle Peak.

Snowboarder in Mid Peak on separate trip.
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...d0c88db7e2.jpg

It is a pleasant climb. You can keep your skis on for a while then the pitch steepens and you have to boot pack up a narrow gulley. The sun feels good on your back as you efficiently gain elevation. Once we gained the high saddle, Dev and I pushed for the summit while Bill and Taylor opted for the up route as a down route.While the sun had been cooking the slopes all day the snow became soft and enjoyable underfoot. However, as the sun made its way around the sky, as it seems to do, the previously sun cooked snow hardened into a glazed over ‘hockey rink’ type consistency. The lower half of our Middle Peak run was definitely on the hard side.

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Our overall objective for the day, besides the two beautiful peaks we had already skied, was to ski out the bottom of the Big Simpson Drainage and try to tie back over to Little Simpson and mining access road back to the chairlift area. In essence we would be linking two major drainages by an easy traverse, hopefully. The terrain was objectively less steep and exposed but as we soon found out, the lower we skied down the harder the ice became. You see, the lower elevation had been cooked by the sun that much more, so when it finally did refreeze, it refroze much more solid. So solid in fact that is produced the hardest ice conditions I had ever encountered in 20 years of skiing.

The drainage rolls easily for a awhile, then towards the bottom it pitches over a steep face for 1500 feet. Even on the low angle terrain, the ice proved treacherous as Bill crashed and cut his face. I crashed into a solid chunk of avalanche debris and kicked off a ski. By sheer luck the ski stopped a few feet away on another chunk nearby.
Earlier in the day we were talking about how legends over in Chamonix say that the large black birds that cruise in the mountain thermal currents are the reincarnated spirits of ski mountaineers who have perished in the mountains. Just as I gathered my wits and my ski I saw in the distance below me, two black birds turning in long lazy circles. They were watching us and I knew who they were.

I was thinking, “If we go skiers left the snow will be worse because it was even more sun affected… so we must go hard right, because the snow will be less affected.” We crept cautiously up to the edge of the face and tucked under the huge cliff bands that loomed overhead. The snow was just barely chalky enough in texture to hold an edge and I calmed down a bit, seeing that we were going to make it. The snow was still quite hard, mind you. One slip would mean a long fall but the edges held. We all did a fast traverse across the open face as the birds wheeled about, reveling in our joy or perhaps hoping for more company in the heights. Another 1000 feet and we were safe down in the forest. We climbed the last hour back up and over to Little Simpson and then skied 3000 feet to town.

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Some first's waiting to be had.

I finished building the first ski fence in town the other day. It only took about a month before I collected enough pairs of brightly colored, 70’s era skis. It only took an hour to drill holes and screw them onto the fence that faces the street. We already have the tallest fence on the block but now it is accented by the symmetric curves of the tips of skis as they arch between two mountain ash trees.

I am a skier at heart and this is going to be my first winter as a ski bum while owning a house in a ski town. This will be the first winter I have owned a fence to display my ode to mountain sport. Some people are completely blown away at the concept; A fence with skis, how cute.

For years I had been pulling off ski bum living in a camper, a Winnebago and even a tar paper shack. This year we were going in style with a wood stove getting installed next week to finish off the ‘urban cabin’ look we had been aiming for. Town has been hopping the lately. Seems like there are more strangers in town. Who is showing up in this neck of the woods? Amenity migration. Like flies to honey, skiers and connoisseurs of mountain living have been rolling into town. Investment banker from Montreal? Model from Vancouver?! Who are these city people moving to my town? I like things the way they are. My town is not going to change.

An influx of money brings an influx of energy and ideas. The money is coming from the real estate company that is selling lots for $150K like hotcakes because they are going to put up the money to create a mountain community. The hotels, condos and restaurants are only coming as a result of massive expansion of the local mom and pop ski hill. 300 acres to 3000, 5000 in the next 2 years! 6000 vertical feet to town! What?! For 30 years people have been talking about running a lift to town. A fantasy, a pipe dream.

We have only been in town for a year and a half. We lived in a camper until 2 months ago when the deal was being sealed and the word was out, “Buy now, before it is too late!” The alarm bells went off. There was one house in town that we could afford. First time home buyer? Yes! RRSP? Yes! You’re in the club. Ski bums to land barons as if in a dream.

People were skeptical. I guess a couple of years back the place was going to sell but then the people had their hopes dashed when the deal fell through. I remained optimistic. I had to because I found myself in the most absurd conversations with local folks who called themselves skiers, as they tried to give me reasons why the hill would never sell.
“Too cold, too windy, too far north… They are going to have to make snow and I don’t like icy groomers.” Oh boo-hoo! Do they miss the point? Yes, you are supposed to enjoy the icy groomer at the end of the day as you descent from the alpine chairs of choice. You enjoy dodging tourists because you have not seen any all day because they don’t leave the fucking groomers. Making snow is part of the game when you are dealing with 6000ft, people.

Apparently real estate prices have gone up almost 20% in the last 2 months. That was the easiest money I ever made. Easier then washing dishes or brown-nosing for the corporate sponsorship.

One guy was telling me how the ‘corporation’ researches into how people are psychologically programmed into buying certain things during certain phases of their mountain experience. Well, no shit. They are trying to make money off the people who are there because of the lift that they built that you are making 5000ft laps on all day. No one is putting a gun to your head and making you buy the lip gloss next to the register at Starbucks. Go skiing and be thankful that there are some aspects of the system that are condusive to your experiencing freedom and bliss. Watch for sunburn!

I can only talk as a taxpayer who loves to schralp who happened to get in on the ground floor this time. This place reminds me of Whistler 30 years ago, maybe Jackson Hole. There is a smaller town about 10 minutes east of here that I can see moving to in about 10 years when the shit is too crazy here in ‘town.’

And so the story goes. The skier’s lust for powder and the sellers lust to sale. They say there are 2 leisure class’ in western society, the extremely rich and the extremely poor. Complementary opposites as they deviate from the middle class norm.

Is it richness of lifestyle? Yes. How do you sustain that richness? How do you eat? I don’t want to be bussing tables when I am 60. I can honestly say that I have proven to myself that I am passionate for the mountains. I failed out of college because I was skiing, dude. But I am tired of being poor. I’m tired of poor. Let’s go manic and gap that middle class and slide right into the other leisure class.

All that I have to do is ski powder. All that I have to do is ski powder. And give it to my wife in front of the wood stove in our new 80 year old house, behind our new 1970’s ski fence at the foot of a giant, ancient mountain that one day will be criss-crossed by a mosaic of groomers underneath 8 passenger gondolas with satellite internet and windows that open so you can cool off.

I want to have a run named after me. I want to grow as a skier as this mountain community blossoms into it’s true self. I live in a ski town that does not know it yet. I can already see people walking down Main Street with skis on their shoulder as they race to jump on the shuttle that that is pulling away en route to the Base area, 3 minutes away. I want to hear ski boots clunking through the liquor store. A stoked vibe injected like a drug into the arms of the consumers of pleasure.

I am a skier. I know how to ski for free so if the prices go up, so what? I don’t like arguing with people who don’t seem to know what is for their own good. Maybe they don’t ski? God forbid, than what are they living for?

This winter will be nice. Nothing is really going to happen on the hill until next summer so we have one more season to soak up things the way they are because they will not remain for long. This is our chance to absorb this mountain so we can tell out kids colorful “I remember when…” stories about the lifts and the town. For now, I am going to keep my mouth shut. Perhaps put a little effort in slowing the transformation. But alas! In the future I see a renewable resource all snugly in a turtle-neck and sipping a mocha while wearing extremely tight ski pants.

The farmers almanac says that if there are lots of bees, hornets and wasps in the summer, then it is going to be a good winter. I never got stung but I know lots of people who did. Either way, I can only offer my support by collecting more skis so I can build a second tier on my lovely fence.

The story begins around 9:30 pm on a Tuesday night in Smithers BC. Vesna and I were hanging out in our camper parked behind our office, Interesting Productions Studio, when Breeann came banging at the door. I stick my head out and she starts telling me about how Shames just got plastered with 100cm of snow in the last 24hrs and that we should start driving to Terrace right then so that we could go skiing in the morning.

Vesna and I had to take some real convincing from Breeann and her boyfriend Trevor before we were sold on the idea. We had been wrapped up in pulling a David vs Goliath maneuver in the independent film industry concerning our spoof documentary, ‘Escape from America?’ and had been immersed in an imaginary world of numbers and ideas. Breeann and Trevor, in unison, had to keep repeating “100cm, 100cm, 100cm…” until Vesna and I relented, “Let’s go!”

We were on the beat. First, Vesna had to call her yoga students and tell them that she would not be teaching class at 7:30am on Thursday, because she was going to ski 100cm. All the students seemed to understand. I had to jump on the computer to close a few deals and check the weather from around the continent.

“Alyeska Resort up north? 0 inches. Alta Resort down south? Trace. Kicking Horse out east? 6cm. Shames Mountain? 95cm and snowing!” I considered that market research and decided to blast an email to the guys at Powder Magazine, to let them know that I was on the story. I had never really thought of writing an article for a magazine until right then. It sounded like potential for some high drama in the mountains so I gave it a shot.

Vesna and I had been looking for a good ski story to film. I had done a few ski movies while in Alaska and together, we worked on a political documentary. We were looking for a combo of some sort. Tell a story around the sport of skiing. So while we are emailing, packing and laughing, we start filming our movie right then. This story is kind of behind the scenes look at what it takes to get the perfect shot, if not the perfect run. An hour later the truck is purring along in a torrential rainstorm as Vesna and I scheme on ways to get up mountains and down.

Terrace was warm. Ominous. It was past 1am now, and we were waxing skis out in the shed of Trevor and Breeann. It was made even more ominous because their house is right next door to an abandoned morgue that supposedly is the home to a bunch of stray cats. I am looking at the sky, smelling the warm air and a seed of doubt is planted, but I don’t say anything as I close the door to the shed to be enveloped by the crooning of Bob Marley.

I got some good footage of waxing skis. I had never done that before. Seemed kind of ritualistic, the melting of the wax and smoothing the surface for efficiency. We feel asleep around 3am listening as the camper was battered by wind with mixed rain and snow.

“Shames is up there, should be cold,” we rationalized in to dreams.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1dltK52S-M&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - The Passion of the Crust Part 1[/ame]

7am came quickly.
“Tim Horton’s is on the way! Coffee, donuts? Check!” Four of us in a Ford Econoline van chugging up the hill with the tunes rolling. From the gravel access road I could see Shames through the viewfinder. I could see snow in the trees and it was lightly snowing.

“She’s holding!” I could relay to the passengers in the back of the van. “It is warm out though,” I thought to myself.
In the parking lot it was quite. I heard some tunes coming from a car off somewhere, but the atmosphere was subdued. On the chairlift no one wanted to talk about the intricate patterns the rain had left on the surface of the snow.
“We’re down low, maybe we’ll get above it?”

Optimism seemed to have failed the group of people standing at the top of the lift. Absent was the mad rush for first tracks to be followed by the hoots and hollers from the trees.

“The bars don’t open until 11,” I heard someone say as I skied past the group, loaded with camera gear.
Down at the T-bar line-up, Brad and I were the first in line as we waited for avalanche clearance from patrol.
“I don’t know, that snow seems pretty hard,” Brad speculates. Brad was a fellow American who was sleeping on the couch of Trevor and Breeann.

As I was theorizing on the thickness of this crust, a local guy skis up from the back of the line and says, “You know, we were thinking about it back there and we decided that we don’t want the Americans in front of the line.” My immediate response was that of shock then dismay as Brad looks silent and I offer my place in line. Politics are great fun and all but I had not expected such remarks from the backwoods of northern BC. The guy laughed and said he was joking but it caught my attention.

The T-bar fired up and most people were heading straight for ‘Hangover.’ Everyone skied over to the top of the run in disbelief. All of the cultivated positive thinking went out the window as soon as your ski fell beneath the 2 inch crust. The crust was the chastity belt that sheathed the surface of the mountain. Underneath the crust was bottomless, cold powder. Mostly, I remember my face and head grinding through the crust as I crashed for the first time in ages. I came up, hatless and laughing as I could see the same wise-guy from the T-bar straight-line the entire run to the bottom.

I could hear people laughing all around as everyone’s idea of how to turn a ski was redefined. I filmed and asked people what they thought of the snow. People did not know what to think of it. It seemed like everyone had to adopt a certain humility in order to get down the hill. Except for the solo straight-line, people took their time and stood around. I can honestly say that it was the most difficult skiing I had ever experienced. You can talk all day about extreme this and that but that is all moot if the intermediate run under the lift is nearly unskiable.

Down at the bottom of the lift, I overheard, “What am I going to do all day? I skipped work for this!” I got on the lift and went for another run because at that point everyone had kind of agreed to all ski the same run so that the crust would get broken apart. Once the crust was gone the snow was of a glorious quality. White smoke type of snow, only this variety was laced with shards of ice that felt like glass. If your skis were below the crust your kneecaps and shins were being ripped and torn as you powered through a turn. The only way to keep your tips above the crust was to take the posture of being in the extreme backseat. Hanging out in the backseat is about the surest way to destroy your knees so many people opted out for the day and hit the bar.

Vesna met us on the deck with camera and drink in hand. She was getting good footage of people telling their stories of the crust. “It was like putting your head through a windshield!” People were beginning to come to understand the affect the crust had had on them. In experiencing the humility, people began to see the humor, and were liberated by what had transpired. After all, Shames still was the epicenter of Ullr’s attention and we were his worthy recipients. We had braved Crust Day and would be rewarded. The forecast said it was supposed to cool off a hair and turn clear by Sunday. That means we had 3 days to celebrate and ski snow, regardless of its consistency.

Towards the afternoon, Trevor and I found some crust that was not so breakable and we were able to scrape some turns out in ‘Deliverance.’ Back at the bar, no one believed us, “Get out of here! It’s Snownami Wednesday!”

“No way! We’re believers,” we responded. (It is interesting to note the comparison of the greatest natural disaster in recent history to a skier’s perception of a natural disaster.)

After giving praise to Ullr for such a battering, we hobbled to the van and drove down the hill in heavy snowfall, extending our optimism into the week ahead.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz-waG8vMyQ&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - The Passion of the Crust Part 2[/ame]

In Terrace, Vesna and I got the camper stocked for the week and chugged back up to the Shames lower lot.

By 8am about 10cm of snow had fallen but our fires were slow to stoke. The new snow once combined with the original crust, created crud. There was no one complaining though, because compared to the day before it was beautiful skiing. After lunch I put the skis away and busted out the snowboard. I know some of you out there might actually put the magazine down and walk away at this point and I tell you it is your loss. On the board you could shralp trackless crud lines all day without breaking a sweat. It was great. In the afternoon, we drank beer and once again, gave thanks to Ullr.

The next day the weather continued as expected. The air cooled and soothed the snow into something more manageable for the skier. The crud began to dry out and firm up as the crust evolved into being the foundation for the skiff of new snow.
We were getting ready to cruise out with the touring gear into ‘Phazars’ when a couple of guys showed up. Turns out they were from Whistler and they had heard about the 100cm dump. They got on a plane and raced up here to ski and take photos for their website, www.doglotion.com. I got a quick interview on the camera and then some good shots down in the trees. Can’t go wrong with skiing powder in the trees with new friends.

In the afternoon, word got around that Matchstick Productions was flying in that night and that got everyone going. The industry elite gravitating to our very own Shangri-La only further validated our devotion to Ullr. Tonight would be the perfect night to burn skis.

Trevor had carried 10 pallets up the hill in his van that morning so the stage was set for the Lower Lot party. Get everyone stoked to drink beer and call for snow with the sacrifice of a pair of worthy boards. Trevor had a pair of Dynastar 4x4 Bigs. It nearly brought a tear to my eye to see the real life flames lick at the acrylic flames on the top-sheet. I filmed as the mighty tips, the 4x4 was known for, finally fell flat and succumbed to the heat. We sat and passed the Whisky Fireball Shooter around until it was gone and we plotted great things for the morning and years to come. We were where IT was happening and we knew it. The sky had turned clear and cold and the stars were out. Sometimes the snow has to sit around a bit before the skiing gets good. Ullr would provide.

The next morning was a bit of a gong show with all of the weekend crowd and the hangovers making them selves known. “We’re charging off to ski where? Huh…?”

It took some patience but it all fell together. Brad and I were aiming for the ‘Iron Curtain’, a steep spine face across the valley from Shames. We boot-packed five minutes up to the top of ‘Deliverance’, skied to the valley bottom and then climbed up the other side of the valley. It took us a good two hours to get to the top of the run. We had two cameras with us. Vesna was posted across a small drainage and had a good barbie angle while I was on a steeper, profile angle. Brad was the star as he made the first crux turn at the top over moderate exposure. He made about 6 steep turns down the runneled face and spit out in the bottom of the gulley.

I got to go next. I choose a cleaner spine to the skiers right. It was sweet. Steep turns around tiny trees as my hip grazed the flank of the fin I was on. Vesna was directly across from me, not more then 50 meters away. She got the shot as I zinged in three more turns out the bottom and skied over to cheer with Brad. “The Iron Curtain was a hurtin’!”
We laughed about how America slayed the Iron Curtain of Communism and now we were skiing like Americans in Canada as we slayed the ‘Iron Curtain’ of Shames. That could be a bumper sticker, “Ski like an American in Canada!” You could take that many different ways.

Anyway, back to the snow. The crud had turned to a kind of carvable foam that was had been plastered on all aspects no matter how steep. I had made a couple of turns where, if it had been 24 hours earlier, the snow would have collapsed under its own weight and sloughed to the bottom. Instead, it was firm and predictable. Good times.
Despite the fact that I had lost a $200 camera battery at the top of the run, we were elated with surviving the run. It is amazing what some technical skiing does for the senses. It was good day to test the snow, see what is going on in the snow-pack. We felt good about things and began to solidify plans for the morning. We were going to climb and ski ‘Geronimo’ and get it on film from across the valley. Vesna and I had been eyeing up the aesthetic, exposed fall line all season. That would be a good way to end the story I thought.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSzNN1gZKns&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - The Passion of the Crust Part 3[/ame]

We made a relatively early start. At 10:30 we were slapping on skins and preparing to climb. Our group consisted of Trevor, Trent (the photographer), Vesna and myself. Brad had to teach at ski school in the morning so he was going to be on radio so he could get the long cross-valley shot when we dropped in. Our skin track was there from the day before so we could move fast. I was able to make radio contact with Brad around 12pm when we neared the summit. He was set and the camera was ready. Apparently he had to cut his lesson short in order to get the shot, so with a few words of encouragement he set his students free and took up his position.

At the top of the run there was confusion. We were looking right down the planned run and it looked ugly. The wind had come up in the evening and continued to blow under brilliant blue skies. Our run looked heinous; hard crust with wind-sculptured drifts.
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“One turn powder, one turn drift, one turn crust, one turn powder”, that is what I predicted in my head. “Alright, maybe we should circle around to that other ridge? It looks cleaner, less exposed,” I offered. We all scooted around the ridge a couple hundred meters to get a better look.

“That ridge is just as narrow,” Vesna pointed out, “there are still four of us.”
“You’re right.” We stopped and ate lunch… took some time to mull it over. The wind had stopped for the moment and the view was fantastic. My mind could not be further away from the world of dollars and deadlines. In the discussion of our potential run we decided that it was a better filming opportunity and safer group management if we split into two groups and skied different runs.

“Hey Jake! Can you hear me?” Brad asked over the radio, “I’m ready to go.”
Snap back to reality! We decided on a plan. Trevor and Trent would continue around the ridge and ski the second run while Vesna and I continued with the Geronimo plan.

As Vesna and I skied into position a red helicopter flew by on its way into the mountains, no doubt carrying the likes of Hugo Harrison and Dan Treadway. I caught myself beginning to think about how jealous I was because I wanted to be in the helicopter filming with Matchstick Productions or blah, blah, blah… then I realized that I was on top of a crazy mountain with my lovely Vesna and we had a camera guy waiting to film us. There was a task at hand! We were the professional skiers, here to shred!

Neither Vesna nor I made two consecutive powder turns in a row on the entire run. It was sun-crusted, wind-scoured, exposed and kind of scary. In each turn the wind held the snow suspended in the crystalline sky all around my senses. Time slowed.

Halfway down the run we tucked ourselves in a tree grove and posted up to film Trent and Trevor on their run. We filmed their sweet powder turns as they charged down the shoulder stopping just above the open glades. Trent was taking pictures as Trevor made a solid ski cut that released a decent slough that traveled to valley bottom. Radio chatter. Communication. We waited for them to make valley bottom before continuing our run, the sun was getting warmer and I wanted off that face. We worked our way slowly through avalanche gullies and steep trees. Slab here, slough there! Exciting stuff. At the bottom we raced across the run out through freight train sized debris piles, remnants of Wednesday’s storm destruction. The four of us regrouped at the bottom of the drainage, exchanged hi-fives and started prepared to climb once more.

As we skinned back towards the resort, we continued to gain an improved vantage point across the valley on the runs we just did. It was crazy! The scale and dimensions were just beginning to seep in as we sat at the top of North Bowl watching the sun cast longer and longer shadows across ‘Geronimo’ and the second run that Trevor and Trent dubbed ‘Pressaman.’ It was now 4:20 pm and as it turns out, Bob Marley’s 60th birthday. The crust and the mountains had yielded their conspired secrets. We paid tribute with a smoke and a moment of silence before skiing sweet, sweet powder down North Bowl, heading back to the truck and aiming for the office.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksjnpUE0XO4&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - The Passion of the Crust Part 4[/ame]

i just happened to come across this thread by chance.

after reading it i feel as thou you have been living the life i dream about.

from the death hikes to the mud surfing it is all i dream about every day.

fortunately for me i am still young and plan to move to revelstoke this winter to pursue my dream.

do you have any advice for me? as a 20year old trying to make a life out of something that almost every one i talk to is opposed to?

Every time I go to Whistler it changes me, usually for the better. I leave as a different person, someone changed by experiences you can only have in Whistler. For years, Whistler has been known the destination resort within the skiing community of North America. It has the longest vertical, the most acres and the most rocking nightlife. In Whistler it is easy to spend money but it is even easier to access gnarly terrain with awesome snow. I found my self with a week off in the middle of the summer. I always wanted to compete in the Crank Workx Race series so I committed to the idea and raced to Whistler on a solo mission.

Someone on the chairlift said that people come to Whistler for the winter but stay for the summer. I can easily agree as I sit in the warm sun and drink a latte while enjoying some world class people watching on the village stroll.

Tuesday July 25, 2006

9am: I arrived in Whistler last night after 13 hours of solo driving from Smithers, BC. I have never been here in the summer it is pretty nice. I am here to DH bike on chairlifts for the first time. It should be a mind-expanding experience. I am also going to compete in the Crankworx triple crown of racing as I am entered in the Air DH, the Biker X and the Enduro DH. Time to go.

3pm: I am like 10 times a better biker then ever before after just 3 hours in the Whistler Bike Park. Air to air to bank to air… It is pretty fun, to say the least. I am taking a break now and going back out in couple of hours. Have to train for tomorrow.

8:45pm: I am exhausted. It was a big day yesterday, a big day today and it will be a big day tomorrow… A-Line DH race! I think I know the course. Should be interesting.

Wednesday July 26, 2006

8:30am: I am drinking coffee and mentally preparing to race. I feel worn out from yesterday but I am going to push on through.

11:45pm: My head spins as I recall the days events and the Tylenol 3, beer and weed kick in. I guess I’ll recount the day as things happened:

10am-12pm: I did 3 more laps on A-Line trying to get a few more runs. Yesterday being my first day on a lift, I figured 10 laps would be enough to run it fast and clean. On each of my laps, I kicked my chain off, leaving me powerless to pedal. Frustrated, I tried in vain to properly adjust my chain guide. The chain kept coming off. I rushed into a bike shop asking if they could do a quick repair on my rear wheel. I figured that it was the freewheel bearing that was causing the trouble. They were all too busy.

I adjusted the chain guides again and set off to do another run. Right when I got to the chair I realized that I had a slow leak in my rear wheel. I also soon realized that I had lost my mini tire pump that was in my camel back. So now I am at the top of the lift borrowing a pump from some dude. I told him to take a run and I’d leave the pump at the top shack.

Right when he took off I tried to use his pump but I could not get it to work. Just then another guy comes up saying something as I am pumping the pump that does not work. So I borrow his pump and I am now pumping the tube up real huge trying to find the leak. Can’t find it. It was hot out. I am dripping sweat with this guy and his family looking at me. He told me there were free bike rentals down in the village. That’s a good idea. So I decided to put the tube back on and race down the access road to the village to find a sweet ride.

12:30pm: I paced around the milling crowds in the sweltering heat with my dilapidated bike. It doesn’t help that I have a huge motocross fender on my front wheel and that seems to attract stares anyway. I went by each team tent looking for those ‘free’ demo bikes. No one knows anything about free bikes. “These are tents and bikes for pro riders and who are you?” It started to become comical at this point. I walk from tent to tent calling out for a ‘free DH bike to ride just one lap on A-line!’ No takers.

Next I tried to go rent a bike for $40 but I did not have a credit card. It was getting closer to my start time. I had one last hope that the fellow Americans I had met were in the parking lot and also able to help.

1pm: We’re feverishly taking apart my rear wheel and trying to lube the thing up as much as possible. I got a spare tube, pumped her up and sprinted to the lift half convinced that I was late. I got to the course and was told that things were delayed by 1/2 hour for some reason. So I got to chill in the shade for about 20 minutes.

I managed to run the course clean in 4:57. I thought it was pretty good considering that an hour before I thought I would not even be able to race.

While I am watching the top pros come in under 4:20 and a whole heap of people under 4:30 I crunched my molar on some sort of seed shell that was in the muffin I was eating. So I went and had my first Canadian ER experience. It was slow. I emerged with a couple of Tylenol 3 but by then the liquor store was closed so I could not get a bottle of Jim Beam to commemorate the Air DH. I might have my tooth pulled in the morning.

July 27, 2006

My tooth split apart this morning when I forgot I had cracked it and chomped into some jerky for breakfast. It does not seem to hurt. Another day in Whistler…
I started training on the Biker X course. It is gnarly. Big race tomorrow. Looking forward to the Enduro on Sunday. One day at a time

I am starting to feel strong at this level. I am biking faster and faster while hitting bigger and bigger jumps. Lot 5 is great.

July 29, 2006

I decided to pull out of the Biker X. It wasn’t my thing. I ran the course several times on my old Super 8 with 3 inch Gazalottis but kept having trouble on one speed section. I blew my bike apart on the stutter bumps. Whatever. I needed a mental break. Aiming for the Enduro tomorrow.

I awoke in the back of my truck hung over and with rain falling lightly on my face. I am worn out. I did not know what to expect coming here. It certainly is Whistler but summer time now. The bike scene is huge. I see huge potential in myself for improving on bike and skis here. This Enduro race should be fun. Tech, single track, natural…

9pm: Just came back from watching the Crankworx Slopstyle competition in the Village! Craziness. We are at the center of the bike universe. It is going to be a big day tomorrow. I am making dinner on the tailgate.

July 30, 2006

Another morning of pissing rain. Today I am competing in the Enduro DH. I can finally put this giant fender to good use. This race is more my style. I have become so much better on my bike in the last week it is crazy. Just when I am getting warmed up to keep riding for another 2 months, I have to go home.

Last night we had a bonfire in the parking lot even though there is a province wide ban on fires. Good times in Lot 5. It is always fun to make new friends. I did not know what to expect coming to bike in Whistler. My ideas ranged from blind arrogance to prudent timidity. In reality I have squeezed somewhere in between. I have seen quick development around my strong background but have had only enough to get a taste of it. We’ll see how today goes. I’d like to have a solid race. Pedal, pedal, pedal.

Yesterday I heard that you are supposed to dream in your 20’s, work on that dream in your 30’s and live off your hard work in your 40’s and beyond. Sounds like a pretty good plan.

12:15pm: I have about 1 hour to race time. I just ate some mushrooms. I am going to go fast and steady.

3:40pm: Crazy shit. High-speed gnarl. Tripping out. I soared to the bottom of the pit on the last GLC drop in front of 40,000 people and rolled to a stop at the fence all wild eyed and bewildered looking with the full beard and enormous fender. The crowd literally parted a path for me through the village square as I made my way to the truck. They looked afraid. I am going back to Smithers right now. See how far I can drive.

I started driving at 4pm and did not stop, except for gas, until 5:45 the next morning in my driveway at home. When my eyes became heavy between Prince George and Burns Lake I pretended I was enduring some sort of military training scenario and that I had to make it to Smithers in order to pass the test. What test? Who’s judging whom? The clock, the objective machine that first gives us time and as a result, space. Point A to Point B. Simple, universal, unarguable…

I really enjoyed my time in Whistler because it introduced me to a whole new world of exploration and opportunity. It is humbling indeed, to be cruising along at what I though was a respectable clip, and have Cedric himself pass and move ahead with such ease and grace. I physically could not keep him in my sight for more then 30 seconds. While I was huffing and puffing, he was standing, nearly motionless as his bike bobbed and weaved over the roots and rocks. And in another moment, he’s gone into the mist and foliage ahead.

I tend to get philosophical when it comes to trying to understand the experience that arises from bending time and space with speed. I have a theory that people who are faster on the bike, skis or freeway even, are smarter. By that I mean that they can mentally compute and assess the terrain at a faster rate and therefore command their body to move accordingly, at a faster rate. By that argument you can make yourself smarter by going faster. Just command your body to ease off the brakes just a little more or make one more pedal stroke before the next turn.

Your head would have no option but to try and compute this higher rate of data. It might be too much, there might be a glitch and a momentary thought about your income taxes or the looming war in Iran and you CRASH! Holy shit. Too fast, I guess I’m not that smart yet.

I gave it my best. I pedaled every turn that I could and I charged and sweated and grunted. But I did not crash. I went from Point A at the top of the Garbanzo Chair to Point B in the Village Square in a time of 18:48. That sounds about right and I am happy with that.

I think I can go faster. I might need to upgrade the bike and move to Pemberton but those are small steps on the path of knowledge. I’d like to stand on the podium with the gurus and then I’d know that I worked my hardest.

I started working with a small local mining company in the summer of 2006 and was truly introduced to the world running a chainsaw. I was told I would be ‘cutting line’ and even though I had never really cut line or ran a chainsaw professionally, I hoped I would figure it out. As it turns out, running a chainsaw all day is hard fucking work.

Basically, someone goes ahead of you and ‘lays line’ by using compass and GPS as they make a straight line through the forest. They will use ribbon to mark trees and my job was to cut a path about one meter wide. Wide enough for someone else to come through and haul high tech electronic sensing gear to be used to look for under ground deposits. I am not paid to worry too much about what is under ground. I am paid to make the line straight as I cut through whatever the forest throws at you.

Sometimes the vegetation is dense and bush like and it feel like you could be using a lawn mower. Other times there is ten feet of deadfall stacked up overhead as you cut a tunnel through 4 foot thick logs. Despite the heat and bugs and exhaust, I really liked running a saw from day one. My hands were cramped into claws and my back and biceps ached dearly but I knew that with time I would become strong and it would be like any other physical endeavor.

I always put a lot of emphasis into experience and common sense developed in the steep terrain of mountain zones. I took the job as an opportunity to also become a ‘woodsman’. There are a lot of trees in BC and a lot of those trees are on the sides of steep mountains so I might as well learn how to cut them down.

We would fly in by helicopter and build a base camp. From there, ‘the grid’ would extend out into the bush for kilometers. A typical grid consists of a baseline that runs from 2-10k long. Every 50 to 500m on the baseline a cross lines will intersect and run perpendicular from 1-5k on both sides of the baseline. Every camp was different and every day was an adventure and I was getting paid for all of it.

Every job was different. I went to camp with the idea that it would be a ‘meeting of the minds.’ You are being put into potentially dangerous situations with previous strangers. After a few days in the bush you are no longer, acquaintances, but friends. The first night in every camp I would have trouble sleeping. I would usually dream some dream that would stick with me for the duration of the job. At Davy Lake I lucidly remember my first night dream and even recalled to a group of us one evening. I clearly recounted how I could see my own face morphing though and becoming 1500 different faces and lives over about three seconds in my head. When I woke I knew I was into my 1500th life.

In hindsight, I found it interesting that I had found such profound experience in the flat lands of northern Saskatchewan. We were working at Davy Lake, located about two hours float plane flight from Fort McMurray, Alberta and just south of the border with the Northwest Territories. The grid we were working on was huge. The base line was broke into 5-6 different ten kilometer long sections all spiraling around like a Fibonacci design. The cross line intersected at 500 meters and ran for 5k each direction. The following is my immediate recollection of the events from the previous day, our tenth day on the job:

My head kind of hurts because I have been awake for basically 30 hours straight. I am sitting in the Saskatoon Airport waiting to fly to Prince George via Calgary and Vancouver. Once on P.G I will take the bus home to Smithers.

Yesterday started like any other day at work in a bush camp. We got up, had a huge breakfast, prepared the chainsaw and made our lunches. It was going to be another hot day cutting line through the forest of Northern Saskatchewan. The only thing that we did different out of our routine was fly out on the 3rd flight instead of the first. Pete and I had been on a roll the last week, getting lots of work done. On this morning we were feeling a little sluggish and Pete suggested that we go slow and drink another cup of coffee and I agreed. We were planning on an easier day compared to the last 4 days when we cut through 14 km of gnarly forest. When our turn came to fly around 8:30, we were mentally prepared for another day of bugs and chainsaw exhaust and noise and sweating.

As we cruised along about 1000 ft above the arid forest and interspersed lakes our pilot, Yves, spotted what he thought was a caribou swimming across a lake right below us. Before I knew it we were banked into a steep, descending right hand turn with the intention of buzzing a loop around the lake, trying to not scare the caribou too much and then be on our way to our work site about 12km down the grid.

Somewhere along the way Yves became disoriented with his speed and rate of descent and right at the low point of the arc of our turn, the skis caught the surface of the water and we went from about 200mph to zero in about 1/2 second.

The Hues 500 helicopter was instantly submerged. My head was already under the water by the time I got unbuckled and out the door into the lake water. I could barely swim because I was wearing bucking pants and a coat. As I kicked those off I was thankful that I was now barefoot as my sandals were long gone. (we didn’t wear cork boots in the chopper because it damaged the floor and steps) Just then, Yves popped up and in another 5-10 seconds Pete popped up and we all stated swimming the 100-120 ft to shore. I made it to shore first and realized that Pete was having trouble. Maybe he can’t swim? I knew he was wearing steel toe boots laced up. I stripped naked and swam most of the way back to the chopper where I grabbed a floating seat cushion and gave it to Pete. I started pulling the cushion with Pete on it with all of my might. I was yelling with each breath to “Swim! Kick! Fucking Swim! Swim! Come on!”

But he wouldn’t or couldn’t move very much. He wasn’t saying anything and he seemed dazed. I think he either hit his head or injured his back but either way, he was becoming heavier and heavier. By then Yves had made it to shore, stripped down and was at my side as we both pulled on Pete and I yelled at him to “Swim! Swim!” His head bobbed under and again. I was becoming exhausted. He submerged again right between us and I reached down about 3 feet to the top of his head. Yves dove under and brought him to the surface once more but he was motionless and we were beginning to drown with him.

I had to let go as I yelled to Yves that I was going down too… I pulled to my back and looked at the sky and kicked in to shore about 60-70 ft away. Yves followed.

Once we got to shore we were kind of pacing and wailing naked in the mud. I retrieved my pants, shirt and gloves from the jet fuel-slicked water. Debris littered the whole area like the helicopter literally detonated on impact.
We crunched barefoot through the lichen covered forest floor and found a sunny spot to dry out and marvel at being alive. All of our gear was at the bottom of the lake. I saw the orange survival kit floating along the far shore so we moved around the lake, picking though debris as we went. The survival kit was well stocked and we soon had a fire going and space blankets laid out so any passing pilot might see our position.

At this point (10am) we had to assume that 1) The people at camp would be worried because Yves was supposed to be back in 10 minutes and 2) we had to assume that the emergency locater beacon had gone off and search and rescue was on the way. So we stoked the fire and contemplated the events so far. We guessed our distance to camp to be about 5 km and wondered how long to wait before walking. We knew that it was a bad idea to move anywhere so we sat from about 10-1pm and listened for the sound of a plane engine. Sometimes we were sad, sometimes we were happy for having made it in one piece. Our minds altered between racing domino thoughts to what if games to guilt to happiness to nothing at all.
Then, from across a far clearing we heard a yell and saw the other cutting crew. They had heard the sound of the wreck from 5km away and by more luck then anything managed to come over a hill and see the space blanket with us nearby.

We now had a radio and GPS to relay our coordinates to camp and the search planes. By 4pm I was in camp sitting by the lake somewhat dazed and confused. I knew that I was going home and Yves knew that he was no longer a pilot and we knew that Pete was still in the lake.
By 7pm I was in a float-plane, wearing a neck brace flying to Buffalo Narrows to see the doctor. Once there, they decided to send us by ambulance to the hospital in Lacross to do x-rays and further assess Yves and my condition. They seemed concerned that my pupils were different sizes and kept changing size, so they called the medivac jet from Saskatoon. I was at the Royal University hospital around 4am. I was in a C-spine collar the whole time just for precaution. They wanted to do a cat scan to see if my brain was swelling or damaged. The mechanism of injury was severe enough to require a thorough examination.

I finished testing at the Saskatoon hospital about 9am and was at the airport by 11am. I am about to read in the paper about the war in the Middle east and be thankful for breathing and walking and being alive.

Once in Smithers I have to go meet Pete’s wife and mother of his four children and tell her that he was working hard to support them and that he loved them and that he loved what he was doing and that Yves and I tried our hardest to get him to shore.

August 28, 2006

I went back to see Pete’s wife again today because she called me and said that she had something for me. When I got there she was shaking and distraught. The walls were covered in crayon drawings from the kids running around. They knew that their mother was too distracted to get mad at them.

She presented me with Pete’s 1st nations vest that had his Wolf crest on the back. She told me his spirit name was Great Swimming Wolf. He was called that because a couple of years ago he did a 1000mile kayak trip from Hazelton to Victoria. Apparently wolves do not normally like to swim but Pete was the exception, having a love for the water. As she handed me the vest we were struck by the irony that he had drowned while trying to swim to shore.

I was honored but confused as to why I should get this treasured item. She told me that I had tried my best and that is all you can ever do and because I was there at the last moment his spirit name was transferred to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by carpathian

YouTube - Huge Avalanche in the Talkeetnas

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So only one dog make it out, or were they both ok?

You're a good skier, and you take cool pics, but you (or whoever owns those dogs) is a shitty fucking dog owner.

^^^Only one dog was in the avy and he was alright. The other one was free and clear in the first place. Neither dog was mine. I guess I agree and disagree on the shitty dog owner part. Some skiers bring their dog everywhere and treat it like a person and the dogs really like cruising through the pow just like us.

But dogs are the weakest link in most cases and they can't make decisions for them self.

Thats good they were ok.

You also can't really put a beacon on a dog without potentially costing a human their life, and anything without a beacon in avy terrain isn't too smart.

Sorry, great thread you got here, but when I see something like that I just cringe, and I had to say something. I'm sure the dogs have fun, but they don't deserve to die.

Carry on, back to the stoke. I guess I should post some stoke to redeem myself, so heres my meager contribution.

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1251001461

Immediately after the crash Vesna and I decided to go to Whistler, BC to do some downhill biking. It would be my second trip down south in the summer and I figured that if life is short we might as well follow through with something that we had always wanted to do. I would miss Pete’s funeral but I felt like I had already seen him off to the next life.

Downhill biking is extremely fun and extremely dangerous. The Bike Park in Whistler is the worlds best and we wanted to check it out. After a week of biking we both decided that we wanted a change and it would be fun to move to Whistler full time. We would rent out our house and see what the Lower Mainland had to offer. But before that could happen we had to go back to Smithers so I could face my new demons and go back to work in the bush.

My destination? Tasu Inlet on the exposed West Coast of the Queen Charlottes Islands. The crew five, myself included, had two days in Charlotte City to organize gear and buy groceries. When everything was ready we met with the boat captain who would carry us out through the Skidegate Narrows and south for 8 hours to Tasu. His boat was a 54’ seiner that was definitely more suited for a fishing crew of two without addition of a mining crew of five.

The crux of out operation in general was the sight unseen purchase of a small lake boat that would serve as our job site water taxi. Our boss bought the boat on the Internet and we went to pick it up on our way to camp. I kind of wanted to test the outboard motor before setting sail but apparently we had to ride the tide ASAP. The little boat was sad looking. The canvas top was all collapsed and the windshield was busted.

We cruised along south until a small opening came into view through the vertical faced west coast. The passage was maybe four lanes wide with cliffs rising thousands of feet on each side. I was trying to not be paranoid, but ever since Saskatchewan I had the habit of constantly scanning for my ‘exit strategy’ in case we went down. With the pounding surf and cold rocks there was not many options.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5G-n5bpoXI&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Tasu Part 1[/ame]

Our home for the next three weeks would be in a little canvas tent tucked into a tiny cove on the end of the Booth Peninsula. My crew consisted of Kevin and Bryan, who were both in Saskatchewan, along with John and Eric who were technically prospectors. Kevin, Bryan and I would be responsible for soil sampling every single stream that flowed to the ocean off of the strip of land that we called home.

Amazingly the little outboard motor started. Since I had the most ocean experience I was nominates as ‘Captain and we named our small vessel The Belle Hopper. I set about making an anchor out of rocks and bailing wire and I constructed an anchor system that allowed the boat to free float despite the high and low tide fluctuations.

After a day of prepping camp it was time to go to work. We would zip from camp in search of flowing water. Some creeks were so small that they just trickled off the rocks into the ocean. I would pull the boat up to the cliffs and Kevin would jump off the bow and scramble up the cliff into the dense forest. I idea is to collect soil samples from the streambeds every 50 meters along with a GPS coordinate. Some creeks would go less then 50 meters before they dispersed into the loamy ground or as a spring or seep from a steep bank.

One creek was pretty good sized on the map. It flowed down between he green dripping mountains from a lake some two kilometers upstream. The problem was that every time we would cruise by the creek on route to somewhere else, there would be four or five large black bears hanging around on the beach, apparently waiting for us or challenging us to come on their turf.

About a week into the trip we decided it was time to venture into ‘Bear Valley.’ All the other creeks on this side of the peninsula were complete except for the creek that flowed from the valley of the bears. Sure enough, when we pulled in here was a momma bear and two cubs watching us. They moved away as we approached and as long as we did not surprise each other things would be all right. Once you were in the dense vegetation however, by the time you would see a bear you are only three feet away…
Three of us made our way up the creek under huge fallen cedars and over deep pools of crystal clear water. The Charlottes it tends to rain a lot. This day it seemed to let loose a particular deluge as we sweated and steamed through the jungle. Sometimes there were ten trees, each ten feet in diameter, all crisscrossed overhead, making it dark in the caverns below. It felt very “Lord of the Rings.”

After several hours we made it to the lake just as the sun poked through the clouds. We took lunch o a beach and prepared to journey back to the ocean where the bears were waiting. On the way out, we opted for the bear trodden paths that run parallel to the creek up above the stream bank. These paths seemed to be as good a place as any to run into a bear. Sure enough we saw one come around the corner and it zipped off the path and circled around to where it seemed to be following us.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HFqkcQRPvM&NR=1"]YouTube - Tasu Part 2[/ame]

As we popped out on to the beach the tide was up and there was the momma bear and here cubs right on route to our boat. We decided to go up into the forest and circle around knowing that the other bear was nearby. It came to a point where the momma bear was right in front of us as the other one came from the side so we had to actually run up on to this little knob to get our of the way. Right as we were crouched behind a log I looked down at my feet and saw a perfect bear skull and skeleton right at my feet.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI7042BuYv8&feature=related"]YouTube - Tasu Part 3[/ame]

I picked up the skull up for a moment contemplating this awesome memento from Bear Valley. Right then the stalking bear seemed to advance and I decided it would be best to not disturb the bear graveyard. We ran through the thicket and scrambled to the boat. The bears appeared to be satisfied with our departure and so were we as the Belle Hopper zipped us away to safety on the open sea. We departed our camp after three weeks of rain and adventure. The fishing boat picked us up at midnight and we chugged into the night. An hour later as we rolled in the pitch black waves of the pacific, the deck hand checked on the Belle Hopper and discover ed that she had broken loose and disappeared in the inky night, never to be seen again.

I just finished working my first season in the booming mining industry here in BC. I have had the opportunity to travel all over the province and beyond, make good money, learn new skills and make new friends. At most jobs you are spending days and weeks out in remote camps working and living with random co-workers. I have enjoyed talking with people who have different backgrounds then myself. Though most of the time, my co-workers are locals of America and Canada, I have had the opportunity to talk politics with people from far off lands.

Back in August and September I was working with a young Mexican fellow named Eric. He was born in Mexico and moved to Northern BC as a young boy while his family kept strong ties back home. He is a second-generation minerals prospector and we were working on the remote and rugged west coast of Haida Gwaii looking for evidence of gold and copper.

As we clambered through the dense jungle foliage one afternoon I asked about the political scene in Mexico. We don’t really hear about our third neighbor here in North America other then stories about illegal aliens or how to pay off the Federales or the Banditos if you are a traveling gringo.

I asked what it is like in the media and the way people talk about the president and politics in general. He bluntly said that you can’t really say anything that undermines federal policy or you will “…disappear. You don’t criticize the president publicly because that is not tolerated.” I asked if that has to do with the flood of immigrants in the U.S., as that seems obvious. He said, “They are never going to completely shut down illegal Mexicans crossing the border because they work at a lot of jobs that Americans won’t do.” I had to ask if it was that “or the fact that they are illegal and that is the only job they can get?” Even the lowest paying illegal work in the states will pay more then the average legal job down south, if there is any jobs in the first place.

On my next job a few weeks later, I met my work partner at a motel diner in Houston, BC. So here I am having breakfast with this young, bookish looking geophysicist and an older man named Thomas, who had a thick Eastern European accent. I recognized the same sound in my father-in-law’s accent and guessed correctly that this guy was from Yugoslavia. He was about to hit the road to head home and I was his replacement. After a few minutes of chitchat, Thomas was somehow telling us this story about a confrontation he had had with a Vietnam draft-dodger.

Apparently the dodger had said something about “getting out of Vietnam ASAP” and Thomas told us how he told the guy that he “should be ashamed of himself for being cowardly and ignorant.” The geo and I kind of looked at each other and I piped in about how I had dodged the imaginary U.S. draft of May 2004. But I quickly explained that I had come to understand the threat of Communism and more recently the threat of Islamofacism.

Then, as if on cue, he goes into this story about how back in the 80’s he was visiting an old friend in Moscow who happened to be a fairly high ranking military officer in the army of the USSR. Sometime during dinner with the officer and his large family, Thomas asked a question about the politics in the USSR. The officer’s face darkened and he silenced the room with a brief, icy stare and a turn away to other conversation.
“Whoa!” he thought.

Later, after dinner, the officer took the friend aside and scolded him for endangering his life and career and family by asking anything about politics. “I don’t know who at that table would say something to someone and the next day I would be taken away, never to be seen again.”

Most recently, I was working on a job with a 21-year old guy from East Germany named George, who is working legally in Canada on a tourist visa. As I fueled the chainsaw or sharpened the chains cutting teeth, we’d go over world issues. One day I asked if Germans take offense to people comparing Bush to Hitler as if they are some how similar. He said, “You can’t compare Bush to Hitler because Hitler was a great man.” He was quick to follow saying, “ I know he did all the bad things and that is bad but he still had more charisma and moving power over the people because he was a dictator and Bush is just a front man.”

After I picked my jaw off the ground I asked if “he or his parents miss Communism?”
“Not at all, socialism is just not working,” he continued, “though, even the system they have now is not really working because there is still strong communist undertones in the memory of the people.”

I said, “There seems to be a few people around here who don’t know anything about the Holocaust in general so they might be more inclined to believe someone like Ahmadinajad. You know, how the Holocaust never happened because it is part of the Zionist revisionist plot? What do Germans think about a president of a country saying something like that?”

“Well, that is our history and we know that it happened” George said. I then asked about “the apparent mass influx of Muslim immigrants coming to Europe and not integrating while at the same time making more demands for ‘cultural respect’ and eventual Sharia law?” George then asked me if I had heard about the Van Gogh murder or the theatrical play that was censored by sensitive multiculturalists. “That will be the end of free speech,” he lamented.

Then he asked if I had read Orwell’s “1984”? I laughed because I knew where he was going with it. “That is what it is like in a Communist/Fascist state. Islamofacism draws the same passion from its followers no matter how disastrous the results.”

I kept chain sawing through another tank of gas. Later I asked about “how difficult it was to start a business in Germany?”

“Very difficult,” he said, “you need $30-50,000 of backup money and there are tons of government loops to jump through.” I told him about how I had come to Canada and started a small video production company with a $16,000 grant from the Canadian government. The program is used to keep people off of welfare and to diversify the economy.

“Wow, that is opposite of Germany! I need to move here.”
“You should,” I said and drop started my chainsaw and went back to work, feeling like a redneck.

No, you can't ski with me.

this a great thread.

In your 500+ plus posts you have outdone most, in this thread alone. It also doesnt seem like you are a trustfunder . That is also bonus points.

No mention of private schools or Ivy league, how do you make it in this world ? What do mean your not a rich kid ? Doesnt everybody get nice cars and honeymoons to far away countries ?

What do mean your not posting from SE Asia and New Zealand or SA for part of the year. And Euro, AK and BC for the other ? Funny thing is there is more stoke in this than the entire post count of many x many.

You post it all in thread on a obscure corner of a popular ski forum and proceed to blow everybody's doors off. This pertaining to a lifestyle upbringing that is not available in Washington DC. Therefore most are disqualified.

This pertaining to a lifestyle which is not being replicated all to much. You cant just show up for 2 weeks and live it has to be something lived . Just not a year or 2 out west but a lifetime , of stories and insanity .

I have not done most of these crazy thing Carpath has mentioned but can relate. In my almost 20 years of living in counties the size of eastern states just doing crazy shit and meeting weird people but not fronting . Not looking down my nose but seeing the craziness of your fragile flesh and bones that could be gone in instant.

:yourock:

By November 1, 2006, we had finally relocated to Pemberton , BC. Located 35km north of Whistler, Pemberton offers small town atmosphere with world-class recreation opportunities all around. I had a job already lined up when I rolled into town. We would be living with an old friend Vesna’s named JJ, who owned a lovely house out in the country. He also landed me the job and would be my foreman.

Unfortunately the work season came to a close after only a week of work because the new season of snow arrived sooner then later. Our cash flow was tight… I wanted a season pass for the massive ski hills that we had moved here to ski. I had to go back so I called my old boss from back in Smithers. They had a running contract going up in northern Saskatchewan. I had to go, to really face my demons.

On the surface we had moved to Whistler to ski and bike but in reality I was running from the harsh memories associated with Smithers and the heli crash. They had shut down that camp after the crash for a couple of weeks and then ended up bringing in new workers to finish the job. This time I was aiming for the UEX camp which was more to the north east of Davy Lake, near Wollasten Lake. Where Davy Lake was in heat of the summer, I was returning to this god-forsaken land just as winter was setting in.

On the opening day of the ski resort, Vesna drove me through Whistler and south to Vancouver where I got on a plane and flew to Calgary then Saskatoon. The next flight was on a small ten passenger plane that aimed due north. I could not believe that I was doing it, to be honest. The last time I was in Saskatoon, my head was not screwed on straight. Had it been ever since?

The little plane stopped at tiny runways where local native people either got on or got off. The inside temperature of the plane was dropping. Finally we arrived at the UEX camp, a weird industrial complex in the absolute middle of nowhere. It is land of big trucks and lots of porn on the magazine rack. Actually I take that back, there has to be a regular gas station in order for there to be a magazine rack in the first place. There was some miscommunication as to who was picking me up. I was kind of confused because I was not sure where I was going and thought I was already there.

I ended up hitching a ride with some guy who just putted along not really in too much hurry to get anywhere. All of the sudden he handed me a .22 rifle from under the seat and told me to shoot the ptarmigan that was sitting on the side of the road. He warned me that the sight was off, but after a couple of shots, I got it.

I got to camp and was relieved to see Kevin and some of the other guys from previous jobs of the summer. Most of the large canvas tents in camp were comfortable despite the –30C. The first night I stayed in a tent with Teddy. I soon picked up on the fact that Teddy was certifiably crazy. He was half Indian and half Metis or some such and would go on about how he had “ beat the shit out of so and so,” or “I drank so much that…” or “I got arrested for…” or “I put him in a wheelchair.” As he laughed with a sly smile like he was testing me. His pigeon English was barely passable at best but I would soon learn that he would be my translator for the rest of the crew.

A couple of hours after I got to camp I was hanging out in Kevin’s tent and they had a huge tiger torch propped up on a board as it was blasting a three foot flame in the air to take the chill off. He broke the news to me that the all the guys I knew and trusted would be leaving and I would be the new foreman for the new crew. They had already been there for six weeks and were getting the heck out while they could. My new crew was on route as we spoke, as they were riding in on snowmobiles from their village an hour across the lake.

I would be in charge of Teddy and four other locals for the next few weeks. Even though I had a constant pit in my stomach, it seemed to grow the next morning when all my friends finished loading their truck and jumped in and drove away, back home to Smithers.

Teddy was the joker. He was always quick with the punch line but also quick with the punches, from what I gathered. The other four guys were quiet. Two of them were my age and spoke a painful garbled English. Their native language was Dene and it was mixed with a French/ English combo. I had to really concentrate on what they were saying and the two other guys were much older. They were in their mid-fifties and and were technically elders in the their community.

On the first day one of the older guys was saying something about cigarettes and chew and I was like “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get it tomorrow,” as Teddy chimed in with “listen man, you want a mutinee? You gotta get chew now.” This was my first job as foreman and apparently I am responsible for providing for my men, NOW!

The days went by slow. The temperature kept dropping to –35C then –40C. I kept the diesel truck running 24 hours a day because it would not start if left off for more then half an hour. I would gather the men in the morning and we would drive 10k down the road to where the grid crossed every 200 meters. I would set Teddy and the elders off cutting line that I already laid out. My partner and I would set off into the bush with GPS and pickets. Once the line is cut, we had to go back and picket every 50 meters for the entire 5km length. The seismic crew would come in after us and they use the pickets as reference points. They haul cables out that are connected to a generator and basically create an ultra sound of the Earths core. In this case we were looking for uranium.

Well, we were not looking for uranium technically. Technically we were trooping across frozen lakes in a barren land. The pickets did not want to stand upright in the ice so we just laid them there. One day I looked across the ice and saw smoke rising on the far shore. We walked over to see what was going on.

It was so cold that the ‘power saws’, as the locals called them, would not run. “You should get Husky,” Teddy would implore referring to the Husqvarna brand of chainsaw versus the Stihl brand we were using. “They work in cold,” told me as he sat by the fire he started to warm his saw.

I took note of production for the day. The next day was the same thing; too cold for the saws. On the tenth day the cook quit. It seems that the pipes kept freezing in the kitchen. The topper was when the giant ‘shitcicle’ that had been growing in the outhouse finally poked its ugly head above the blue foam toilet seat. The camp manager had been chopping it down with an ice axe but it looked like the base finally caught up with the head and it would not back down.

I recalled how Vesna had called me to tell me how good the skiing had been. I did not need to hear it from her though. Somehow, doe to the atmospheric acoustics, we would pick up a Vancouver radio station as it blared about the best skiing conditions in ten years.

The more I thought about it, I realized that I had had enough for the season. What more did I have to prove? I called my boss back in Smithers and basically told him that he was losing money because production had gone through the floor. He quickly agreed and told me to get the heck out of there. It was the middle of December and we were the very last crew in the field for the season.

I was elated! I went and told the crew and they were not impressed. It seems that these guys were real locals and they had no problem working in –40C. They only lived an hour away and where else were they going to work? I knew that I was the weak white guy and I knew it was futile to try and explain that the skiing was good back in Whistler. We were in another world. By this point I was thinking and talking in a pigeon English of my own.

When Teddy found out, he was outraged! Apparently he had called the boss on his own an hour before I did for some reason or other and had told him that things were going great. I did not know that he had also called the boss. Teddy took this into his twisted logic and decided that I called him a liar! He bellowed in my face that nobody called him a liar and that he had maimed people for less. We stood toe to toe for maybe 20 minutes and I felt like I was facing an enraged brown bear and in the end I managed to call his bluff.

I was awestruck by his rationale and was seriously afraid for my safety. I took refuge in the camp manager tent and place my tiny camcorder up in the corner under a coat in case Teddy came busting in with a knife or Tiger Torch. An hour later Teddy came over and had calmed down a bit. We had both called the boss again and he managed to sooth Teddy’s offended ego. I was till not in the clear. I was responsible for driving the work truck home to Pemberton where Kevin would come pick it up later in the winter.

I was also responsible for driving Teddy 10 hours south to Saskatoon on my way south. What followed was some of the most harrowing driving conditions I have ever endured. At –40C diesel fuel will start to gel and it will not flow to the engine properly. The road was single lane and pure ice. Huge big rigs would surprise you around a corner and nearly put you in the ditch. The basic rule of the road is the more axles, the more seniority on the road. If you were lucky you would see the dragons tail of exhaust flowing towards in your direction, giving you plenty of warning.

It does not matter though, if you are broke down. We had been using fuel out of a portable tank and it probably had some moisture in there as well which contributed to our problem. The truck would lose power in 4th gear then 3rd and then down to 2nd. We would be crawling along in 1st and then she would die. The other problem was that the truck batteries were already weak so if she did not start after a few turns we would be sitting ducks. I knew all of this because as it turns out, Teddy was some kind of diesel mechanic on the side. We had long settled our differences as we stood in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere.

A small truck came by and offered a tow. So now we are cruising along being towed two feet behind this pickup as the sun is just coming up over the flat horizon and directly into my eyes. I could not see anything except for a six-inch corner of the bumper I was trying to not run into. My power steering and brakes were seizing up and I had to muscle everything. Even Teddy seemed nervous as he finally stopped talking.

An hour later we tried to pull start her and she roared to life. Another hour later we limped into the first gas station for fresh fuel and diesel conditioner. After a total of ten hours of driving and Teddy’s 15 beers we were in Saskatoon. Teddy went off to find a hooker while I called a tow truck to make an appointment for a 7am pull start.

At 7:10 am I bid Teddy farewell, hopped in the truck behind the tow truck as it pulled me down the boulevard. I downshifted to 1st gear and she roared to life for one last haul.
17 hours later I pulled into Pemberton exhausted and happy to be home. I then dreamed about the drive with Teddy all night, every night for the next three weeks.

Shummer fuel eh?

don ferget da chew AND da powerservish eh whitey ?

Teddy was wrong - Huskies have a hard time running in the hot, let alone the cold.

Later I did ask around and the consensus was that Stihls were better in the cold and Husky's break down more often. I think Teddy was messing with my head...

Ice Road Huckin...

one my paddling buds had a 30" extension hose off the main tank in his chevy which we would use to run the lamp,the stove and the tiger torch ... great for lighting camp fires using only a couple of 12 inch logs AND vaporizing beer cans

I heard of but never witnessed debauchery involving drunk 4x4'ing with that 1 ft flame blasting away into the night

I was done working for the season and had a lot to go over in my mind. I thought of doing a 101-day ski meditation to first clear my mind then make it receptive to new ideas. After the crash there in Saskatchewan and my more recent trip to that God forsaken province, I felt like I had a new lease on life and that I should take advantage of that.

A ski meditation is simple. You can make a meditation out of a single run or a day or a single turn. Or maybe ten turns in a row or maybe ten days in a row. By meditation I mean that you operate in a state of blank focus and healthy intentions. Sometimes a blinding epiphany can carry forth through the deep apex of just one turn. Or just the opposite: if I crash and loose a ski… what was thinking about when I crashed? Obviously something other then the turn, that is why I crashed.

I was aiming to be in a meditative state from December 20, 2007 until March 31, 2008. I would ski six days a week with Sunday as a rest day. I would stretch and contemplate life thus far. You can reach a meditative state through different specific exercises or modes of expression on skis.

There is the ‘high rep/ high speed’ practice that focuses on endurance of the mind as it controls the body through highly variable and potentially volatile motions. For example, every Wednesday Vesna would work as a volunteer avalanche tour guide on Blackcomb. She would ski around and discuss avalanche mitigation techniques with curious tourists. So for my Wednesdays, I would do as many ‘Spanky Laps’ as possible. Spanky’s Ladder is a short hike that will access Ruby Bowl, Diamond Bowl and Sapphire Bowl. You can do a lap every half hour on the minute if you keep the same pace. No time for smoking, pissing or drinking water. Over the day you can max out at 13 laps if there are no problems like people trying to talk to you or anything such inconvenience. I might add that it is not the best way to make new ski friends. After about 15 minutes of skiing you have approximately 15 minutes on the chair to sit in silence or make chitchat with a tourist. They always seem real impressed that you live in such a beautiful place, so it is good to remind yourself of that.

The opposite end of the spectrum is in the backcountry. Your day is now split into climbing and skiing. A three-hour climb might yield 20 minutes of ski time. You meditation becomes focused on the exercise of propelling yourself up hill for however long and then on getting yourself down in one piece, considering avalanches etc.

As it turns out two of the biggest days of my season were on the first day and the last day of my 101-day meditation.

I had been staring at the mountains from our new studio apartment just outside of Pemberton. Dead south was the long, low angle, tree covered ridge that cuts northeast from the summit of Mt Currie. From the Summit I could trace the horizon line behind and above the lower northeast ridge as it cuts due east back around to another prominent peak that we called the Bastion.


Off of the summit of the Bastion a beautiful coulior cuts straight through the craggy cliffs and intercepts a cut block some 2500 feet below. Those cut blocks are immediately adjacent to the base of the treed shoulder that leads to the summit of Mt. Currie as described earlier. It is a big loop.

My objective for the day was to climb and ski the coulior. I had reconned the parking lot the day before and since I was going solo, I had that special nervousness. In the silence only found in absence of idle chitchat with your climbing partner, you can really hear the little voice as you determine the safety and outcome of every step. When skiing solo in rugged terrain I have the tendency to look for every reason to turn around. There is an odd satisfaction in turning around and calling it a day in mid climb. In this case I had ample reasons to call it quits.

After negotiating through the cut blocks I cruised up the lower avalanche path with ease. The area was big and broad and low angle. For a while I could stay under cliff features to minimize the chance of an avalanche coming from above. About an hour into it, the path started to steepened and narrow.

The new snow was slabby and kind of drummy. I tried to do tight zigzag turns along the right wall as long as I could. I did not want to cut out on to the face because there was a hanging pocket up on the left. I stayed right, stayed right until a point when I had to go left. I was above the offending chute and only had to contend with the main chute now.

I poked the snow and sniffed the air. I had to go light and fast. I traversed nimbly almost willing the snow to launch out from under me because I was ready. I reached the safety of the left wall and continued making steep zigzags on the left wall. I could only maintain that technique for a while until it became too steep. The problem with boot packing is that the snow was weird breakable crust and thigh deep. Every step was a tremendous struggle. I pushed tight along the wall always being prepared to leap and grab solid rock if the snow moved.

I got up towards the top to where the chute hour glassed the opposite direction and became wider while getting steeper yet. I am at the end of my will and capacity. This is the first climb of the year and even though I have years of remembering what it is like to climb a route like this, my body is not so sure. With every step my left hamstring was cramping into a ball and then my right leg started doing it too. I had only drunk a half of a liter of water for 4 hours of work.

This is where the snow holds the most wind load potential, right at the apex of the pitch. I sensed that the snow was boxed in by the narrow section below and the way the snow seemed to be ‘cupped in’ by the natural contours. The snow was at my chest and I struggled upward until I broke over the crest and the sun shined in my face for the first time all day. I still had ten minutes to gain the real summit so I strapped on my skis and plodded on.


On the summit I could barely manage a gulp of water. I scanned the horizon line that circles the Gravell Creek drainage. It is the route that I can see from my house and I know I will do it someday… but not today. I must descend quickly and carefully. I made easy turns down ridge and then tight, steep turns down the gut. The snow was not even sloughing as I only sank in an inch or two. Down low my legs burned but my skis begged to let it run a bit on the smooth open slopes. I skied to the end of the snow and walked the last bit to the truck and knew that it was going to be a good season.