DIY Art

It’s a Shame!


The chairlift stopped. Our conversation continued along oblivious for some time. We did not take notice for a while because the chair stops all the time and it never seems to be big trouble. We sat and wondered and admired the snow caked in the trees. Conversation wound back to praising the previous run, our first of the morning. It had snowed 40cm that night on top of 20 and 20 from the previous 2 days. Could be considered bottomless. My line down through the treed run, ‘The Voids,’ was amazing and I was amped to get to it.

Chairlift was still not moving. We could see the top of the lift not so far ahead. We were just over three towers from the top. Tick, tock…Tick, tock…

“The cable came off! Pass it up!” an adolescent voice hollered from a couple of hundred meters behind us.

“What did he just say?” we questioned out loud. Could be a joke. Laughing kids heard in the distance. They are just joking.
A moment later the same statement, “The cable came off! Pass it up!”
“No way! It’s *&%$ powder out there! We just got a taste of it!”
“The cable came off! Pass it up!” The kid started to sound genuine. Right then, a snowmobile came cruising up with the lift mechanic. We watched and waited. We had been sitting there for almost 1/2 hour. We watched as the sun began to warm things up a bit. The snow was staying in the trees still, so that was good.

It seemed like the patrollers were gathering up at top of the lift. Preparing for something. Sure enough, a patroller began cruising the lift line telling us that they were going to manually unload us soon.
“That is a bummer,” one could only say too emphatically.
“Serious bummer,” was the only response.

On the bright side we were fairly close to the top of the lift so we had to only wait another 20 minutes before it was our turn to be unloaded. To anyone who might already be a bit nervous about heights, this may have been quite the challenge. The way it works is that a patroller climbs one of the chairlift towers and tosses a line with a metal ‘T’ over the main haul line. Two patroller on the ground then drag the line along the cable until they reach a chair with people on it. We had a good chance to see several successful downloads before it was our turn, so we felt confident in our rescuers.

A snap here and a shimmy there and before I knew it, I was whisked to the ground straddling the red, T-shaped contraption. Vesna was a moment behind me.

“The t-bar is still going, we will be the only ones on it!” I pointed out. We hiked up the 150 meters to the top of the dysfunctional lift and cruised down to the t-bar lineup to join the elite few who managed to not get stuck in the first place. Not so bad. A little delay there, but we were back on track with our powder skiing agenda.

An hour later I began to get thirsty and hungry. The snow was holding up pretty good, but it was getting warmer. We had to keep skiing the t-bar because if we went down, we would be swamped in a sea of displaced teens and children who had arrived via school bus only 20 minutes before the lift broke down. We continued to lap the 500 ft run in the trees.
“Beginning to tire… Need water…”

Our next option was to ski to the bottom, grab a bite to eat then take out backcountry gear out in to the wilds. We assembled the crew and made a dash for the bottom. On the way down it became apparent that we were skiing the last of what could be called ‘powder.’ Getting warm.
At the bottom of the hill it was a scene out of a school yearbook. Children, teens and adults all hanging around the ski racks enjoying the sunshine. Lots of smiles. We took note of the last run and decided to take a bit of a seista from the search for powder. Kicking it around the camper in the parking lot. Trent materialized with a pack of beer and our afternoon was set. It was funny to watch as we migrated from the chairs next to truck up to the giant snow berm at the end of the parking lot. In a way, we degenerated from ‘adult, backcountry enthusiasts’ to ‘punk teenagers’ throwing snowballs at cars and doing flips off the berm without spilling our beer.

Brad got industrious and built a kicker down into the lower lot. We drank, laughed, threw snow and hit the kicker into the twilight of the day. At some point, around 2pm, there was a false alarm that the lift would be reopening but that proved wrong. It did not matter though because it was now apparent that the day was not for skiing bottomless powder. It was meant to experience some true parking lot camaraderie. We were to learn that there is more to the sport the hucking and straight-lining. It is the finer things in the sport that make me appreciate the whole.

The Power of Perception

Attachment 329947
So I finally went and saw the new TGR movie and had a good time. The show was held at the Glenwood Hall outside of Smithers. Any event at the Glenwood, aka Driftwood, is sure to be a classic Smithers occasion.

We rolled up at five minutes to 8, which was show time. I had a beer on the porch and then eased into a chair in the back row. This was Vesna and my first night on the town in a long while. All in all I was entertained. The jibber costumes were colorful and my favorite Haines 'getting out of the plane on the runway' shot was dead on. Sage has been training for AK again and Ian stomped some large airs.

I have to say that I was most entertained by the drunk heckler over to my left. TGR should hire him to the voice overs because it went over real well with the crowd. His dramatic gasps in disbelief and shrieks of “Oh my god! Did you see that?!” got me chuckling. The best was the more cautionary “No, don't do it, don't do it... HOLY Shit! Did you see that?!” You get the picture.

I saw dudes pushing the limits and some wipe outs and some hideous fashion. It is one thing to be a slave to corporate America, but to be a slave to fashion as well?! At the end of Sage's AK section, I was not really feeling the lime green suit and the half hearted rebel 'fist in the air.' Was that shot scripted or totally freestyle with the hair and the David Bowie posture...? My favorite line he skied was that super fun looking one with all the steep pillows and it just kept going and going.

I am honestly the most entertained by Seth when he keeps his skis on the ground and charges lines. I get kind of bored of the mellow line leading into the 80 foot front flip. Just my opinion...

The show ended and then the real entertainment began. There was a 'recycled material fashion show' that I decided to miss and went back to the front porch for more beer etc. The people were festive and the drunk guy was real excited about winning the raffle prize for the Heli skiing out at Bell II. He claimed very dramatically, that his “whole life would be complete if he had just one heli run, so help me god!” I pointed out that sled skiing is over all more fun, but he wouldn't hear it.

We went back inside just as the MC girl was telling everyone to clear the chairs from in front of the stage. There was a live rock band coming on in a few minutes but she apparently had some sort of game to play with the crowd to kill time. She called all the single guys to one side of the room and then all the single girls to the other side and then made the announcement that “this is what you have to work with...”

She them went down the line and made each person step out in the front as she rattled off a bunch of personal info about each person. “He's easy... she's an engineer... she's bisexual... he's super smart...”
I was really beginning to ask my self if this is weird as my buddy turned and said “This is fucking weird!” I agreed but was still impressed that the MC girl kept the ball rolling. The atmosphere teetered between awkward to hilarious to finally being relieved when the little game was over. The point? Unknown.

The time came for the drawing of the ticket to win the day of heli skiing with Last Frontier at Bell II.
They called the number. My last three digits were 460. I knew that Vesna's number was one up at 461. The number was called... 441! Vesna stuck her ticket in the air and strutted forward and everybody cheered! She went to the front and managed to get her hands on the mic as she made a cheeky speech thanking the world for her good fortune. I knew that they called another number and was slightly embarrassed that she would be so bold and try to bluff her way into a free day of heli skiing.

Some one started chanting “Vesna! Vesna! Vesna!' and the whole room followed suit. She stuck the envelope in the front of her shirt and walked back to where I was standing amidst much uproar. Just then another girl came forward and said that she had the number. Vesna was drunk and not paying attention. I was trying to tell her that she did not win. She genuinely thought she won! The other girl was kind of standing there and Vesna was kind of yelling “No way! Not after that speech!” The MC said something about how this was 'awkward.' Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Vesna went back to the front and offered to fight the girl right there! (she has been really into KickBo lately).

Just then the owner of the heli company jumped up on stage and said “I guess there are TWO free days of heli skiing!” Everyone cheered. My buddy was awestruck that Vesna had basically talked her way onto a heli. I was proud now and it looks like I might get in the bird too.

The band took the stage and soon the drunk guy was up front really getting into the music. He was all sweaty and pounding his fist on the stage to the beat. At the end of each song he would start yelling “Don't stop, Don't stop!” in kind of a sad desperate drunk voice. His friends tried to drag him off the dance floor several time but he kept breaking free. He actually made his way on the stage and said something into the mic but I can't remember what he said. I'm sure it was priceless, if not more memorable then another year of ski porn.

The Furthest Temple


What do you do when the sun that you view becomes skewed and the Earth gives birth to the thing that you dread in your head and the signs point to the things that you know will grow and go round and round in your head to the call with the sound of your voice?

A choice must arise, though you despise the result of the vote to build a moat and go on a float with a gun and a boat. By rote, they try to convince me to wash my soul in a bowl made of the skull of some dude with an attitude?

I’m me and she is she and there goes He across the gape in the flap of this thing called space/time. By rhyme I say the thing that is meant to sting if not by tact then by fact. And the fact if the story? It might bore ye, so drink and be merry!

What you think you know is all the show of the campaign of rain and sorrow. If tomorrow I’m slain… then you’ll grow if not by chance then by direction. And in your perfection the truth will take root and out of the Earth a shoot will be birthed without the curse of sad introspection.

You are alive in a hive of thought and quantum tendency that renders thee into a person of history that carries forth the torch of the Son that was once one in the sky of my eye.

Part 2

The littlest angel flew abreast of the rest of the suffering with the point to anoint and contest the sound of the darkness.

It all harkens to a time in the past which is fast on the brim of a new day!

I say it is here and now in the gold of the leaves in the trees and in the gardens with streams running through them.

So don’t despair because the repair is fair and this request is not in jest.

In context and logic, frolic in the resonance of light that is bright in these words and remember to be sure of where you came from and where you want to go.

If down is up then I’d better shut up because all is already lost at the cost of liberty and justice for all.

Part 3

Stuck in the past, the mast alone rises above the fog engulfing the ship of fools; all tools of the myth of a man with a plan of world domination. Nation by nation, patience wears thin in the grin at the U.N. and in the minds of man the conflict carries on as if there are borders in your brain and pain to endure just to be sure you are cured of being human.



Who can’t count the years on the mount near the rock and the history of creation post hoc to validate the word of a man? Cheers and tears 6 times over years of emotional attachment; distraction and factions of violence no less. A pest in the breast of the West and the rest won’t rest until His stories visions manifest. I must confess my stress at civilizations potential demise.

Part 4

Though, it is good as it should be, can’t you see? The wind at you back and shelter from attack leaves time to procreate and not deviate from your path here on Earth.

Vanity Fair Essay Contest

(note: I didn't win the contest)

Re-al-i-ty:
actual being or existence, as opposed to an imaginary, idealized or false nature

I assume that this contest is being held for your benefit, Mr. Carter. I read your September editorial and it seems you may be feeling lost so with all the respect in the world, I would like to explain some things to you.

That large group of people who watch TV every day or get their news from CNN or the BBC or Vanity Fair are brainwashed into thinking very small in the sense of history. It is interesting to see this resurgence of feeling good about Communism. Anything the U.S. has done since the collapse of Soviet Communism has been held under the microscope because the U.S.S.R was seen as the necessary economic counter balance to the potential excess of Capitalism. The Communist public was brainwashed into thinking that any deviating individuals were a threat to the security of the whole. (i.e. a threat to the people who were doing the brainwashing.) The people were chained to the man named Stalin in the sense of their belief and their spirits died.

The security of the whole was assured by the economic structure, which was promoted by force; which requires control. The economy had to be controlled by the mind that created it or instituted the idea. This control is like trying to control life, the people!

“The people” under communist rule were the ones who were controlled while being promised freedom. A lot of people realized that they were not actually free and they spoke out and they were tortured for years and then murdered. Or maybe just murdered or maybe just tortured… Why doesn’t Vanity Fair do a story about the persecution of Falon Gong members in China? Now THAT is how a true dictatorship works. Severely punish 5% of your population so the rest toe the line. You want to define torture? How about a cattle prod up your ass versus panties on your face? Or consider solitary confinement standing chest deep in raw sewage instead of losing your Koran down the toilet? Even today, dissent or disservice to the party line means death. Sounds similar to the Islamic dream of Sharia rule on Earth.

I just thought of something. You know how people like to point out ‘eerie’ similarities between Orwell’s “1984” and America today. You know, they use him as the reference of how it really is. Well, that is how it really is in China or North Korea right now, but not America. So anyway, let’s look at those silly Americans who seem to be brainwashed into buying shit. Now, who is to say that just because I live in a secular-consumerist-capitalist society that I too cannot be deeply spiritual and grounded in the ultimate reality that created this?

By giving the people the freedom to do whatever the fuck they want you get a lot of spoiled, ignorant brats who don’t realize how good they actually have it. And their even being allowed to get on the TV and write editorials that make fun of the President or criticize national and international policies is the giant loophole in their non-argument.


The liberal tendencies of the U.S. media shape the U.S. mind into anti-Republican ideas for obvious partisan reasons but also aim for economic structuring based more on the social democracy which tends more towards communism which any true tyrant knows is the surest way to make a buck. Kill your own people and take their shit. That is not to say that Al Gore would have instituted Sharia law for the sake of being politically correct, but France will, followed by Norway and Denmark etc. etc. until people realize that Bush was the light in the darkness in the first place. It was a close one with the Germans and the Japanese. We’ll see how it goes this time around, I guess.

I have been reading about the impending, if not current, world confrontation with Iran. It seems like some people are confused about what is going on. If by practicing multiculturalism you think that no culture is worse then the Western culture that you live in, that can lead to trouble. And if you subscribe to a sense of cultural relativism that believes that those in power have no right or ability to judge other groups of thinking for what they are, you may not be in power for much longer.

People like to apologize for Islamic-fascism. They argue that the Muslims have grievances against the West because of Israel and oil and our decadence etc etc. You have to think longer in terms of history and realize the fascist nature of the terrorist parties, Hezbollah and Hamas. True, fascism originated as a nationalistic trend in Italy that spawned the Nazis and to some degree Soviet Communism. Those ideologies were rooted in the political agenda of annihilating any other way of thinking. Islamic-fascism is similar in that its followers believe that they are acting towards world domination. However, their ideas are religious based versus the secular political religion of the Nazis.

Critics say that it is impossible to democratize the Middle East and that we should leave those ‘traditional people’ to their own devices. Unfortunately those people have a tradition of killing anyone who is not like them i.e. Muslim. Infidels are ‘moderately’ described as pigs and apparently liberal law has no jurisdiction over followers of Allah. Sounds like a recipe for chaos in the civilized world. The funny thing is that they use the technology of the Great Satan to meet those ends.

People always say that the U.S. is only backing Israel for the strategic purpose of maintaining a foothold in the Middle East. Well, no shit! We pulled out of the Gaza strip and Hezbollah attacks. We show any sign of weakness and they think they are winning. If we give them Israel (the Jews) there is 0% chance that terrorism will stop. Zero. Anyone who apologizes for a lunatic Iranian president, to some extent, must agree with him. Maybe the Holocaust didn’t happen? Maybe the Jews are controlling the world? And if by chance Hitler did kill 6 million Jews and another 5 million unsavory types, maybe he was on to something…?!

You can’t have a half-assed argument. If you extend and put into historical context the popular ‘neo-con’ conspiracy, it all comes down to scape-goating the Jews… again.

Is the U.S. an Imperialistic superpower aiming to globalize the world via trade and commerce and MTV? Yes, in that our political system offers stability, equality, opportunity and empowerment to everyone. People who have a socialist leaning tend to be lazy, I think. They want the government to take care of them. They don’t want to be responsible or perhaps are just looking for someone or something to blame for their own inadequacies and insecurities. Or maybe some of the smarter advocates are aiming for the top of the bureaucratic structure and plan on benefiting from the collectivization that is required of the communal participant.

Can you call the U.S a totalitarian/fascist regime? Hardly. With a free economy, we have a free press and freedom of religion. There might be threats to take away your freedom to abort a baby, but whose freedom are we talking about, yours or the baby’s?

I see a cultural clash of historic precedent and I think it would be wise to try and recognize good and evil. Oppression versus freedom. Death versus life. The U.S. can’t be all that bad when half the world wants to move there to enjoy life. Oh wait! How does that work? Since the U.S. has puppet regimes all over that oppress and kill the local people it would seem that the U.S. mainland itself, would be seen as the heart of that evil and that people there would be the most oppressed and the most controlled. Why would some person in one of these countries want to go to the heart of the evil that has destroyed their life? Do they want to experience oppression in a concentrated dose? I doubt it. Economic necessity? Who needs money when you are happily dirt poor in Cuba? You have culture and voodoo and beaches! But money is bad, you don’t need money to be happy do you?

You can call me an ex-anti-American. I had lost touch with reality for a while there but managed to use critical thinking and logic to see through the smokescreen being spread by hypocritical media outlets such as Vanity Fair. You too, can do the same.

Mr. Carter, don’t feel guilty for being human, for being Canadian or for being your self.
In reality you have been living the North American Dream so why don’t you want the rest of the world to share the experience?

Sincerely,
Jacob Young

P.S. real estate is the way to go.

Part 3

Move to Whistler

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 of Vesna 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 to work 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 in 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 a lot of porn magazines 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 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.

Nov 11, 2003

The Taoist and the Confucians describe what it means to be human in different ways. Both rely on harmony to bring their respective concepts of the true self together.

The Taoist search within the person to discover the true nature of self. Chuang Tzu describes the perfect man as using his mind like a mirror. “It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep.”

The perfect mind is not swayed by the subjectivity that is the byproduct of emotion. (or is emotion the byproduct of subjectivity?) The mirror mind accepts things as they are without passing judgment or remaining attached to results of actions or circumstances. The Taoist seeks to bring the self and nature into harmony. Through the concept of the mirror, the Taoist can visualize the self as

“transcending the dichotomy between the self and the world.”

The Confucians differ in several ways in their mode of understanding the nature of the self. While Taoism is primarily intuition based, Confucianism is predominately reason based and while Taoism finds the self to be the product of inner qualities of the individual, Confucianism looks to external factors to cultivate the nature of the self.
Confucians describe the self as the nexus of all interactions between the individual and his social environment. The self is said to be at the center of 5 concentric circles. The self interacts with the family, community, country, and then the world in that order. As the individual learns how to relate to these different groups of people in his life, he is also learning how to relate to himself. It is a network of people, all the center of their own circles, trying to figure out how to be happy with their lives.

Mencius, a Confucian, believed that people were inherently good and that we possess a natural sense of what is right and wrong. This natural tendency plays a factor in the learning process one must follow in order to come to understand our true self. Once our self is realized, we then respond to our family and friends in such a way that it promotes their own understanding of themselves. Hsun Tzu, on the other hand, believed that people are naturally evil. But since we have a higher intellect than other animals, we have the ability to understand the difference between good and evil and we can do good.

The general Chinese thought is that all people have the potential to become sages, but it is only a matter of combining the intuition of Taoism and the reasoning of Confucianism into a harmonious understanding of our place and function in society and the universe.

The Tao is expressed as beauty. Webster’s defines beauty as “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.”

Where is beauty found and how do you know it is beautiful? If the observer was at one with the Tao and since the Tao is the perfect combination of opposing forces for the moment, anything that is being perceived by the observer could be considered beautiful.

If one sees the beauty and inherent goodness in all people and things, is that a reflection of your clear mind or is your clear mind just reflecting the purity of that which is observed? Which comes first?
I think it is beautiful the way nature is constructed. There are no parts that are left out or do not serve some purpose. Everything is supported by everything else in the ecological web, the purest expression of the Tao. Are people not part of the ecological web? Why are things we create not considered natural and in that case, beautiful? Is it because in the process of socializing ourselves we have managed to convince ourselves that in order to survive, we need to have a certain amount of economic flow as opposed to “going with the flow” of the Tao? The flow of the Tao is natural and abundant. By appreciating the beauty in natural things, you are cultivating the beauty in yourself and that in effect teaches you to appreciate the beauty and goodness in other people. People pick up on that appreciation and it is reflected into their appreciation of themselves and of nature. It is a perpetuating cycle.

When you are choosing to see the beauty in a person or situation you are choosing to assume that that person or situation is there for your own progress towards goals and spiritual education. Self-realization truly is a communal effort. Those who function with this simple assumption of goodness and appreciation of the others innate beauty have the ability to be sustained by the web of cause and effect that we are immersed in every moment of our lives. It is beautiful to me to see all of my needs met by forces outside of myself. The Tao is infinitely responsive to those who are aware and looking.

What a self-indulgent steaming pile of shit

^^ Lol , ok sorry, too much politics. I know those last few sections were a bit much for our more sensitive readers.

More self indulgent ski stoke coming up! Pay attention, you might learn something


101 Ski Day Meditation
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 a 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 January 1, 2008 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 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 the two 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.

Z is for Zorro


Vesna is over eight months pregnant now. Soon the baby will be in our world. I feel compelled to get these stories on paper before the baby gets here. Before that new adventure begins.

Sometime in the middle of February I got a call in the evening after skiing powder all day at Whistler. After the crash I decided to follow my dream and move to this special mountain town and see what life had to offer. Pete’s wife’s voice sounds stony cold. She told me that the autopsy report came back and it turns out that Pete had only suffered a broken rib in the accident and since I had said in my original report that I thought he must have been more injured since he was not working to save himself, then I must have not tried hard enough to get him to shore and therefore she explicitly blamed me for her husbands death.

It did not matter that he had a coat on and laced up heavy boots and he COULD NOT swim anyway. And it did not matter that the pilot crashed the helicopter in the first place. She blamed me and told me to mail back his vest. By the act of mailing the vest I was relinquishing my spirit name as well. Did she have the power to give it to me in the first place? All I could do was hang up slowly with a pit in my stomach. I promptly mailed the vest.

For the most part, Smithers and all of that seemed so far away. The problem was that every time I looked around at where I was living I was reminding of the accident and how I was skiing around in Whistler lala land and her husband was dead. Maybe I did not try hard enough…

Bougie and I had scoped our line the day before and wanted to get after it while the snow and weather held. From below, about half way back North Joffre Creek, we could see the whole run top to bottom. But we both knew that by the time we got to the top it would not be so simple. From below we could see a nice clean chute coming in from the ridge top. The chute ran for about 1000 feet and then opened onto a broad open area that ran for another 1000 feet. Below that the pitch rolled over very steep for the last 1500 feet to the valley bottom. On this lower pitch there was one clean line that made three huge zigzag turns across the cliff strewn face with each slash running about 400 feet across the face while dropping 300 feet. We knew that from above it would all look the same so we picked some tree features to aim for the next day.

We started climbing around 10 am. It was warm and sunny and there were other groups skiing in the area. We were in no rush because we knew that no one was going where we were. Our group consisted of Bougie, his friend Jonas and myself. We circled around the south side of the mountain through the forest and it was a very nice day indeed.

It took about two and a half hours to find the entrance to our run. It seemed innocent enough as we dropped in through the small cleft in the ridge line some 20 feet across. The north facing run was in deep shadow and the snow was staying cold. We dropped in one at a time and enjoyed wide, open, beautiful turns through the chute and the mid pitch open area. We regrouped at the appointed cluster of trees and prepared for our next move.

From our position, on a knob to the skiers right of the first slash, we could see the next pitch and begin to realize how steep things were getting. It was a long left traverse on skiffs of snow. The whole time the pitch rolled away from beneath us, 1500 feet to the valley below. I could actually see our tracks from yesterday when we had looked up to our now precarious position.

We made our way across the first slash one at a time. At our next rendezvous point, things officially became tense. From below this right hand turn had looked simple enough, but from our new vantage point actually on the feature. We were stumped. It was about 100 vertical feet of snow pushing into ‘extremely steep’ range that was also an obvious wind slab. The only way to mitigate the instability would be too ski cut the slope but that would put you out over about 500 feet of mostly vertical death.

Bougie and Jonas were both seasoned ski patrollers at Whistler and I humbly deferred any ski cut responsibilities to Bougie even though he was less then keen to follow through. All three of us were registering alarm bells in the self-preservation department in our brains. It actually came to a point when we decided to side step our way out the way we came in. After ten minutes of it was clear that option was out and the only way to go was down.

My legs were becoming tired from standing on the edges for so long in such a position. From where we were perched I could stick my elbow straight out to the side and touch the slope. Bougie cautiously side slipped out on to the hanging slab. He jumped a little and it seemed to hold. He made a jump turn and zipped right and out of sight as the pitch somehow rolled over even steeper.

A few minutes later we could here a holler so Jonas made his move and disappeared. I was left standing by myself, like a literal fly on the wall. I kept taking deep breaths and remaining calm, it was my turn. The snow was scraped to waterfall ice now but was consistent at least. I managed five of six of some of the steepest jump turns of my life over huge exposure. On the last turn I zipped right and tucked into a gulley feature and was safe.

The run was not over yet! There were some weird rock pillars jutting out below and I made some more steep turns and finally cleared the last slash to make the Z for Zorro complete.

Into the Heart of Darkness


“The Conquest of the Earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses then ourselves, it is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” J. Conrad


The names of characters and actual locations have been omitted to protect the people, property and powder involved. (edit: Ferguson, BC)


My wife and I were excited when we rolled into town. The land had been ours for years but we had not made use of it until now, December 24, 2007. We had moved our camper here back in October then came back again in November to build a snow shed to protect the camper from being crushed by the huge annual snowpack. We drove in late at night and spent most of the next morning cleaning and organizing camp, ski gear and sleds. You see, this place is a secret spot and we as landowners, thought we were in.

The locals across the street had set up camp 10 years ago. A group of dudes had gone in on a piece of land located right at the foot of a mountain. Immediately adjacent to the land was a mining road that led up 3000’ through perfectly spaced, tall trees and another 1000’ of rolling alpine terrain. Our camper and land sits so that we look right over the intentional snow berm and see the secret gem of a trail snake from behind the Barn and curve up and around the corner into the forest.

All morning we saw people tandem on sleds and disappear up the trail as truck after truck pulled in. We had heard that the locals might be a little protective so we brought beer and good cheer to see how far that would get us. Guys and girls milled around and gassed up as we cautiously peered over the snow bank. Back in October and November we had met a couple of ‘friends of the owners’ who seemed cool but then too cool when the obvious talk came around to how good the riding must be come winter.

Around 2pm we decided to go for it. As I strapped our hand-built custom Carpathian skis to the sleds, I remember thinking that it does not matter how cool we think we are, here we are nothing. Half way up the steep north side of the mountain we came across a gatekeeper on his way down, trailed by two women, all on sleds.

As introduction he said “You guys should go down now. You don’t live here, we don’t know you, where were you this morning when we were breaking trail?”

I responded in summary, “We just got here, we know so and so and we are here with beer and shovels and Merry Christmas!”

“Exactly! You just got here and there is enough beer in the world and you should just turn around!” He was getting excited. “Yeah!” one of the girls chipped in, “we are all friends here and we don’t need more.”

“And on top of it, “he finished, “you guys are on skis, there is a binding ban on the mountain, no skis allowed.” As he points to his ‘no board’ strapped to the back of his sled. A ‘no board’ is a snowboard without bindings, only a rubber stomp pad for traction. As it turns out this old mining road was the center of the universe to a bizarre micro cult of no boarders and we were not welcome.

I stood firm and we told him that we would continue up the trail and deal with the next guy, whoever that might be. In a fuming ‘haroomph!’ he got on his sled and we continued somewhat nervously up the trail. The next guy seemed more friendly on the surface but turned out to be more menacing. “Let me tell ya, you should turn around right now. We saw you pull in last night. There are other roads to go on. You should just turn around now,” he said with a smile as the hairs on my neck went up. “I came out with these guys five times last year and now look at me, I am in. You guys should come by the barn later and introduce yourself, that is all I can say.”

By now I knew the trick was on us and I would not be surprised to return to the truck and find the tires slashed or some other cliché, protective act of surf inspired vandalism these guys could come up with.

We sat in the camper in a state of social shock. The next move was a tough one. I grabbed the 24 case of bottled Kootenay and we shuffled up the long driveway to the Barn. Groups of people, loitering around sleds, fell silent and dispersed with no eye contact as we made our presence known. I find the main door of the Barn in the twilight under thick tree coverage and knock. I can’t believe I am doing this. Silence. A second louder knock. They know it is Us because friends wouldn’t knock, they would walk right in. I hear a distant “Come in” and we enter Kurtz’s lair.

It is near black inside the fairly large main room. There is a stove in the middle of the room and behind that, in the far back corner we see a single Tikka headlamp bobbing around. There are three or four people standing in the shadows. Silence. I make my way through the dark with my case of beer stretched out before me as I literally crouch and put the beer on the floor and nudge it closer with my foot and step back at the same time, ready to make my exit.

The gatekeeper nodded that we should stay but I was still on my way out as my wife nudged me to be calm. The other people melted back into the dark and we sat and made tense second introductions. He made his case for lashing out earlier as I apologized profusely. I said that I would rather be friends and neighbors than ride his trail without permission. The bad vibes were not worth the best powder in the world. He explained that if they let anyone on the trail then word would get out and it would quickly devolve into another bumped out, messy sled access road.

I was thinking in my head about how, several times now, writers for different snowboard magazines have made their way to this place and were immediately taken in and showed the best time of their life. In exchange the terms of location have thus far been sworn to professional secrecy.

I was thinking that these people are bold to commandeer a public space and then use group intimidation tactics to keep people out. Too bad I was not under cover for Powder Magazine and was taking copious notes in my head on how to blow this scene out of the water just because I could. I could see posters in every sled shop in BC, Alberta and Washington calling for the first annual XYZ sled rally. Wouldn’t that be great to have 1000 sled heads roll into town, forever swamping the valley in 2 stroke smoke?

It was a moral dilemma. My presently wounded pride versus my desire to shred secret powder with my soon to be friends. Be patient and be rewarded or be a dick and ruin it for everyone?

We shook hands and left on good terms. The next day we went and broke trail up the other side of the valley and had a blast. A couple of days later, we were invited by the King of no boarding to follow the group far back into one of the more remote drainages. They were going this way only because their private playground was tracked out. We both tried no boarding for the first time and we were hooked. The next day we followed again, this time the Queen’s sled broke down. My wife let her use her own, saving the day, as we shredded more no board turns.

So by and large things went well. We were never actually allowed to ride the good trail over the 10 days that we were there. I swung between being extremely bitter to rationalized indifference. “I have all the mountains from here to AK to call my own, but I want to ride THAT mountain!” I guess a little gang initiation process never hurt anyone. I want in on the darkness, the antithesis of alpine skiing. Maybe next year if we show up on custom Carpathian no boards, we will be in the club.

A funny thing happened, though, when we returned to Whistler sometime after New Years. Everyone seemed so… nice! The whole world was a beautiful place after being buried in the memories of ghosts and savage rules in that deep, snow filled valley. For good or bad, there is a vortex of energy there that people should not know about.

AK vs BC skiing

Skiing in Alaska makes you weak. I have only come to that conclusion after having moved to and become assimilated into the town known as Whistler. I now see why all of the best skiers these days (according to the IFSA) all come from Whistler. It has the most vertical and more varied terrain then anywhere else on the continent. And besides that, the terrain is mean. Rocks, cliffs, trees and inconsistent, if not unpredictable fall lines all add to the overall difficulty of skiing.

Skiing in Alaska is easy. I don’t know if I’d be the first to say it, but all of those shots you see in the movies are generally technically easier then any number of lines through Spanky’s or off Peak Chair. The steep fins with obvious avy start zones and run-outs are conducive to easily skiing at high speed at all times.

When people ask if the skiing in Alaska is really that good I have to say yes. Easy access to steep, clean lines with bottomless powder on geographically smooth terrain all add up to a good time on skis or board alike. I find the mountains in BC in general to be bigger and meaner. Go touring in the Duffy and soon see that any one of those mountains is a full day endeavor with minimum of 5-6000ft to the summit. So when it comes to becoming a better skier or a stronger ski-mountaineer, BC is the place to be. I feel like I cut my teeth in the mountains of AK but I have been humbled by the mountains of BC.

To some degree, I believed the ski media of the last 15 years. Who hasn’t heard the story about the pro from the south, who goes north, gets plopped on some peak in Valdez and promptly shits their bibs? But you soon see the Jim or Bob rip clean big mountain lines top to bottom. After their first run they are in on the secret… skiing in Alaska is easy but the media won’t tell you that part! (chuckle)

That is why my skiing style basically evolved towards speed. If you have this giant, powder covered slope you might as well ski as fast as possible just because you can. Where as skiing these BC mountains I find it much more difficult to maintain, if not attain for that matter, the speed you would enjoy lap after lap on Alyeska. But it is all relative, I guess. You may not be going as fast technically, but because of the technical nature of the terrain, you feel like you are going fast anyway.

So when I say skiing in Alaska makes you weak, I mean it. If I am hiking 2 hours and making 10 turns per 3000ft in AK vs hiking 4 hours and making 100 turns per 3000ft in BC, where am I going to more quickly and efficiently develop strong skiing skills?  BC! And if I have to climb 6 hours and make my way down some super steep, rock pillared, avy prone, off-camber fall line over exposure, I better have put the old thinking cap on.

I have been following the ski industry for years now. I know which mountains the guys with TGR skied around Girdwood and Haines. Some of the biggest lines from Further, Mind the Addiction, The Realm or The Prophecy are all within a 3 hour climb from the highway. So with a little gumption, one can easily ski the ‘big mountains’ the pros are skiing. It is not to say that the mountains in Alaska aren’t dangerous or worthy of a skier’s utmost respect, however. Skilled mountain people die every year because the mountains ARE big and dangerous. I have had close calls, watching friends ride 2000ft to a near death experience but at the time it had little affect on me. Maybe I was too young and hotheaded to appreciate the dangers of the mountains in Alaska.

It wasn’t until I immigrated to Canada 4 years ago at the age of 24 that I realized that it was more luck then anything else. I climbed and skied a lot of lines in my ‘youth’ that I would not go back to repeat. There is only so much experience one can attain by the age of 21 or 22. Maybe that is it? They say that with age, comes wisdom and an appreciation for your time here on earth. As I’m sitting here pushing 29, I sometimes feel like an old man, like I’ve seen it all… but then I go for a day tour up the Duffy last week and experience true apprehension, a true humbling of the senses. Nothing adds perspective like getting in over your head and seeing how your own lack of judgment or experience got you there. I guess you can do that anywhere when it comes down to it.

So in reality, I have not seen shit. I know AK and BC pretty well but am mostly terrified of the south or east of North America and the world beyond.

Do I need to go experience some foreign culture in order to find my self? Why can’t I drive 20km up Route 99 to enjoy the record snow pack and maybe gain some insight into my own intentions? Or better yet, after skiing go to the Village and sit outside Starbucks to just watch the world walk by?

Whistler is a happy place. It is balanced by the natural energy contours of the land. The lack of electro-magnetic pull on the collective conscious in this area (west coast in general) is conducive to ‘change’ and ‘progress.’ People adapt here. If Whistler Mountain is the phallic male and Blackcomb Peak is the volvic female then we are the indigo children blessed with the freedom of choice and the volition to do good.

I see skiing as a meditation with each turn attempting to touch the divine. The better the skier, the higher the meditation, the better the person, the better the environment… There is a lot of talk in the local media these days about how we, the privileged people of Whistler, are in the position to create positive change in the world at large. But there seems to be some confusion as to how to exactly do that. I say go skiing and be happy.

Penguin Ridge Traverse


Summer time in Whistler is pretty nice. Besides the down hill biking there are hundreds of quality swimming holes and rivers to help you cool off. Whistler can get hot and Pemberton can get even hotter. On a regular basis it broke 40C on our front deck. For weeks at a time it would be over 30C and I had to work in these temperatures. Imagine that going from –40C to +40C in the same year. Overall, running a saw in the cold is easier I figure. You can always put on another layer and keep moving. But in the heat there is nothing you can do once your core temperature reaches a certain point.

In the true heat of the summer we would go on fire hours. Basically be up and working by 5:30am and done by 1pm. I enjoyed that schedule because I would have plenty of time for swimming in the local lakes.

Overall I became stronger by acclimatizing to the heat. I can cope with the cold but the heat was my weakness. I always thought I was prone to dehydration but I figured it is a matter of drinking enough and really using the shade and listening to your body.

Back on Aug 13, 2001, I came closer to death than ever before, and in such an embarrassing way!

Abe, Hans and I climbed the entire length of Penguin Ridge in 6 hours. At that point, I started to feel sick. My legs felt like they did not want to work, like they were seizing up. I felt like I could not drink enough water even though it was not that hot out. Hans chided me to continue for the rest of the proposed trip (another 10 hours). I had to decline as I could feel myself losing control.

I decided to climb down to the house with Abe while Hans continued around California Creek drainage. 1/3 of the way down the 4000ft descent, I started to drift in an out of consciousness. I became delirious from the heat and needed to get home ASAP. I could feel myself losing it as I staggered down the hill, out of control, crashing through the alders, trying to avoid the sun. I was acting like a vampire. I wanted to lay down but I knew I would not rise. I had left Abe in the dust as I made haste through the dense underbrush. I really got scared when I started to get cold. I blundered ahead for what seemed an eternity. I finally made it off the side of the mountain but now had to make it through a 1/4mile of dense forest before I hit the road.

I remember thinking that I did not want to get to the road because it was not sheltered from the sun. Maybe I should just cut through the woods right to the house...? Bad idea. Getting panicky... I remember looking up, thinking the wind was blowing or there was a jet overhead as I peered out the forest to the sky. I looked and looked and then realized that it was a little stream right at my feet. Water! I didn't even think of looking for a stream! I drank and bathed in the tiny stream for
a 1/2hour as the flies covered me while I wept. Whoa!

Abe showed up and we made our way out to the road. Once home I was no more then a ghost. I drank about 10 liters of water over the next 5 hours. I had never drifted off that far and it was unnerving. I diagnosed the problem later as a combo of heat, dehydration and the use of Ripped Fuel, an ephedrine based supplement you can get at the store. I nearly did not make it, but I am stronger now.

It took me a full week to recover. I could not walk for the following two days because I had run myself so dry. In retrospect I should have gone to the doctor.

Silly indeed. I could not drink coffee for a year after that trip because my system was so fried. It was about a year later when Hans, Todd and I went to ski up on the Alyeska Headwall in late June. It was quite hot out for Alaska standards but there was plenty of snow to be skied.

Hans was circling around the drainage over to the North Face of Max’s and I was going to film from way across the valley. Todd was coming along just for the exercise. He had been on a slow recovery after breaking his back nearly three years prior. He had fallen during one of these extreme ski and snowboard competitions and was almost paralyzed from the waist down.

He was happy to be out in the mountains again. Hans skied his run and Todd started making his way down back to the tram. I had skis and easily zipped across the bowl and waited for Hans. I looked back and for the life of me could not see Todd.

I waited for a bit and Hans eventually showed up and we kind of paced around waiting for Todd. I thought he might have kept going down accidentally. The all of the sudden I saw some movement at the edge of a glide crack. A glide crack is like a crevasse in the snow where the snow partially slides away from the snow above it. There was Todd staggering out of the crack and kind of looking dazed. He made is way to us slowly and recounted what had happened.

He was cruising along and had what he thinks was a heat stroke sort of pass out and he just slid into the hole. While we were waiting, oblivious to the hole being a danger in the first place, he was struggling to gain his bearings and get out of the hole.

If it is not hot then it is cold, what is a mountain man to do?

Birth of Carpathian Ski Company


On March 31, I finished my 101-Day ski Meditation. My friend Mark and I were to ski out to Tremor, a nice day tour out behind Blackcomb. Mark was one of my successful ‘project skiers.’ Like Hans years ago, Mark had a keen mind and quick reflexes suited for high danger in the mountains. More importantly he was ready to be beaten down in order to grow in the long run.

I had met Mark back in Smithers the previous winter. He was new to the skiers lifestyle, as he had just moved out west from Ontario. At the same time I had also met Tom, who was fresh from Vancouver. He was equally keen but slightly slower upstairs, if you know what I mean. So here I am, this jaded, wannabe pro skier from Alaska, paling around with two rookies. I enjoy being the teacher though and we had fun. We would go out into these super steep, short runs in the trees with the objective to see who had what it took to make the cut. Mark soon proved to be the stronger skier both physically and mentally, as Tom seemed to crack under the pressure, despite his macho posturing.

The season came to a close, Mark went back to Ontario to work and a summer passed. Vesna and I made our way to Whistler where I got a call from Mark back in Smithers in right after I got back from Saskatchewan. He was ready to ski and I told him to get down to Whistler if he wanted to take his skiing to the next level. I was able to find a place for him to rent and two days later he showed up, ready to go.

The tour out to Tremore was a beautiful day. We traversed up and around four smaller peaks on route to our objective. On the summit ridge there is worn path from heavy traffic. We sat on the summit and contemplated the season so far.

Back around Day 80 of my meditation I had an insight. I decided to start building skis for a business and Carpathian Ski Company was born. It was perfect! I already had the film company on the go and I had acquired skills with epoxy and fiberglass construction from back in the day when my dad paid me $3 and hour to do work on his boat while he was at work. I would put two and two together and it made more sense then anything I a long time.

When I told Mark of the idea originally he was pretty keen to be part of it. It was painful but I had to make it clear that I was setting out on that journey solo. I had 20 years of skiing with intention wrapped up I all of it and or paths might have to soon part.

The air was warm and the view was splendid in all directions. We decided to ski. Our line was off the north face and it was very hard ice. Luckily though, the pitch starts out steep but rolls out smooth across the glacier below. I went first and was amazed that despite my skis being turned sideways, I was not slowing down. I kept turning for show as I also kept accelerating until the lower pitch where I could turn them straight and them run. Way down the glacier I turned to see if Mark was following just in time to see him blast past me at about Mach 3 with a flapping coat and wild grin on his face. I turned in pursuit and raced down the mountain as fast as we could. I knew that Mark would be all right and that we would ski again someday.

Review: The Dark Side of Oz


We were right on schedule. It was 9:40pm as we had a little smoky-smoke out in Lot 3. The show started at 10 and we wanted to be in the right headspace to appreciate and assimilate the wonder that is the “Dark Side of Oz.” A cult classic, this rendering of the 1936 “Wizard of Oz” and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” is a must-do for anyone who wants to trip out on the supposed synchronicity displayed between the two disparate pieces of 20th century media.

The audience was in a festive mood, as everyone seemed to hold the same ‘high’ expectations of the night’s entertainment. Once the movie got started, it was entertaining right away. I started to try and figure out the symbolic meaning behind the Floyd lyrics and how it related to the images on the screen. Who is Dorothy? What spiritual odyssey is she conjuring as she seems to ‘call up’ the tornado to take her to the higher dimensions of Oz. (maybe she’s the witch?)

Enter Munchkins… Oh look how the house landed on the evil witch of the East. Maybe that means Communism is dead only leaving the evil of the witch in the West? Are we in some sort of utopia right now? Dorothy seems to represent western Man in general now as she embarks on to the Yellow Brick Road, her path of evolution.

Her first friend she meets is the Scarecrow who immediately struck me as being some sort of Christ figure, being up on his stake and all. Is he Christ? Who is going to play the Buddha and Mohammed? As it turns out the Scarecrow is religion in general as brainless as he may be. He and Dorothy carry on, on shaky legs no less. Soon we meet the Tin Man who I figured to represent man’s industry or ‘result of creativity.’ With just a few dabs of precious oil, the machinery of man’s invention moves smoothly forward.

As the three friends skip into the dark woods they encounter the guy who looks like a lion or something. I guess he is supposed to be ‘primal man’, sent to remind us of where we came from…

People are rustling in their seats. I’m trying to pay attention. Don’t they realize there is a message here?

The party of four has made it to the big green city. Are they at the doors of heaven? Will St Peter let them in? Is Floyd being cynical by relating money to western man’s understanding of heaven?

I have a flash of my own cynicism. What am I doing here watching a silent movie? I think the songs are repeating… does the album repeat songs?

A group of people get up and leave. Why are they leaving? Don’t they want to see how humanity turns out? We have to stick it out. I want some answers.

They are meeting with God now. Scary, punitive. A classic liberal ‘expose’ on religion and the façade put on by the Church/Government/Corporation etc. that are controlling the world. Is it all a sham?!

People are becoming restless. I am trying to remain awake and focused. The scenes seem to keep dragging on. The music is only synchronized, at this point, by the human tendency to bring order out of chaos. I feel silly.

Just then the DVD has a minor glitch. A skip. No way, I think. Keeps going, pause, skip.

God is giving his rewards to the contestants; Brains for religion; a heart for evil industry; and courage for primal man to persevere. Sounds good, what does Dorothy get, our female representative of all humanity now? The DVD skips again and again. Another skip. She’s looking at her shoes… about to go home… “Click”  pause, pause, garble…

Is this it? Man is coming to a premature demise because his own technology let him down in the time of need? The movie finally ground to a halt on Dorothy’s pixilated face. Some people laughed while some groaned in disgust as the lights came on. No closure, no satisfaction in really knowing. What does it all mean? Does it mean there are no answers and man is doomed? No, it means that I get to take a leak now and then drive home.

p.s. I must add that I like the way the snow fell on Dorothy at one point and she found the strength to continue… I really did feel connected to all of the skiers in the room at that point.

So if any of you out there have experienced the ‘Dark Side of Oz’ in its entirety, let me know how it and humanity in general turn out.

Lillooet Canoe Trip


The summers in Pemberton Valley are long and hot. I eventually became accustomed to the heat but I really helps to have some nice cold water nearby to take the edge off.

As we got out of the trucks at the Meager Creek Bridge, I could here the roar of the river. According to the Backcountry Map Book, this section should be 8 hours of fast, deep water. It should carry our two canoes 32 kilometers southeast, to the Upper Lillooet Bridge.

We were hoping that the majority of the volume of water would be split up into smaller, braided channels that we could cleanly navigate in open canoes. From the bridge, however, all of the river was one, as we could see several taller standing waves interspersed with consistent smaller waves. We figured that we could just steer around the taller waves and make it around a few corners to where it would hopefully calm down.

Around 11am we launched. Sam, Calita and their dog Cody were in the first canoe. Jamie, my self and my dog Po were in the second canoe. About 10 seconds into our float I had to start bailing. At 20 seconds I had to paddle furiously then at 30 seconds I had to bail again, now at a frenzied pace. At 40 seconds the gunnels started to go under as I watched Po start to swim in my lap. From 45 to 60 seconds I was swimming with one arm, with all of my might as my other hand is gripped around Po’s collar and scruff. We crashed and swam together through a train of standing waves as the whole river made an obvious drop. I could see Sam and Calita already on shore as I struggled the last 10 ft, dog in hand.

At first I was stunned at how quickly things turned sour. Canoe #1 pitch poled off to the horizon as Jamie was still in the water struggling with freeing his dry bag from the submerged cross bar. In the meanwhile Cody the dog was on the other side of the river as we watched him jump back in to join us. I raced 200meters down the boulder-strewn sandbar at pace with the current as I yelled to Jamie “The dog! The dog!” as Cody made it to shore.

Luckily we were only 1 kilometer from the trucks so we sprinted upstream, then drove 5k downstream, parked, ran through the woods and then huge, open sandbar. I could see the tops of waves in the hazy distance. We hit the river and ran downstream another kilometer. There was our boat, pinned upside down on the bottom, on the other side of three deep, fast, cold channels.

I was responsible for the borrowed boat so I had to navigate, claw and swim my way across the river. I got to the boat after some real Navy Seal maneuvering! As I began prying her loose from the suction and weight of the water, I realized that the river had beaten her badly. No seats, no gunnels, no throw-bag, no paddles, just a floppy fiberglass hull. I hiked upstream and pushed into the torrent and free-styled through a wave train that carried me across to the other shore as Jamie tossed me a line made of tie-downs tied together and a stick for weight. The line came up just short as I speed crawled from the intact stern to the fractured bow and into the water with bow in one hand and now the rope in the other as I swung like a pendulum to shore.

For Sammy’s boat we decided to search upstream to where the first shallow braids might catch a canoe. We found it about 2 kilometers upstream from our boat. It was stuck in a similar scenario except with deeper and faster currents.

Jamie took to the lead and committed to powerful forward strokes to get across the main channel. This boat was equally as mangled with gunnels and seats hanging limp and broken. This canoe was constructed out of plastic and it began to ‘taco’ because the gunnels were part of the structure apparently. Because of this ‘taco’ effect and its accompanying extreme instability, Jamie decided to swim across with a line in his hand connected to the canoe trailing downstream from him.

He came whizzing by me and my out reached stick. Sammy again had to use our jimmy rigged safety line and hauled Jamie to the shore. But the boat slipped from his grasp and began running down stream again as I had to sprint along the shore another 100meters and wade out into waist deep water to finally salvage our lost vessel. The time was 4pm.

We made our way to the trucks to sit in the sun, drink a couple of warm beers and reflect on potential lessons learned.

Birkenhead Packraft Trip


My knee was still sore from our botched Lilloet River expedition. I had banged it pretty good as I crab crawled across the current trying to save the canoe. Not to be beaten though, I decided to try the Birkenhead River with Bougie. Our mode of transportation would be the pack raft.

Imagine a little kiddie raft built for one person. Now imagine that basic design constructed out of reinforced Kevlar with a spray skirt and a carbon fiber paddle. They are pretty nimble and light. I have never really done any kayaking or rafting. I had done mellow canoeing, Lilloet trip aside.

Bougie was optimistic in my abilities and our route. The Birkenhead flowed right past our house just outside Pemberton. He pickled me up in the afternoon and figured that the trip would only take a couple of hours. The lower bit is smooth Class I and the middle section is up to Class III. Bougie had a little guidebook in his lap as we negotiated under the power lines right of ways looking for our access point.

He wanted to catch the very last section of Class IV and was confident that I could do it. I was nervous. The river seemed to be more rock then water. It had about one tenth the volume of the Lilloet River, but from what I could see, this was way steeper. Bougie had two of these little boats and we both squeezed in and pushed from shore. It was actually more of a pulling motion as I gripped on the rocks with my hands and scooted my butt through the super tight channels. I did not even have a chance to practice paddling before the first five foot drop. It was exhilarating! I paddled and dashed from channel to channel barely in control.

Bougie dropped over another cliff and I followed close on his stern. We hit drop after drop as we came around a bend and saw a stairway feature of drops spiraling away to the distance. I was right on Bougie’s tail as we plunged over 1, 2, 3, 4 cliffs in a row. On the fifth drop there was a he log across the river about 2 feet off the surface. Bougie pulled off a smooth ducking motion and cleanly avoided hitting his head. I struggled to do the same maneuver but ended up over leaning and flipped backwards right in the crux of the waterfall. The bottom of the boat hit the log as I dove out and came to the surface,

I attempted in vain to hang onto the one paddle and the boat and swim at the same time. My coat pockets filled with water and I clawed at the cliffs along the waters edge and had to let the boat and paddle go. I climbed up on the boulder like a near drowned rat. As Bougie power stroked downstream to catch my ride I was left barefoot and alone on the wrong side of the river.

I first tried to walk through the woods but that did not work on my soft feet. The boulders along the stream were large and slippery. My only option was to jump back in and swim across to the other side where the road was so I could walk on pavement.
After about 20 minutes we were reunited. I got back in my boat and Bougie reassured me that we had come through the worst of it and it turns out he was right.

The rest of the trip was awesome as we rode over wave after wave for 2 hours straight. Nothing was too scary but it was still challenging.

Right at the last 50 meters of the river before our pull out, there were three young 1st nation guys sitting on the beach. One of them jumped up and ran into the water and dove right in front of Bougie. He stood there drunk and cross-eyed and grabbed Bougie’s boat and told us “No white people here.”

He made a fist menacingly. I thought “yeah right these drunk guys are going to stop us after the challenges we already surpassed.” He came to me and I shook his hand and told him that I knew it was his river and I asked permission to go through. He said yes only if I bought him some beer. I agreed and he let us go. We loaded in the car and drove away.

North to Alaska

I started driving at 4am on the morning of February 6, 2008. I drove for 18 hours straight from Pemberton, BC to Prince Rupert, BC. The last 3 hours from Terrace to Rupert were the worse. It was snowing harder then I had seen it snow in a while. With my dog Po as my co-pilot, I was road buzzed from driving solo for so long but was still keeping a good time, though I did almost go off the road in the slush just out side of Rupert. My flat deck truck was loaded to the gills with my snowmobile and my entire ski-building factory. I was going to get on the ferry and ride north to Haines, AK. From there I planned on driving to Anchorage where I would stay at my parents house for three months so I could build and sell Carpathian Skis. Carpathian Peak is the biggest peak in the area so I named my ski company after it. I also was planning on competing in three world championship events on my own gear at Alyeska Resort. It was an epic homecoming and I was excited.

With the first stage of my journey complete, I could relax for a couple of days on the ferry. It is a scenic voyage and I enjoyed the spirit of adventure. It seemed ironic that I was this Alaskan native with so much experience actually in Alaska but here I was no feeling like a green horn, rolling into new territory.

It was cold outside Juneau. Normally on the ocean the temperature is somewhat moderated, even in the winter it never will get too cold. This was different though as it was –25C and blowing hard as we chugged north to Haines. From Haines I would be stepping into the most hazardous stage of the journey. Outside of Haines, Alaska you cross the border back into BC and climb up to Haines Pass. As you descend the other side of the pass you cross another border into the Yukon. You are also going into the interior side of the Coast Range where the temperature drops precipitously. I was nervous as I departed Haines around 7am. I knew I was ‘going deep’ so to speak, but I was up to the challenge.

My main concern was my diesel truck. I had bad experiences in northern Saskatchewan with my work truck gelling up once it hit –40 Celsius. Right now it was –35 in Haines Junction, Yukon. I still had summer fuel in my truck and I knew that in Haines Junction they would sell cold weather diesel. As I descended the pass the temp dropped and my truck started to act up. It sneaks up on you. The gas pedal feels a little sluggish and she kind of stalls out a bit. Soon it stalls more and more then picks up again like there is no problem. I can feel the fear rising in my gut because I am in the middle of nowhere. There are not even people to hitch with on this spur highway and if I don’t get to town before the border closes at the end of the day, I am stuck.

I limped into Haines Junction and found a gas station. Apparently the temperature was dropping and no one was outside as I fiddled with the fuel pump. I could not get it to work. The gas attendant person told me that I was the first customer to use it for the day and that I would have to hold it in front of my idling exhaust pipe to thaw the pump mechanism.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of choking on exhaust, the pump would flow and I thought I was saved. I topped her up and started for the Alaska border some 300 miles north. This stretch is bleak with the mountains on your left and the cold interior plains on your right. It was deceiving though. The sun was out and it looked nice out from the heated confines of my truck cab. But when I stopped to take breaks of the side of the road, it quickly became clear that it was very fucking cold. I sensed that it might be colder then –40 but I was not sure. The truck was driving all right and I was going to make it home that night. Five minutes later the truck starts acting up. She feels sluggish in forth gear so I downshift and keep driving. Soon she is sluggish and stalling in 3rd so I drop to 2nd, then 1st. I am crawling on the side of the empty highway at walking speed and I am still 200 miles from the town of Beaver Creek, located right at the border.

Po is looking at me like he knows we are in trouble and he cowers next to me, slightly shaking. The truck dies. I don’t get out of the truck so as to preserve what tiny amount of heat I have trapped in the cab. I feel like crying at this point. A minute later I start the truck and resume walking speed. The fuel lines run past the engine and they will thaw if giving enough time near the engine heat. She stalls again. I wait five minutes and start crawling again. I know it is futile but like a good captain I do not want to abandon ship.

She stalls again and this time will not start. I have to hitch hike. It was about noon and there is usually a car or truck going by every half an hour. I stick my thumb out and get picked up by the first car. Everyone knows that if anyone needs help out here you had better offer assistance.

We left my truck and drove for two hours to the tiny border town of Beaver Creek. Not really a town but more like a motel, and gas station. I get dropped off near a couple of abandoned looking garages after the gas station person told me this is where the tow truck is. The place is sketchy and looks like it was last renovated in the fifties. I call the number and an old lady answered. She told me that her husband was out on a job but would be back in a couple of hours.

I go back to the gas station/motel and ask for a room. The guy starts lecturing me on why I am driving out there. “Don’t you know it is –55C out there? Not even the locals are driving! Blah, blah, blah.”

I got comfortable with the TV in the weird room I was in and waited for the call.
The next day was Sunday and the guy “would not go out until 10am to get my truck,” he told me. I waited all the next day and walked over to the garage around 4pm. They had my truck but she did not want to start. I guess it got down to –70C the last night, ushering in the coldest spell of the winter. I remember using the old pull start method back in Saskatchewan and sure enough she roared to life, like being resurrected from the dead.
Problem was that the heater did not work because it was frozen or something but I had to go anyway. The guy charged me $500 for the tow truck and bid me farewell. It was the warmest part of the day and oddly enough it felt balmy at –40C.

After taking 6 days to get to Anchorage, everything else felt easy. The Telepalooza 1st Annual World Extreme Telemark Championships almost caught me off guard. It was all right though, because with telemark boots these days and these super fat skis I was rocking, I figured that I would just ski the terrain that you could not telemark turn in anyway. I got away with it for the first day. I aimed for the heart of the ‘no fall zone’ as a confident alpine skier.

My first run was a super gnarly first descent and my second run I went bigger then ever before in my life with a 20-80ft double. I ended up in 5th place, as unfortunately the judges did not count Run 2 because some guy hurt himself and the last 10 guys did not get to ski so my score did not count.

In Day 2 of the Tele comp I was confident that I had a secret weapon. Everyone was poking around ‘the Prow’ area as I figured on going over into the ‘Postal Pocket’ area for better snow and longer steep sections. Right at the top of the run I piled into a chest deep fresh snow drift and front flipped right back to my feet and sent the slab rolling down ‘Christmas Chute’. The judges totally saw me roll as I made alpine turns down the lower, mellow terrain. I fell from 5th place to 25th.

Two days later the North Face sponsored Big Mountain Snowboard Masters comp began. It was fun because I could get on the lift and not have to talk to the telemark skiers anymore. Up until this point in my building season, I had constructed 19 pairs of skis. The day before the snowboard comp started I finished my first snowboard. This thing was as stiff as a 2x6 but she had clean lines. I am barely managing to turn this thing and end up in 11th overall at the end of it. Either says something about my riding or something of the state of snowboarding…

By now, according to my plan, I would be so immersed in competition mode that by the time the IFSA event came along I would have a mental advantage over the other guys. At first I was struck by the cult like qualities of the IFSA in general. Or more specifically if felt like a positive ‘spiritual group for athletes’. Compared to the two previous competitions I had just participated in, the IFSA definitely has a longer history, which leads to more ‘unity’, and an over all family feel. In the introduction meeting we were reminded to celebrate life and remember the people who had died doing what we all loved to do, which is rip big mountain lines. Tomorrow would be the one-year anniversary of Neal Valiton’s death in the Tignes World Championship event, so we all wanted to ski safe.

The next day the clouds were in and out but the skies remained mostly sunny. I was 5th from the end of a strong field of 75 male competitors. I had several hours to hike around on the venue to scope lines and watch other skiers. I could also hear the announcers at the bottom so I knew which skiers scored well on which lines. All I can say is that dudes were charging. I cringed a couple of times as there were several close calls coupling speed with exposure. There were a lot of tomahawks and you could tell that that some skiers were probably skiing faster then they ever had before on the long, steep, smooth run-out.

I eventually hiked up to the start right when John Nicoletta was charging into his line. I did not know who he was at the time. A moment later I noticed the group of ski patrollers nearby perking up to their radios in unison. A couple of them skied into the venue quickly then a minute later the rescue sled was dispatched from the top. Word was that they were performing CPR. A helicopter appeared soon thereafter and landed briefly then took off again without loading anyone. That is not good sign, I thought to myself. A few minutes later the organizers called off the event for the day.

John Nicoletta had died soon after sustaining severe head and chest injuries after rag-dolling right in the same spot I had watched those close calls earlier in the day. In the evening we were informed officially of his death. We were also told that the event would continue the next day following an early morning memorial at the top of the venue. I still felt kind of numb. I was not sure how the emotions would set in. I was not sure what to think.

We all hiked slowly and silently up the steep head wall boot-pack. At the top we were greeted by a stunning clear vista of all of the surrounding mountains of the mighty Chugach and the lesser-known Kenai Range to the south. These are my favorite mountains in the world. I grew up hiking from peak to peak trying to forever expand my vision of the area. The views compelled me to do so. As I stood there I realized that I had climbed every single peak that you could see at one time or another over the previous 12 years.

It was not the loving memories of John’s friends that piqued my emotions. It was standing there in the familiar trance that the stunning view evokes. I suddenly felt extreme sadness for John’s family and friends but I felt more sadness for John who would never get to look across these mountains again.

After the memorial everyone who had skied the day before the accident got a free run down to the bottom while the remaining competitors, myself included, had to get back into competition mode. It all seemed silly. The only reason I skied was because I said I was doing all three comps come hell or high water, so I felt I had to.

The snow had changed but I stuck with my line. After an air I skidded a turn, flipped backwards but then managed to regain control in mid flip. I slashed two turns into a nice, long, low air into fresh powder and sunlight. I ended up in 54th place. I retired from 10 years competitive big-mountain skiing at the end of that run.

The week before the competitions started there was fund-raiser for my old friend Fred Bull. As it turns out he had been battling a rare form of brain cancer for several years and was in need of money to complete his third operation. The doctors had been removing chunks of his brain in hopes of stopping its spread. Fred was there and I had not seen him in several years. He was as jovial as ever and about 300 people from the ski community showed up to support one of their own.

He was the one who literally instilled a sense of awe and respect for the Chugach Mountains in general and specifically, Carpathian Peak, the namesake of my company. It struck me as crazy that here I was trying to sell these skis while trying kill myself by skiing huge cliffs and showing off for the judges and here is my old friend dying of cancer. I really believed the surgery was going to work and I was taken in by his contagious lust for life, as it was 10 years ago when I first met him. Fred was so happy to see that I was building skis but he refused the pair I had brought as a gift for him. He preferred that I auctioned them off with the other stuff being auctioned to raise money.

After two weeks of being in ‘competition mode’ I was burnt out. My lovely and supportive wife, Vesna, and I went on a nice sailing trip into Prince William Sound then we made our way over to Valdez for a few snow mobile runs and then eventually back to Haines, where the ferry awaited to take us south to Prince Rupert and Whistler.

Fred and I never did ski Carpathian Peak and I have not to this day. It is kind of like the carrot on the stick but is also a place for gods and men turned to the heavens. Fred’s last goal of his life was to finish building a house for his wife and unborn daughter. They were living in Seattle where Fred was getting treatment and Fred knew he had to finish the house sooner then later. He did finish the house and his daughter was born a month later. Fred died one week after that.

The Power of Perception.

I like trying to capture various aspects of quantum theory on canvas.

Attachment 330591

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-moon-th...-like-the-moon

Franti Concert

It was time to go, the party was over, the people were leaving. How did we get there? It does not matter because the way out is completely different.

Four hours earlier… The warm evening sun dappled through the tall majestic trees of Stanley Park. It was a beautiful day in late August. We arranged our blanket on the grassy hillside with all of the other eager concert goers. We were here to see Michael Franti and it was going to rock!

The outdoor venue filled up fast with an assorted crowd and good vibes were in the air. The sky turned to purple dusk and the stage lights now shined bright.

The concert started. We moved forward into the crowd. Everyone was happy and friendly and mostly Canadian as the beats started thumping.

“That guy is tall,” I would think as Franti rapped and rocked about this and that. The music rumbled and the crowd loved it. By about the 4th song the sky was dark and the air was thick and muggy with patchouli and THC smoke. The first set was awesome! We took a break and sooner then later the band was back out on stage and then they cut the lights. Soon there was 1, 2, 10 then 1000’s of lighters shining in the warm night air. The song was languid and guttural and drawn out like good sex.

I watched the crowd transfixed by the sea of light and it looked like a rolling sea of flesh blending with the music and aroma. The tempo began to build. A rain drop hit my nose. Then another. Within 10 seconds the sky unleashed a downpour of rain water as the band ratcheted things up about 1000 times. I was impressed. This show could not have been choreographed any better assuming full cooperation from the heavens.

The stage lights blazed with Franti in stark silhouette getting drenched. I felt like I was immersed in a bad ass rock video as the people danced around like they were literally insane. We probably all were. The rain kept up hard for 3-4 songs and the band never missed a beat. I recall the guitar guys moving back under cover while Franti stayed out front and the energy intensified.

The rain slowed down. The mud squished in between our toes and the legs grew tired from 3 hours of ‘hippy shuffling’ as I call it. Last song, time to go.

We were in deep. Downtown Vancouver on LSD and we had to get out of the city and safely back home to Pemberton, an hour and half north. When you leave Stanley park it can be a rude adjustment. One loop through the forest leads to another and the hapless concert goers are thrust back into the general population. Pender, Cambie, Georgia… all streets I don’t like.

We were driving on the periphery of downtown into the heart of downtown as we needed to loop into the city to make a turn around to get back on the Lions Gate Bridge. There is an intersection at Pender and Cordova maybe, where the road branches off on long angles like the peace signs we were waving about just 20 minutes earlier. We had to go left through the intersection but the stop lights were sooo far away. And the street signals…!

They alternate lanes based on traffic flow one way or the other depending on the time of day. Red X’s and Green Arrows blinking and shimmering in the cacophony bright lights. I made the intersection cleanly, turn left, turn left, turn left again then turn right… we were heading out of the city! We passed the concert venue on our right and passed through the tall trees of Stanley Park proper.

A few minutes later we emerged from the canopy of forest and began to climb the mighty architecture of the Lions Gate Bridge. We had one lane of Green Arrows going our way with about 2” of clearance between oncoming traffic on the left and the guard rail on the right. So badly I wanted to look out over the city lights and watch them dance and shout but Vesna would shout, “Eyes on the road!”

The bridge was coming to an end and I was heading due east. There was a key off ramp that we could not afford to miss and as we spiraled around a full 270 deg I completely lost all internal reference markers as to which direction we were traveling until I saw a sign that indicated we were Whistler bound.

I was tired and wanted to get home fast and was pushing maybe 10% over the speed limit of 100kph. I was soon passed by a FedEx van that was going way faster, like in the 140kph range. I was determined to keep pace with this guy as he was our pace car and our decoy and our savior. As we blasted up the highway my favorite part was how the speed trap signs would top out at 150 kph and just start blinking. We arrived home in Pemberton in record time.

Mount Currie Traverse

Spring is long upon us here in Smithers, BC. Vesna is approximately 8 and half months along and we half expect the baby any day. I have been busy for the last month building on our soon to be home. Each day seems to be warmer and warmer as we are also becoming more excited to have this baby and get on with a new chapter in this adventure called life.

Smithers always seems to be a place of reflection for me. A back eddy from the mainstream current pulsing in more high traffic regions. It stands in contrast to the amped up atmosphere of Whistler and the Lower Mainland in general and even though the area is pumped up from huge cash flow and extreme sport, there is still some room for the remnants of the spirit world as told through the stories of the local first nation people.

From our lawn, JJ would point up to the bulk of Mt Currie and the connecting horizon line that circles Gravell Creek and connects around to the Bastion, the mountain I had earlier climbed and skied solo. Apparently Mt Currie is a spiritual power place, as it should be, towering 7000feet about Pemberton, Valley. The local tribes would send young men up into the drainage to go on their spirit quest because it is a nexus, or intersection between this world and the world of unseen shadows you only half glimpse ducking behind a tree when you turn to look.

Every time I looked around in appreciation of the Pemberton and Whistler area, I was reminded of the helicopter crash and how we immediately moving south to run away. I remember one of the first hot days of the following summer when we went swimming at Lost Lake. I was out a ways from shore and all of the sudden a helicopter flew over the area and I felt a panic start to rise in my gut. I didn’t want to seize up and drown here in this lake that would be silly.

Later when Pete’s wife called and blamed me for his death and relinquished his spirit name from me I did not know what to think. All I knew is that it was ironic that his spirit name was ‘Great Swimming Wolf.’ Was my spirit jarred from my body, leaving me hollow and void of emotion? Or was I finally looking at the world through my own spirit eyes, free of subjective interpretation?

Ryan Bougie and I were up at 5am. We had to get an early start in order to beat the heat as we power climbed straight up the broad treed shoulder of Mt Currie’s NE flank. At 7:30am we were 4000ft up above the scenic Pemberton Valley. The Lilloet River stretched west and the Birkenhead curved away to the north from our vantage. At tree line we took to dodging the sun in the very last scraps of shade we would see for the day. As it turns out, this would be the hottest day of the year with temperatures breaking 40C in the valley. It seemed like the higher we climbed, the heat followed, licking at our heels as we managed to stay one step ahead.

We ascended the glacier that spills off Mt Curries North Bowl. There were a couple of crevasse crossings that made me nervous. We were able to divert on to the adjacent mossy cliffs around the gaping blue holes. We sat and took a breather and I remembered hearing a story from my friend Ryan back in Alaska.

He had gone out on a day trip with the objective of climbing Byron Peak, just south of Girdwood in Portage Valley. The easiest way to get up the mountain is to climb straight up Byron Glacier 2000ft to a obvious col. From there you have another 1500 feet of exposed ridge up to the summit. I had only climbed the peak once but clearly remember a couple of technical moves where you could not fall.

It did not matter because they never made it that far. Ryan and his friend, Ben from Maine, were cruising up the glacier with no ropes but using crampons. In the summer you can see all the crevasses so you can at least see where not to go. They were climbing up the last steep pitch when Ben’s crampon got caught up in his pant leg and he started tumbling and he rolled about 100 feet before smacking into a gaping crevasse in which he slid down into some 30 feet. Ryan hurried back down the pitch to see his friend wedged in tightly. He even went so far as to down climb with one foot on each side of the crack and stem his way down to his friend.

Ben was conscious and hurt and he knew it. His head was cracked open and he told Ryan that he knew he was going to die. Ryan tried with all of his might to dislodge Ben but to no avail. He told Ryan to go and run to the parking lot for help and they said their goodbyes. By time the rescue party made it to the scene, he was dead.

Bougie and I had to continue. The day was young and we had a long way to go. We ended up hitting the summit after five and a half hours of speed hiking. It was a spectacular view but we could not dawdle. By my calculations we still had another 10 hours of technical ridge climbing ahead of us to complete the circuit.

The descent off of the peak of Currie was crazy. The ridge narrowed to maybe 2 feet wide with 3000ft sheer drop under our left side and only 1500 feet on the right. After a few scary moves we were into the heart of the journey. There is point along any treacherous path referred to as ‘the point of no return.’ It is place in space or time where you can only go forward and you can’t deviate, even if you wanted to. 3000ft below us was the sacred headwaters of local lore and here we were climbing above the place of spirits into the realm of the gods.

The ridge broadened into a rolling plateau. It was a desert like landscape with no water, no wind. Only silence and endless vistas as our feet kept moving from stone to stone. Occasionally the ridge would narrow and jumble into huge blocky steps as we negotiated each crux with a deep breath or maybe a nervous joke about our escape options, because we knew that we had none. We would have to take what the mountain threw at us.

The thing about technical ridge travel is that there are always more ups and downs then you might expect. After Currie we negotiated ten more sub peaks, each a mountain in its own right. The 7th or 8th peak looked daunting. It rose in a sharp fang with three sides falling away vertical. Luckily there was an odd geomorphic feature that appeared as a chalky colored diagonal slash across one of the near vertical faces. It was our only option and proved barely manageable. Like always we were traveling without ropes so small technical moves can have huge consequences. We nimbly maneuvered across the loose minefield of boulders that were perched, ready to let loose for 2000ft to the valley below.

Every step is life or death and you have to be in a state of relaxed concentration. We made it across the face to only come across another crux. The hard summer snow had held tight to the ridge as we squeezed between it and the wet bedrock. At one point we had to come out of the safety behind the ice to negotiate across precarious placed rocks over full exposure. Or rather 150 feet of super steep summer snow that I could imagine my finger claw marks skidding down and into oblivion.

There was a two-foot section of ice leading to a boulder with a small depression that had melted at its base. The move was this: Stretch with all commitment and lean first hand across to solid boulder then step right foot across and into depression leaving body in full down hill facing position. We then had to step the left foot and hop at the same time to slide into mini depression while clinging to the boulder at same time. Finally there was a three-foot boulder move to climb the rock and scramble back on to the ridge. Not pretty but it worked.

We crested the ridge and promptly saw that we could have easily avoided the death-defying move if we had gone through a previously unseen notch. Such is life! We ran down the summer snow with reckless abandon, careening and cart wheeling all the way. We had three more peaks to go but they were all technically easy considering what we had come through.

By the end of it I was tired. The sole of my shoe was coming unglued as we slipped and skidded through the forest trying to find the cut block and our salvation. As the last rays of the hottest day of the year shined horizontally through the trees in our face we ran the last kilometer to the waiting truck.

Pemberton Music Festival

There was much anticipation leading up to the 1st annual Pemberton Music Festival. Pemberton is a sleepy farming community of about 2500 people located 20 km north of Whistler, BC. While Whistler gets all of the hype Pemberton residents enjoy cheaper real estate and small town vibe with hardly a trickle of the tourism numbers that Whistler sees.

As the long weekend approached in late July over 40,000 people from near and far would be clearing their calendars and descending upon a small town that was not altogether confident that they could handle the sheer numbers.

While the event itself was to be held on 300 acre sprawling acres of fertile farm land with stunning views of Mt. Currie, visitors were going to have to park several mile away and school buses would be used to shuttle the people to and from the festivities. It was almost guaranteed to be a cluster fuck while Vesna and I were stoked be living just 5 km north, within easy striking distance on bike.

99% of the estimated 40,000 people that were going to arrive would do so from the south, from Vancouver and beyond. Sure enough, on the Friday morning things were going to kick off, we rode our bikes and slid in the back entrance only to hear that the traffic was backed up to the south over 20 km, all the way through Whistler! We were in a ready to party!

The line up included The Flaming Lips, Cold Play, Tom Petty, Jay Z, Tragically Hip, Crystal Method, MSTRKRFT, DeadMaus, Nine Inch Nails, Matisyahu and Wolf Mother among others. I had always been a fan of Nine Inch Nails since high school and Vesna really wanted to see The Hip. We both agreed we wanted to see Tom Petty. Besides that we were just going to roll with the flow and see where the action took us.

Jay Z gave a weird performance with him rap yelling while holding a guitar and not really playing it. Matisyahu gave a surprise quality show as we had never heard of him before. We danced away into the late evening sun as long cool shadows cut across the valley. It had been hot and dusty during the day and the dropping temperature was appreciated.

Wolf Mother was cool and The Flaming Lips were like some kind of circus act with bubble machines and robots and huge beach balls bouncing around the audience.

Tom Petty was due to play at 9pm on the Saturday night main stage. We knew from the night before that after the main stage shut down at 11pm every single person was going to try and get into the ‘Rave Tent’. It was by the far the largest portable tent structure I have ever seen. It was tucked towards the back of the main fair grounds and the party would roll on until 2 or 3 in the morning.

We had to make a decision; stay outside and watch Tom Petty, a true rock legend live and in concert! Or go to the Rave Tent early and lose our minds to some heavy electric dance beats… Last dance with mary jane or stay up all night with Molly?!

We opted for the EDM and the guaranteed good time. We arrived to the tent early, like awkwardly early. The only people in the secure rave compound were security guards and serious tweekers… and us lol. The tent was maybe 300ft long and 98% empty. There was some generic techno playing but no real DJ. We checked out the huge rows of porta potties and then found a weird little food court. It was more like a sad collection of street vendors huddled in the confines of a chainlink fence.

There were maybe 8 or 10 picnic tables and 20-30 people hanging around on various drugs. It was kind of a gross scene but I eventually yielded to temptation and bought a pulled pork sandwich that I was convinced would give me Ebola or some shit.

While eating the pork I noticed a couple of people had moved a picnic table over near the 8ft tall wooden fence. They were standing on the table and watching Tom Petty! Sure he was a ways off but with the Jumbotron and huge speakers we could clearly see and hear everything. How awesome!

The Rave Tent was not supposed to get going until 11pm when MSTRKRFT would start the show followed by The Crystal Method at 1am. It was now about 10pm and we had a good way to kill and hour. Soon there were more people in the food court and we were all lined up along the fence enjoying the show.

We could see clearly over the heads of the people who were quickly stacking up to get inside the Tent. It was one of those huge line ups where the people stand 10 abreast and it ran down the whole length of fence we were looking over. It was separated by a 20 foot buffer space. Some of the people in the line started yelling at us to leave so that they could come in. There was some dance music going on while Petty had only 10 minutes left. The Rave Tent had filled quickly in the last hour.

They would have to understand… they did not understand! Soon the people surged and the 1st fence fell to the under trampling feet. Security pushed us back off the table and took our position so they could defend the castle. I managed into a good spot where I could watch the chaos of people trying to scale the fence down the line.

Just when things were getting crazy we scampered inside in time to see a guy scale the fence right behind the porta-potties. He sprinted into the tent so happy because he thought he made it then from out of no where a huge security guard cloths-lined the guy and took him away.

The Tent was pumping now! Of course everyone wanted to get in there, it was the heartbeat of the whole event. Through the previous 2 days you could always hear the ubiquitous ‘thump, thump, thump’ of the heavy beats being pumped into the fertile soil of Pemberton Valley. And now we were in it!

30ft tall speakers lined the stage and clusters of 20ft tall speakers hanged form the ceiling adorned with flashing light arrays. Everything was covered in lights. Fluorescent pinks and blues and yellows and reds bumped and pulsated with the rhythm and beat.

Early on we pushed to the front to be nearest the music, though the room was over flowing. There were various joints and bottles of booze being passed around as you could see the music vibrate through the smoke. MSTRKRFT was a pretty fun act. It is made of a duo with one guy acting all serious and keeping the music going while the other guy was all sweaty and shiny and chugging from a bottle og whiskey and throwing his hair around. It was obviously rehearsed but effective, the party was raging now!

But my ears were ringing. I felt like we were missing the forest for the trees. We moved back through the crowd. Towards the back of the room there was a set of stairs that led up to a mezzanine level. Crystal Method had just taken the stage. We emerged into the light and could now gaze across the top of every ones heads. All of the individuals were now a unified mass that was writhing under the lights. We had been part of the crowd now we were above it, on another plane so to speak.

Now, I am finally writing this story down for the first time though I may have verbally told it over 20 times. I’ll never forget the scene. Vesna laughs because I act like we witnessed some historical music experience of our generation. The bass had stopped and the snare tempo was accelerating. As it accelerated the choreographed light show also accelerated. “Where is the bass?!! This is crazy!” The strobe lights were now going so fast that it appeared that the crowd was frozen as the music had transcended time and space.

We were so in it that it was no longer there. And then a distant memory began to take form and I wondered, “How could the bass even drop now? We are too high! It can’t reach us… But drop it did.

I imagined a giant with enormous wooden mallets deciding to rain hellfire down upon all of us and smash our feeble minds to oblivion. And I knew that was the climax of the entire weekend. We were in it. We saw it. It would be all downhill from here I thought as we mounted our bikes and pedaled home in the wee hours.

The next day we were slow moving to go anywhere. We made it down to the festival ground by about 2pm. The crowds were thinning, the mood had shifted. There were no security guards at the gates any more. The sky was grey, the wind blew dust in billowing clouds. We wandered around catching a few mellow acts here and there. All acts from this day forth would seem mellow compared to last night.

I looked over to the Rave Tent. It was silent now, its story had been told.

All of the people who camped in the fair grounds were leaving. By the late afternoon the only thing left was a sea of abandoned tents and coolers and trash. It was the most depressing apocalyptic hangover I have witnessed. Vesna was keen to salvage some stuff but was reluctant. So many lawn chairs to choose from.

It was sickening to see such waste. I didn’t know people would buy so much stuff and just leave it?

The electric beats ran through my head all day everyday for the following two weeks. We would drive to work past the festival grounds and watch as it was slowly cleaned and soon there was no sign that it ever was.

Whistler Film Festival

As the 2007 Whistler Film festival draws to a close, I sit and reflect on the events of the weekend and watch the snow pile high…

I knew there might be trouble around 9am on Saturday morning en route to Base 2 from our house out on Reid Road, 3km past Mt. Currie. We were just passing Green Lake when my wife’s cell phone went off three consecutive times from random ‘long lost friends in town who wanted to party’. I became concerned when I then realized that I did not bring a change of clothes for an evening in Whistler. That is a bummer because as it was, we already had plans to go to an outdoor bonfire sort of thing down at the RV park.

We live far enough out of town such that when you go to town, you bring everything you might need. I was prepared for the mountains not the bar, but I would have to make due.

The skiing was all right. It was clear and cold and I was testing a new pair of skis I had recently constructed myself. I made a few laps on Jersey Cream while diagnosing and critiquing the performance of my new rides. To tell the truth, they kind of sucked. They were too stiff, slight railing in one ski, slight asymmetry in the other etc, etc. They sure looked nice though and I was stoked. It was a beautiful day so I spent a couple of hours hiking around chasing powder.

After skiing we went to Meadow Park Rec Center to ‘clean up’ and kill time until our first social engagement of the evening. I tell ya, there is nothing better at killing the post-sauna buzz then coming back to your locker and opening the door to be greeted by a rush of damp sickly air poring out. I think it literally fell to the locker room floor and oozed out into the pool only to dye it red like they tell little kids if they pee in the pool. OK, maybe not that bad, but either way the socks were the worse, offering no relief to my thoroughly water logged feet. So I went sockless in wet shoes.

I was complaining loudly now and would have been happy to rush home to warm slippers. I also wanted to avoid any awkward situations that seemed inevitable. But alas, I am but a social recluse for the most part and my wife, who is a growing Whistler socialite, was all too suspicious that I was looking for an easy out. She then pulled out a nice warm pair of socks from deep in the car trunk. So now I had socks and if anything I could stay outside at the bonfire while she partied on to more intimate and enclosed venues.

5 minutes later we are at the RV Park and as it turns out the bonfire thing is cancelled and there goes my last chance to at least borrow a clean shirt when the phone rings and we are off to the GLC! Okay, if I can just keep this beast of a poly pro under a couple of layers everything will be all right. All along I was all too aware of the unspoken social rules followed by the apres ski crowd and people in general.

#1) Wearing ski boots and perhaps aromatic ski gear is accepted if and only if you skied to the bars doorstep. If you have to drive, take your boots off at least. If the bar scene looks like it is going to carry on into the night, don’t stay. Go home, shower, change clothes and then go back. I would say that you can get away with the après ski thing until 6pm at the latest. We were pushing 10pm. The GLC was cool though, no close contact with strangers and some independent short films to watch. I was basically drunk by 11:30pm when the crew decided to hop next door to some ‘lounge/photographer shin dig’ sort of thing. Although this event was the most specific of events I wanted avoid for the evening, it seemed it was my fate, nay, My destiny to really see what the night had in store for me as I pushed the limits of proper social behavior.

We slipped in the back patio door right as an auctioneer was calling out numbers on many several beautiful still photos blown up to poster size. Each one was going for a couple of hundred dollars and all proceeds were going to charity. See this is great! The people are stoked, good vibes in the air. I actually felt like we had inadvertently tapped into a vein of this elusive Whistler community only long time locals talk about.

The auction is over, the DJ is pumping out beats and I am feeling good. My wife comes over and introduces me to some guy in along fur coat. I can’t hear is name as he kicks my feet and I realize that he is Feet Banks. Feet is perhaps one of Whistlers most famous (self named?) celebrities. He is well spoken, creative, witty and observant. From what I gather he could be the coolest guy in town and as we talk some drunken politics for less then 1minute he seems to be quite friendly. I was taking mental notes that this might be the closest I would even get to meeting ole HS Thompson himself.

Feet gets sucked back into the crowd and I am left with the glow of his presence—no! The presence of Whistler embodied or maybe it was just the Christmas spirit. So we danced. The music was awesome and as I shed inhibitions I also shed some layers. I absorbed the funk and my funk was absorbed into the crowd. I didn’t care though, I figured if I just moved around strategically I could make it seem like it was some other guy. You know, look around in disgust just when you think someone is on to you.

Moments later Feet comes back and he is holding a drink in my direction and yelling into my wife’s ear. I can’t hear anything and as I take the apparent gin and tonic, Feet yells something in my direction and then disappears as I take a swig. It is ice water and it tastes delicious as I yell/ask “What did he say?” My wife, who loves me no matter what, yells back, “He says, YOUSTINK!”

I finish the water quickly in a vain attempt to sober up if not assess the situation. I felt like one of the victim’s of one of Paris Hiltons scathing cut downs in her recent National Lampoon debut. I have to go outside. I get my coat and wish that I had heard what the little bugger had said when he said it. I should have thrown the water in his face and then smashed the glass on his beanie and start one of those bar room brawls you always wish you could be in. I knew I was outnumbered. I figured I could take Feet and Chili together but I knew the crowd was on his side.

And besides, what he says is true. I pushed the limits and got spanked. As I sat outside looking at the clear night sky I thought about getting a haircut, maybe shaving more then once a week. What do they say? Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I was the dirty dude sitting outside watching the party through the window and even though I wanted to shed a tear I had to laugh! I could not be hurt or confused. I could only marvel at the symmetry by which the universe operates. I guess my stink was to such a frequency that the higher echelons of the social structure had to respond. A call from on high, if you will.

Anyway, I drove home drunk and fast, so as to minimize my time on the roads while I blamed my wife, then the universe, then eventually myself, for allowing the events to transpire thus far. Honestly I never did find myself being mad at Feet. He was just doing his job as a social observer if not a person with a nose. And besides, I got to live through a valuable life lesson and for better or worse Feet Banks knows who I am.

Back to Smithers

The Mt Currie trip proved to be one of the best outings I had while living down south. After I had that under my belt I felt like I had achieved what I had come to do, though I was still not sure what that was. By the end of the summer Vesna and I knew that we had to move back north to Smithers and hopefully Alaska. Smithers was a step in the right direction. Vesna figured out that she was pregnant sometime in September and we knew the clock was ticking. Picking up and moving can be tricky but we had done it in the past and we would do it again.

The plan was to be out of JJ’s house by the end of November. I worked up until the day before we were to move and we were ready to go. A month prior Vesna’s brother Alec and I drove up to Smithers in a blitzkrieg mission to start building our cabin. We purchased a cabin kit from some guy out in Mission Ridge and managed to fit the entire stack of lumber on my truck. We drove 15 hours to Smithers, built nonstop for a week and then power drove back. We ended up finishing the outer shell of the cabin but there was still tons of work to be done.

The next step was for Vesna and I to drive over to our piece of property near Revelstoke and pick up the camper that was sitting on the land. Of course the truck broke down again and to make a long story short, her parents came through in a pinch and I finally diagnosed the issue with truck…

In the meanwhile we negotiated a deal with a coworker of mine who sorely wanted to purchase the Revelstoke land from us and we sealed the deal with a bag of cash on the day before we were to leave town. Good thing because we were short on cash otherwise and it would have been tricky with no gas money.

When Vesna and I were finally ready to make the move we had my truck with a huge camper and trailer loaded to the gills. Vesna was in here car and she was towing a trailer too. It was smooth sailing all the way through the Frazier Canyon and up to Quesnel, where we stayed in a motel for the night. The next morning we woke up to a foot on new snow and the highways were a mess. It was the first snowstorm of the year and everyone was caught off guard.

For whatever reason we pulled out of the safety of the motel parking lot and ventured into the blizzard. We made it about two hours before Vesna’s car started fishtailing. The road was real bumpy from the way the snow compacted and my truck vibrated loudly. We had little radios to communicate along the way. As we pulled through Hixon, we had to slow way down and then right out of town there was a long hill that already had several big rigs and couple of RVs stopped on the side. Vesna was going for it and I could see her back tires skidding out. I radioed for her to stop because I could see that she was not going to make.

We pulled over in the blizzard and hopped to out assess the situation. I turned my truck off and walked back to Vesna. When I got to her car I saw that my truck was sliding backward and I had to run back and get the parking block out.

In the meanwhile a highway patrol person came by and offered to help. We unhooked Vesna’s trailer and attached it to his truck. He started going down the hill and I was going to follow in the car when all of the sudden the trailer became unattached and started running down the hill by itself. I recall actually seeing the kitchen sink tap sticking out of the load as the trailer careened to a stop in the snow bank just as a big rig crawled by with chains in low gear. I had to laugh at this point as I reattached the trailer and followed the guy back to Hixon, about 1km.

I left the car and trailer and returned to Vesna at the truck. The new plan was to drive to Prince George about 50 km up the road to get some chains for the car and then return to retrieve the car. About half way to P.G. we realized that we did not want to drive the car at all in this weather. The problem now was that we had left our important documents in the car. If we were to go to Smithers without the car we would at least not want to leave passports and such in a random parking lot for who knows how long.

My truck still needed to be fueled up so we had to go to P.G. anyway. At the gas station I unhooked the trailer and we ventured back through the eye of the storm to grab the passports. Two hours later we had passports in hand and we were back in P.G. I wanted to reattach my trailer but sometime during the long drive, the heavy contents had shifted backwards and for the life of me, I could not get the trailer tongue back down on the hitch. I had to ask a random guy to help with his body weight and in the process I was pushing somewhere and my hand slipped and I gashed my finger.

Holysmokes! We were back on the road with plans to retrieve the car and trailer at a later date. We just had to get the camper to the property. We made it to Burns Lake and stayed the night. The next morning we rolled into Smithers no worse for wear. Over the following week we got the camper off the truck and started to prepare the mini cabin we would be living in until the real house was complete. Another week later, under the only sunny skies in weeks, we made the 500km one way drive back to Hixon to get the car and trailer and drive back all in one day.

Bird Point Trip

One day Ryan and I decided to go for a bike ride. It was a beautiful crisp day in late August or early September. We were looking for a nice bike ride out to Bird Point to enjoy the last remnants of summer before the dark and rain of winter. We cruised out along the new bike path that used to be the old highway and dawdled at the over-looks as Ryan drilled some golf balls out into the ocean.

We made our way to the parking lot and left the bikes in the bushes and followed the trail that leads towards the waters edge. We cut off the trail and made our way to the beach and started combing along through the debris and logs piled high. The tide was beginning to make it ways out to sea and the lower rocks were coming into view. As Ryan was now throwing rocks I climbed over a crest of logs to peer into the next collection of debris.

I saw something that caught my eye. It looked human at first glance. I thought I saw long hair of a girl but could not be sure. I called Ryan and we were both petrified. Whatever it was, it was obviously dead. It was bloated and distended so it made identification tricky coupled with the fact that we did not want to go near it.

It was tangled in the logs and had various body parts that could be from different animals. Besides a person, it looked most a pig because it was all pink flesh. We slowly ventured closer actually afraid that whatever it was might leap up and get us. The head bent over on it self and I had to get to about 10 feet away. I then thought it was a huge dead dog, maybe a rottweiler.

We were stuck looking at this creature afraid that it might be human but feeling more confident that it was not. We had to go on and maybe we would come investigate on the way back through. As soon as we climbed out of the little grotto of death the air lifted on our thoughts and the day became beautiful again.

The shore along Bird Point is riddled with many miniature inlets that are surrounded by rock with mud revealed in the middle as the tide retreats. Our goal was to make it to the furthest point of rock possible as the tide continued to fall. We went out to the present moment furthest point and waited.

It was easy waiting with a splendid view of Alpenglow Mountain across the arm and all the stunning Chugach to our east and north. From this vantage we could see all the way out towards Anchorage and the tail end of the Alaska Range in the far west across Cook Inlet. The day seemed overtly crisp. The shapes of the mountains down to the tiny rivulets of water trickling across the mud back to the ocean. The sky was an impenetrable blue and we soaked up the sun as the tide fell. Every half hour or so we could move out another 20 or 30 feet to the most freshly exposed rock. It was exhilarating as far as slow motion patience games go.

I remember we had decided that the tide was low enough and we should go back to see what was up with the dead animal. Just as we stood to go I was over come by a great confusion that was subtle at first then became more startling by the second. At first I could not tell what was wrong. I looked at my self and at Ryan and it appeared that we had become black and white. I thought I might be having some sort of head rush until I looked up into the sky towards the east and it appeared as if a great slash or schism had opened up across the sky and earth and it was angled at about a 45 degrees. I turned behind me and the slash continued to the west as far as I could see and I felt a panic. Did we somehow inadvertently slip through a rip in the fabric of space-time? Ryan and I looked at each other in disbelief, each confirming what we were experiencing. Just then I looked straight up and could see a long thin cloud cutting across the sky.

Holy Smokes! It was a contrail from a passing jet liner up in the sky. We were in the shadow of the contrail as the sun was perfectly lined up behind the thin line of what was actually a brief cloud cover for the day! I was flabbergasted. A moment later the cloud drifted and the sun came back in full force and our world was one piece again.

Now back on track. We had to really see what was all twisted up in the logs on route back to the bikes. We approached cautiously but more confident considering the earth shattering experience ten minutes prior. I got close. I could see a hoof. It was a mountain sheep. We were elated! The poor thing must have got ripped off a nearby peak by an avalanche and thrown into the ocean where it half decomposed only to be washed up on shore here.

With that mystery solved we made our way back to the bikes and home to Girdwood.

I was living in my truck these days so I guess home could be anywhere. That night I was hanging out with a girl. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend though there was an obvious, weird connection. This night was particular because we had a crazy communication breakthrough. I guess you could describe it as a brother/sister psychic thing, where we were basically reading each others thoughts and seeing the world through one mind. I know, I know, hippy ju-ju bullshit, but I know what I experienced.

So if the day was not weird enough, it was going to get weirder. I remember pacing around the living room all worked up as we tried to figure out what to do with ‘this.’ You know ‘this’ right here? She was sitting on the couch peaking behind a blanket. She assured me that she was not cowering from me, though I did feel crazy. We were stuck in the moment and it would pass.

I had to go to sleep. I went to my truck out in the condo parking lot. There were banks of condos on three sides of me effectively making for a man made canyon of sorts. The gravel was dry and firm as I crawled into the back of truck. I was exhausted but my head was spinning from the day’s events. My conversation with the girl was crazy. We had come to the conclusion that the world is as you see it. You expect XYZ and you get XYZ. If you talk about and expect ABC then you get ABC. It depends on what you want, I guess.

I had a thought as I lay in the back of my truck. What if you somehow manifested something that you did not want? You know, get stuck thinking about something you don’t want to think about and it happens. Maybe as result or maybe you have a case of premonition, either way it would be enough to make you go crazy. Just then, as if on cue, I heard some faint footsteps off in the far end of the parking lot. It seemed as if the crunch was amplified by the acoustics of the condo canyon shape I was parked in. I had a brief flash in my mind of

“Oh shit, what if that is the Devil down at the other end of the parking lot and he is only coming for me because I tapped into the whole fucking point of all of this?!”

As I thought that, the steps did not go into a nearby building. They were getting louder and heading in my direction. As I could clearly hear the steps getting louder I was thinking

“This is it, this is the devil coming right now because I think it is the devil coming for me right now!” If felt as if the more I panicked at the idea that I was manifesting my supernatural demise I had the notion of mentally fighting the devil off before he got to me. If I could bring him to me I could ward him off. He could read my thoughts and he knew his power was controlling my thoughts towards him.

I could envision the hoofed feet inside heavy boots as the crunch became louder and more menacing. I repeatedly pinched myself to make sure I was awake. It was an act of sheer will to steer my mind around to a request of protection from on high. Whoever god is, I was struggling to make my thought clear as the steps were now approaching my truck. Just as they were within 5-10 feet of me I managed to burst out and declare in my head a personal exorcism--…

Just as I was doing a spell check on that last word, Vesna jumped up in bed behind me and started asking if Rosie was okay.

“What do you mean is she okay?” I was startled out of my reverie from the past. I turned and looked and little Rosie was all silent and ‘stopped up’ looking. We could hear labored, tiny squeaks of air trying to move in and out. She has a little spittle on her chin and she was kind of hanging like a rag doll.

I jumped up as Vesna was holding her face down patting her vigorously on the back trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in her throat. Five seconds, ten seconds we gently shook Rosie around trying to get her to start breathing. I took her and listened carefully and I could hear breath barely getting through what sounded like a barrier of mucus or something.

She did just feed an hour before so she could have spit something up and then start choking on it. Her face was becoming more pink in complexion and she was just staring like how you would imagine a choking baby to stare.

I ran to start the car and ran back in to help Vesna get dressed. For a moment I looked at the computer screen on which I had been talking about manifesting and fighting off the Devil and here he was, coming after my baby. I could sense his grip around her little body and I drove as fast a possible the three minutes to the local hospital. We were lucky we were so close. The whole drive Vesna was holding Rosie and trying to get her to breath, or to do anything. She was just limp and staring. We whipped into the ER and made our way into the doctor immediately.

“Our baby is not breathing!” I cried as he took her from Vesna and said,
“Yes she is.”

Rosie seemed perplexed at all the commotion as she now seemed to be breathing on her own. She was not crying but sitting there very, very gently as the doctor looked at her while Vesna and I kind of paced around.

In the end Vesna and Rosie stayed the night at the hospital where they will stay today and tonight as well. Apparently there is a little trigger in a babies throat that can shut off when it senses potential choke hazard, like when you dunk them under water as an infant swimmer.

I did not tell Vesna what I was writing about and how I had not felt that rush of super natural anticipation since the night long ago that I was writing about. I drove home to get some things for Vesna for the night and I felt spooked walking to the house, like a child afraid of the dark. Or more like a child who is afraid of what is lurking in the dark waiting to pounce.

I guess I should finish the story:

In my head I literally cried out with conviction, “Fuck you Devil, you’re not taking me!”

Right at that instant the heavy boot steps came up along aside the out side of my truck and a deep voice cursed from not two feet away, “God Damn it!” The sound sent chills through my body as the steps kept walking on by and I listened somewhat petrified but relieved as the heavy steps crunched across the gravel and carried the voice away through the deep parking lot corridor and around the corner into the night.

Part 4… my 30’s

There is a cave nearby. When you go into this cave you go back and it curves and on the left is a map of the universe all lined out in the quartz crystals in the rock. And behind the mural is a woman positioned facing to the right. You go back past her and there is a spring coming up that you drink from and when you do it aligns your frequency with that of the universe, the cave.

And you go back to the map and the woman behind it is now facing to the left and a portal opens up and you go into it and there is the Old Man, the man from Orion. And he shows you the prism and he aligns it and the beam of light shines out of the mountain and points right to the middle star in Orion's belt.

And outside, white wolves with black eyes and black wolves with white eyes circle the entrance to the cave. I have never been there but I know someone who knows someone who has.

Back to Alaska. June, 2010


Remembering back to that crazy night 10 years ago in Smithers when we rushed Rosie to the hospital…

It had been heck of an adventure getting back to Smithers. We had been living in Pemberton, BC which about 12 hours drive to the south of Smithers and 30 minutes north of Whistler. Pemberton is located on the northern periphery of the ‘Lower Mainland’ which is Canadian parlance for the greater Vancouver area. We had moved south from Smithers three years earlier for the DH biking and skiing and ‘extreme lifestyle’ that Whistler was known for.

But as soon as Vesna became pregnant with Rosie we knew we had to escape back northward to Smithers in the fall of 2008. Rosie was born May 2009. In previous chapters I told the story of how I aspired to become a certified tree faller. To become a chain saw operator if not a logger and maybe after years of experience, a woodsman…

I had always considered myself a mountain man. Someone familiar with white snow, black rocks, blue sky and vertical danger. The trees are green and the earth is brown. The trees stretch distance and mesh outcomes. Vesna and I still loved DH biking and fortunately Smithers was already home to some amazing trails built by a committed bike community. Like Whistler and many places, the ski and bike community morphed and shared common participants throughout the seasons.

I had originally moved south to Smithers from Alaska with Vesna in May 2004. Up until that point I had a pretty skewed perception of what I thought DH biking was. I was used to pushing up steep and technical hiking trails around south central Alaska. Often the trails were located in state parks and were off limits to biking of any sort. My friends and I did not care as we happily skidded down 2000 ft of slick muddy trail.

We would push up to the alpine and cruise the high ridge tops. It was sublime. It was euphoric. It was… not a very good way to improve as an actual biker. As it turns out, I knew nothing of technical, I knew nothing of speed and I knew nothing of jumps. Getting air and going big on a bike. That all became apparent in that hot summer of 2004 in Smithers.

I was new to town and did not know anyone outside Vesna’s circle of hippy tree hugger friends. I only had one bike, my Santa Cruz Super 8 with 3” Gazzalotti tires mounted on double wide Sun Rims. It was bright yellow and her name was Sluggo. With 8” of travel the frame design was cutting edge circa 1998 with a big box beam single pivot swing arm. Sluggo was my DH bike and unfortunately my commuter. I rolled all over town on that bike because I was too poor (ie illegal alien not allowed to work) to buy a nice commuter. Our only automobile was my 1984 F250 that sat stationary with mounted camper at the Lake House 5 miles out of town.

I would bike to town in 90 deg heat and on vague directions find my way to the trail head that led to the network known as ‘the Bluff’. I remember huffing down Railway Ave and could see the heat rising off of the pavement. I had to pedal the 2 mile straight away just to circumnavigate the ubiquitous CN rail yard.

Once in the relative cool shade of the forest I would dismount Sluggo and start pushing the 25 minute climb to the top of the trails. I can remember walking out for the first time into the clearing that overlooks the town of Smithers and the Babine Range to the north and thinking “This is home now...” like I was trying to convince myself.

From this high point I took to task of getting my bike skills up to par. These trails were gnarly. It was the first time I had specifically rode trails that were designed for bikers by bikers. Every turn was the fastest, every drop was the biggest, every jump was the longest I had ever done! And this was all on the beginner trail known as Smoothy.

It was frightening going by myself to learn each move. I would get off of the bike and do speed checks on foot running up to the lip of each apparatus which was usually a couple of planks just angled into space over a log with another plank for a landing giving the rider maybe 10’ of air time. To me it felt like blasting to the moon!

The next trail that I had to master was called ‘The Four Horsemen’. It was next level technical as far as I was concerned. The first move was a built up log ride that put you 8’ up in the air on a 10” ripped log. It stepped down and then launched you into the run! Steep trees, turn, steep trees then all of the sudden the trail cut hard left across the steep slope and now you are going slow…

Creeping, creeping then you had to drop into the fall line, launch off of a 6’ boulder straight into a wood built ramp that gapped you out 10’to a steep transition that immediately rolled over into a near vertical rock face that aired off the end right into a tall right hand berm and into the forest beyond.

One time I was riding in the rain and I came through that section hot and then all of the sudden there at the end of the berm was 5-6 guys with shovels and pick ax working on the trail. These were the guys who had grown up in Smithers and had been working these trails for over 10 years. I screeched to a stop in the mud. Someone said something about riding in the mud and I mumbled an apology and kind of gestured to Sluggo and her malfunctioning parts as excuse…?

Several weeks later in the summer I was just starting the push up from the rail yard when a whole pack of local riders came rolling down the jeep road in formation, 2 abreast and 5-6 deep. They were all padded up and looking bad ass and there was little ol’ me again. These were the ‘Children of the Bluff’ the actual DH biker gang that built all the trails on the Bluff above town. I remember it was such a perfect display of ape pack hierarchy: the two guys in front were the buff alpha leaders, then there were several pairs of beta males followed by some hanger on’s and then 2 girls in the rear.

But I knew as a roaming alpha male in a strange land that I would have to impress the leaders before I was allowed in the group… the hardest trail to ride on the Bluff is called ‘Schitzo’. It is a trail that less then 5 guys had ridden ever since it was built 6-7 years prior. It was old and decrepit. It did not see the wife and child daily traffic like Smoothy and therefore did not see the maintenance that it needed. It was the bastard punk rock stepson living in the basement of the Bluff trail family.

At the top of the hike you had to push past ‘The Four Horsemen’ and then onto a single track that led across the hillside 150 yards to the north. ‘Schitzo’ is painted in red paint at the trailhead on a huge 20” circular saw blade that someone might procure from the lumber mill. The day I decided to go ride Schitzo I went by myself because I always went by myself.

I tentatively began the decent with the plan to stop and look at each god awful feature and figure out how to ride them. The first move was not so bad… well it was pretty bad. It was an ancient ladder structure up in the trees made out of 1” alder sticks all stitched together and laced atop an improbable skinny lattice of thin alder strips. I walked on to the structure and shook the trees while being careful not to step on any single slat by itself, lest my foot punch through.

I made the move onto the structure on Sluggo and successfully stomped the 6’ drop off the end. “This won’t be so hard,” I told myself as I cruised the next section of trail…

And there it was, ‘The Tree of Bones’ the next stunt I had to figure out. The trail kind of ran across the slope at a low pitch where it ramped on to the wide wood platform. Adjacent to the ramp was a tree with an old rotted carcass of some unfortunate creature that had been tied up in the tree. The ramp was over 4’ wide as it ran out long for 20’. I stood at the end and peered into the abyss. The drop to the ground was a good 12-15’ down and the transition was laughable. It was seriously as if someone dumped one wheel barrow worth of dirt on the spot and walked away.

I could see tire tracks in the dirt showing me evidence that the stunt worked for someone. I really had to gauge my speed carefully. I would run on foot at different speeds and try to predict my trajectory. Maybe throw a twig or wet my finger to test the wind…

After less then 10 minutes I felt ready. I coasted in on the ramp with substantial speed. The landing divot was a ways out so you had to clear some distance. It felt like launching off the end of an air craft carrier and I hit the landing perfectly! I was surprised as I was now rocketing down the rapidly steepening trail uncomfortably fast. I specifically remember my eyeballs shaking and uncontrollable slobber on my face when I finally came to a stop at the next structure.

This drop was different. It was a very short ramp that jutted out of the steep hillside and the landing was straight down 22’ to be exact. The landing was basically a wooden pallet tipped up at 45 deg angle. I stopped and pondered trajectories again. Idle thoughts of pain and dismemberment floated in and out of these tense calculations.

I would have to go way slow for this to work, like basically walking speed. I did feel better about my chances with this structure compared to the previous launch. I mounted Sluggo maybe 30’ up the trail. I rolled to the edge and fell into space. This was by far the biggest drop I had even done on a bike. My eyes found the landing and I could immediately see that I was going to come up short. It is one thing to come up short on a rolled over dirt landing but this landing had a definitive edge.

I pushed Sluggo forward in the air with all of my might and the apex of the curve of my rear wheel made the transition down to the centimeter. The rear travel bottomed out as my ass hit the back wheel and my nether regions were smashed between the tire and the rear of the saddle… but I stomped the landing!

I rolled quickly to a stop on a little grass knoll adjacent to the trail that happened to have a nice view of town. There I waited the 5 seconds before my nuts realized they did not really appreciate what had just happened. Alone, I writhed in pain for a bit and decided that I could continue.

“This is ridiculous!” I thought, “Why do I do this to myself?” I knew that there was one more feature near the bottom of the trail. The trail hops onto an innocent looking wood ramp that is 16” wide. It slowly comes off the ground as the trail bend to the right and then you can see the drop from the side. It was a road gap where the ramp would put you out into space about 15’ off the ground while you had to clear about 40’ to hit the transition.

Aye, the landing was the crux of the puzzle. It was the downhill ditch side of the old gravel road that was being jumped over. The ever resourceful trail builders remedied this problem by placing one of those 4 x 4’ orange road construction signs across the ditch spitting the rider out into a little clearing barely big enough for a truck to turn around in.

I pondered this move for almost 30 minutes. I’m not usually one to over think things like this. It is either obviously doable or not doable or deemed too dangerous or otherwise. I had been rapidly improving as a DH bike rider and I was not always sure what the next definition of doable might be. I must have run speed checks on foot to the end of the ramp over 25 times. I climbed down to the road and looked back up. I looked for advice in the Farmer’s Alamanac…

Usually if you ride a trail with someone who has done it before they can at least describe the proper speed or maybe even demonstrate for you. All I had was dead reckoning. Oh and one other variable was this wire that was strung in the air out over the road and it seriously looked like you would decapitate yourself if you went too big. It was eye level when you stood at the take off. I decided the time was now. I pushed back up the trail a ways. I wanted to be flowing with the trail, so to speak, before taking flight.

I rounded the turn on the ramp and felt good about it, I had done my due diligence. I was in the air with Sluggo flying straight and true. I think I instinctually ducked the cable, hit the landing fast and launched across the ditch sign like greased lightning. I think it was a combo of the sign springing back force and Sluggos antique frame coupled with failing rebound seals… but I was jacked headfirst along the ground. At one point I was levitating upside down as my bike tumbled across the ground and then the ground was gone as I shot off into space and wrapped around a cottonwood tree, 20ft up. I had carried momentum across the clearing and became airborne off the other side.

I slid down the tree doing my best Wily E Coyote impression. I gathered my wits and my bike and made my way home none the worse for wear.

The Summer of 2009 we moved into the main cabin on the property. It was huge and awesome by our standards at the time. 24’ x 24’ one story built on a pier block foundation. It had a little porch and surprisingly sophisticated french doors adjacent to the rough timber framed front steps.

We loved that house. It sat at the foot of Hudson Bay Mountain out the north end of town. The tiny
10’ x 13’ tree house that we lived in when Rosie was born became my work shop. I took to building one shed after another along with an out house and 5 pairs of skis over the next year and Rosie grew healthy.

I was becoming more enamored with Smithers and British Colombia at large. It had been a hard sell and it took over 6 years but I was feeling more settled then ever. It was a great town with great people but I still could feel the tug of Alaska at my heart. Vesna knew it was still there and she was resigned to accept it even as we were plugged into an idyllic existence.

During the first summer of Rosie’s life I was employed as a trail builder. I really saw this job as a dream come true. I was hired on as part of a Government of Canada ‘make work project’ to employ out of work forestry workers. As I had been seasonally laid off from my previous tree planting and fall and burn gig, I qualified.

The Government funded the Smithers Bike Association $400,000 to build professional grade trails in order to attract adventure tourism to the area. Burns Lake to the east, was also awarded funding to build trails. At the same time there was a group of back country skiers who had organized funding to cut ski trails on Hankin Mountain with same objective in mind to increase tourism. In general Smithers felt prosperous.

My job was to shovel and rake piles of dirt into a high speed jump track for downhill biking. It was pretty awesome as I was being paid $28/hr to literally build jumps as big as I could and then test them for perfection. I did this for 4 months and in the end the trail was 5k long with over 80 jumps and many many amazing berms. I was a trail builder now and we felt like we had built the perfect trail.

With this experience I was able to land myself a job back at Alyeska Resort as the new Trails Supervisor. The job would start on June 1, 2010.

I remember getting off of the ferry in Whittier, Ak after the 3 day voyage north form Prince Rupert, BC. I had gone solo ahead of Vesna and 1 year old Rosie to get going on our raw property in Girdwood. We also had to wait for Vesna’s immigration paper work to come through. We were told that she and Rosie would be cleared around July 1. It was very hard getting on the ferry and saying goodby with the hopes of our little family hinging on the piece of paper from the U.S. government. I could remember all too clearly how 7 years earlier we had fled America in a paranoid fit.

7 years out of Alaska! It was so surreal to be picked up by my mom in Whittier and shuttled to Girdwood and a new life.

House Building


Once we were back in Alaska I entered a serious workaholic phase that lasted a good 5 years. The first order of operation was to build a new house in Girdwood. We had sold our first house in Smithers back in 2007 and used the money to buy raw land in Girdwood. It was the cheapest lot in town and was literally knee deep swamp water that needed to be filled in with good dirt.

Then of all miracles, I saw a little house for sale on Craigslist for $3000 that needed to be moved and it was located just up the road from us. We hired pile drivers who drove foundation piles 24 feet down into the earth. We then hired a house moving company to relocate our property. They jacked it up in the air 12 ft and I build walls under turning it into a nice little 2-story house with 1200 sq ft living space.

But then the real work started with finishing out the downstairs and the decks and stairs. A few years later I would eventually get around to rebuilding the roof and adding some nice south facing windows and nice oak panel window trim.

But in the beginning it was was pretty rough going. We were living in my parents borrowed mini RV with a 1 year old Rosie while I rushed to make our house livable.

One day I got some lunch at the small local grocery store. I think it was a deep fried burrito or chimichanga or something. What ever it was, it destroyed my stomach for a good 24 hours. It was such a nice day too! So sunny. First real nice sunny day of the summer as I recall. I had to stay in the RV and slowly fill the septic system with results of said burrito.

Towards mid morning I realized something horrible, the septic tank was full. The toilet would no longer drain contents. So bad. I think Vesna had taken Rosie to town to go shopping.

“Ok, I can do this.” I had to pull out and drive the 2 blocks to the Tesoro gas station RV dump ASAP because I knew I would need to use the toilet again sooner then later.

Another detail of interest: We had just got a new kitten. We had only had it about a week and this was the first time it was outside frolicking in the sunshine, literally chasing butterflies. I spent a good 5 minutes searching around the house and driveway looking for the kitten. I think its name was
Meow-meow.

I could not wait any longer. I got into the rig and backed into the street. And then I saw the pancake flat kitten in the driveway. It must’ve been hiding up in the wheel well sitting on top of the wheel. I can only imagine it clinging to the tread as the wheel rolled backwards…

Oh my god! Good thing Vesna and Rosie are not around! I jumped out and dug a little grave in the back yard real quick and buried the little cat. Then I had to really hurry to dump the septic. This is where the story takes a turn for the worse.

I pulled into the RV dump station and hooked up the drain hose to the drain valve on the RV. I don’t know exactly what happened but somewhere along the way the hose disconnected from the valve and a good portion of the contents of the septic tank oozed across the parking lot.

I was dumbstruck, “Get it together!” I scolded my self. I knew there was a water hose near the propane tank. I looked and to my horror it was not there. I didn’t know what to do. I did know that I had to get home again as soon as possible and get back on the toilet. Thank god there were was no one around. No one at the pump, no one in line behind me. No cameras, so I drove away. It was a bad day.

My first 5 years back in Alaska was not all smooth sailing. I was faced with the grim reality of having to start a new career from scratch. The main problem being that I was not sure what that career was going to be.

I was in charge of the new downhill bike park at Alyeska Resort, which in itself was a dream job come true. I got paid to think of logistics and access and how to work on the mountain to maximize trail building productivity. And in the end I got paid to ride my bike as I literally introduced lift access riding to Alaska.

The problem was that the job was seasonal and only lasted for 4-5 months of the year. Come September I had to start scrambling to find work for the winter. For a couple years I stayed on at Alyeska and worked on SnowMaking crew followed by Events Crew, all for $12/hr.

One day, when I was feeling burned out kind of desperate, I went to the Dimond Center Mall to talk to military recruiters. I had this vision of getting on with the 210th Mountain Division and getting in a Blackhawk helicopter and doing some rad shit.

First stop was the Air Force and they told me they did not take any one over age 29 and I was 32 at the time. Then I went to the Marines and they told me no one over 26. They both kind of hiked their thumbs over their shoulder and gestured to the Army outpost down the hall, “They take anybody.”

It wasn’t like I was just going to sign up for the military. I was just there to collect information. I imagined the sense of security knowing that I had a set plan for the future. I was burned out on the free style scheming I had been up to for the last 15 years. Skiing sick lines does not pay the bills.

I was tired of working two or three jobs at once and only getting $20/hr. I was tired of the cold and pouring rain. I sat down in front of the Army recruitment officer. There was another young guy there who I will call Jimmy. He was actually a veteran on crutches who looked kind of beat down and he was probably 10 years younger then me.

He and the Officer had been talking when I was called in. The officer gestured to Jimmy and said he was a hero and he asked if I wanted to be a hero. Jimmy would not make eye contact.

The officer, I’ll call Bill, had me fill out some paper work asking general questions.

Any felonies? No.
Prison time? No.
Drug use… LSD and mushrooms, I lied and said no.
Marijuana? I think I was actually baked at the time…

It asked yes or no. I wrote yes and then asked Bill, “This weed question here, if I say yes…?”

Bill said, “Yes you have to tell the truth because if you lie we can make you take a lie detector test and if you fail you will be in big trouble.”

I said, “Ok.”

Bill continued, “There is a number of times you can say you have smoked marijuana. I can’t tell you the number but you have to be lower then that.”

I knew the jig was up. I quickly calculated over the last 12 years or so… conservatively at 3 times a day times 300 days a year times 10 years is… 9000 times.

“Shoot, that is way too much,” I reasoned to myself. So I cut the number in half and then half a couple more times. I wrote 1,537. I don’t know why I choose that number, so specific.

I slid the paper back over to Bill like I was some inept hostage negotiator who knew the hostages were now gonna die. Bill was in the middle of assuring me that the Army understood that young people make mistakes. He looked at the number.

His little mustache twitched and I swear a cowlick popped up out of his slicked down hairdo.

“What’s this?” he asked.

I answered, “About the number of times I’ve smoked weed.”

He placed the paper on the desk and slid it to the side and said, “We can’t take you.”

I asked, “Why not?”

He said, “You have a track record of not following the rules and you are unredeemable.”

I protested, “I think I would make a real good sniper, I’m really trainable! What was the number?”

“The number was three! Three times. We can’t take you, have a nice day,” Bill was disgusted.

“Really?!” I was actually kind of shocked, seeing as how I had dodged an imaginary military draft eight years earlier and ran off to Canada. Now they don’t even want me?

“Well, thanks for your time.” I got up and skedaddled out of there, having dodged another bullet.

20 Mile River Float


We started the day at 9am by driving 10 miles south from Girdwood to the mouth of 20 Mile River. That is where we left my truck and where we planned on emerging victorious from the vast Alaskan wilderness in about 12 hours.

I took note of the exceptionally high tide, the sea water pushing the river upstream and overflowed into the broad brackish swamps across the 20 Mile valley. That should have been enough information to call of the trip but we were excited. I had never done the trip and it did not compute.

We left Thom's house on foot at 10:30 am after splitting the beer rations and preparing our mini-pack rafts for the days adventure. We had to walk for about 6 hours to the put in at the westernmost headwaters of 20 Mile. After two hours we slowly gained elevation into Blueberry Pass. It was awesome, I had never been this far back the valley before. We could look back to the backside of Alyeska Mountain.

Finally reached Blueberry Pass

Thom says "that way". He has done this trip a few times and it is a first for Dearnly and I

Gotta get to the river!
Here we are, need more water. I feel like we are being watched. Deep in griz country

Had to get across this little side channel to main current. Dearnly's feet were already wet so he went for the wade. Thom and I had rubber boots on so we decide to juke upstream into the alder thicket to navigate across the alder strainers and keep dry feet. About 150 in, as we struggled for a clean line, Thom say's "Did you hear that?!" I say "No" then a second later I hear distinct WUUFFF! over the rushing river noise from very close proximity. Could be nothing other then giant brown bear, at least based on deep gut reaction the sound had on me.

We said fuck it and darted back to where Dearnly had crossed.
I got across the stream and on to the open sand bar and looked back upstream to where a large mama bear and THREE large juveniles were ambling our way.

So much for another beer as we very quickly filled our rafts up with air and nervously watched the family move our direction

Fuck you bears! we are out of here 4:20 on the dot.

We've had some major precipitation events with like 6-8 inches of rain in 48 hours in the last week. The river was low again but it was like the main channels had been blown out and we had a fair amount of shallows to deal with.

Is it just me or are we in the middle of nowhere and it is getting dark?

Why yes, it is getting dark. And no, no one has a headlamp

8pm, when is iPhone going to come out with an outboard app?

Remember that high tide way back 12 hours earlier? Well, we were hoping to have navigated the upper river faster then we did and hit the highway before the tide affected the current 2MILES upstream from ocean. It actually kind of fucking sucked.

The air temp was hovering around 40 and if you stopped you got cold and the tide was so high that it over flowed the banks into the alders anyway. No beaches, no light, no reprieve from incoming current except by staying right next to shore and use the tiny strip of dead water. By this time the river is about 50 feet deep and a couple hundred yards wide, littered with huge logs going this way and that. The last faint sliver of silver finally faded to pitch black as we JUST KEPT PADDLING.

I would stop on occasion and listen for Dearnly bringing up the rear. We were in no way able to respond to a capsize if we even knew it happened. I could here the highway in the distance so we knew were were close, but what is close if you are moving forward 1/4 mile and hour while paddling as hard as you could for the last 3 hours?

Anyway, we eventually saw the parking lot light and felt a burst of energy but it still took another half hour to the truck. At the pull out both Thom and I could not even get up out of our boats and I literally crawled up the bank and scared the shit out of a trucker having a smoke break.

Is it ski season yet?

Jewel Mountain South Ridge


I’ve said it before and I will say it again: It is satisfying to retreat from an objective in the face of critical doubt. I had one of those days on Nov. 1, 2015, my first day on skis for the season. First day on skis since January 10 to be exact. After a winter of fun on the sun in Hawaii it was time to get serious and get back in the mountains.

It is funny too because for some reason, year after year, on day #1 I seem to go straight into the gnar as if I’m trying to pick up from some perceived high point of the previous season.

I had three hours of free time on the cold and clear Sunday morning after the big Lez Zeppelin concert. I was glad to have missed the show and not be hung over like the rest of the Girdwood population as I smuggly trundled out of the Crow Creek parking lot at 8am sharp.

My general plan was to climb and ski the north face of Jewel Mountain. It is a classic early season run as you can only get up there in the early season because the access up Crow Pass becomes too avalanche prone mid season.

It had snowed about 10” in the alpine on Friday but word on the street was that it had been blasted by wind on Saturday. As the sun began it’s slow rise in the east beyond Wizard I had an idea in my head to mix things up a bit and aim for the south ridge approach to the summit of Jewel. The plan specifically was to climb to the small col that leads up and over onto the Milk Glacier. At the pass, instead of immediately descending the adjacent moraine on to the Milk, I wold turn due north and climb the rocky and exposed ridge that leads right to the summit of Jewel.

I had butterfly in my stomach as I made my way from the parking lot. I had climbed the route two or three times before, the last time being about 2001. On that trip we left the parking lot about 4pm in late October. Hans, Ryan and I made it to the same col by about 5pm just in time to see the setting sun cast it’s last pink light on the flanks of Goat and Milk headwall.

We were prepared for the night and brought headlamps. Nearly 15 years later I recalled the ridge not being so bad, exposure wise. Though that memory was being filtered through the lens of ‘acceptable reckless endangerment’ of my early 20’s. And also with a headlamp you only had tunnel vision of headlamp beam, making it easy to ignore the 2000ft exposer near the top of the route.

2015, I rounded the bend in the trail and Jewel Mountain reared its ugly head. The mountain was pure black rock framed against a steely grey sky. The normal route circles to the north and access the more mellow terrain on the north face. My plan was to climb the more direct south route and ski down the north.

I could see three or four crux sections in the ridge profile. I knew that sometimes the terrain would appear more friendly the closer I approached. On the other hand I could just stay the course and wrap around to the mellow north side… The fork came in the trail. By committing to the more technical south side I was running risk of wasting precious time on a wild goose chase. I was awash in ill conceived optimism and turned up hill and began the trudge to the south ridge.

At this point I was carrying my skis on back pack and ski boots looped over my shoulders. This could be a problem. I did not want to put boots on for the technical conditions. I would have to put boots on at the summit and drop in north face blind.

“What are the crevasses doing? Where did the skiable snow end?” These are things that would easily be answered if I climbed the north route. I made my way to the pass. In the last 1.5 hours the clear skies had turned to hard flat grey and the view towards Goat was desolate and cold and it made me feel lonesome. I eyed my objective head on. I could see the ridge quickly narrow and step up in steeper and steeper succession. It did not look friendly.

I kept reminding myself that I had done the route before, in the dark no less. But I also knew it was going to be a very ugly down climb if I got sketched out up high. I hemmed and hawed and kind of paced in circled thinking of my next move. Milk Glacier looked horrible and crevassed and pure retreat was not apparent option just yet. I told my self to just start walking and I would negotiate the moves as they entered my self imposed tunnel vision.

Step, step… I felt like I was walking out onto a tight rope strung between two buildings. Within a few minutes I had gained 200ft. I picked left and right pulling to my knees over and around awkward frozen boulders. The skis and boots on my pack clanged around. I came to the first real crux, a little 30ft steep chimney feature.

This was the point of no return, I knew it. I skittered sideways and glanced through my feet to a certain broken death on the frozen talus slope below. An image of my beautiful 6 month old daughter literally flashed before my eyes and the spell was broken.

I turned and looked back down the ridge. The terrain instantly became 3x more treacherous in decent mode. I nimbly turned and maneuvered my pack and vertically mounted skis. Facing the slope picking holds and moving backwards. Awkward. Ignoring the potential for panic. I was stuck in a spot and had to actually hoist pack up and off my shoulders. Survival mode now. I leaned way down holding on to skis by just the tips and had to drop to a perch. I stole a glance down the 300ft to death.

“Holy shit!” I thought out loud as I was so soundly whipped by the first crux of the route. I looked back up the ridge at the way more gnarly sections and saw how much it would have sucked to retreat from up there. “What am I doing here?!”

I made it back to the relative safety of the pass and started making my way down the snow. The snow was hard and again, it was easier to climb on the way up compared to going down. I looked and could see where my body would rag doll through the boulder field if I slipped.

I opted to turn around and go back up to the pass and put ski boots on A) for safety and B) to actually make some turns. I crammed my feet into the frozen shells and clicked into my skis to make 20-30 horrible turns on horrible snow. Followed by 20 minutes of slow side stepping through frosty boulders and I found a spot to put hiking boots back on.

It had been three hours round trip and I was back at the truck happy to go home after day #1 of skiing for the year.

Bike in Whistler

On the ferry ride to Alaska, I had plenty of time to think about my time spent in BC. I did a lot of growing up I think. I had left Alaska as a child and was excited to go back as an ‘adult’. I felt like I had done a lot of growing up in and out of the mountains.

As I started in new role as ‘Trail Building Manager’ at Alyeska Resort, I found my self telling one story after the other about DH biking in British Columbia. Sometimes the stories were from Smithers but mostly Whistler.

The progress in my DH bike skills I enjoyed when I moved to Smithers was made ten fold when we moved south to Whistler. The first week we were living in our place at the bottom of Reed Road I discovered some nice trails right behind the house. One of the trails is called Jim Jam and on that trail you can find the Jim Jam Jumps.

They are built out of 2 x 4’s and logs from the forest floor. They are shaped in a 3 pack series of perfectly sculpted take off and landing ramps. The first one is big. The second one is huge, like a 30’ gap to death if you come up short. And the third is actually undersized for the speed you carry off the 2nd jump.

I had upgraded my DH bike to a Karpiel Armageddon I got off Pink Bike. It was serious upgrade from Ol’ Sluggo and her single pivot swing arm design. The Karpiel had 12” of travel in the rear and 8” up front. I unpacked it from the bike box it arrived in and took it out on the trails. The Jim Jam Jumps would be it’s first ride.

I pushed the 54 lb beast up to the top of the jumps and then another 100 yards so I could get a feel for the bike before going air born. I walked past the top of the first jump and stopped to do several run ins on foot. After a couple of seasons of solo testing sketchy jumps I felt confident.

Go time! Rolling, rolling… Launch! Air time to nice tranny… open brake to the big one… air born for what felt like eternity. Long enough that I could get a good look at the substructure of the landing transition. I was glad my speed seemed adequate and I stuck the landing smooth but then had to decelerate aggressively to not over shoot the last jumps.

I skidded to a stop and cheered with my buddy Mark who was there to pick up my carcass if need be. Clank! I looked down and saw that the crank arm and pedal had fallen off! The bolt was not there. I never double checked it was tight and just went to the biggest jump possible. Ok Whistler, I see how this is gonna be…

Vesna and I had a lot of fun slowly learning the Whistler Bike park the first summer we were there. Every year the Park crew builds a bigger and gnarlier ‘Bone Yard’ then the previous season. It is the big jump, free ride Mecca of the world and we were in it!

One day early in our second season, I was riding the lift with a random biker dude. I was telling him I didn’t like the huge 40’ table top in the biker cross course because if you came up short you would get pitched forward in to pit on the high knuckled landing.

Right then as if on que we saw Ritchie Schley, local pro biker superstar responsible for designing the course, hit the jump at full speed. He laid out the longest, smoothest moto-whip I had ever seen and perfectly landed mid way down the long transition.

The guy on the lift turned to me and promised how easy it was, he had been hitting it all morning, this being the first day it had been open to the public. He offered to let me follow him but I declined, I was still not feeling it.

I went another route, probably Dirt Merchant because it is the best, and made my way back to the lift. Then what do I see down in the Bone Yard? A group of people surrounding a guy who had come up short on the same big mean jump. I could see the helmet and jersey and was shocked to see it was the same guy from the last lift ride! Holy shit, this place is rough. They ended up heli evacuated him out of there, season done, life ruined.

And that became the norm. A-line… jump, jump, jump, come around the corner and slam on brakes for 20 people in trail carrying another downed soldier off the battle field.

3 years later:

The last day in the bike park they opened all of the pro-sized jumps in the Bone Yard to the public. I had been riding hard for a while now. Every lift ride we would look down at the pro jumps and try to visualize take off trajectories and landings etc.

I ran into my friend Tyler who had been hitting the big jumps all day and told me to follow him. Hitting big jumps is ten times easier when you have someone to follow. I was feeling strong and confident. The ramps and jump features are built using full sized dirt moving equipment. Big jumps, like big waves, can be pretty easy to ride and offer more room for error to some extent then some steep and tight BMX jump (or head high slab to reef).

I trusted Tyler. He said 3 x pedal stroke to the 20 foot step down then open brake to the biggest jump of my life, a 35’ table with huge vert. We were in the air forever. I felt like I could reach out and touch the feet of the riders on the lift over head. We landed and rode away clean. I could not believe it! It was amazing but I knew one time was enough. We rode straight to the outdoor patio for a post season beer… Cheers to shredding the gnar!

Sled Skiing

There is something to be said about sled skiing. It is fun, expensive and dangerous. In some cases it is practical while in other times it is not. It can be the most exhilarating thing you can do in the mountains and it can also be very back breaking and arduous.

I have found that within some circles of skier types there is a misunderstanding of what 'sledding' is. To the skiing elitist, sled heads are lazy, beer drinking morons that have too much money and not enough brains to realize that it is more fun to climb up a mountain by your own horsepower then to blast up the same mountain at 60 mph on your M1000. True, it can be very tiring to climb up 3000ft to ski one lap. But it can also be very tiring to make 10 laps on the same mountain with a snowmobile. Same effort = 10 times more vertical powder skied? Sign me up!

In Turnagain Pass there is a line of demarcation between the skiers on the East side of the highway and the sledders on the West side. Actually, the sledders are not allowed to go where the skiers go but the skiers can go where the sledders go. On the skiers side the parking lot is quite except for Phish wafting in on the breeze laced with aromatic 'cigarettes'. Telemark skiers munch granola and fluffy dogs frolic.

Go down the road a half click and the sledder parking lot is cranking Rob Zombie with huge jacked up trucks spinning donuts as sleds gap the snow berms. I admit, when I was a proud hippie I used to be slightly intimidated by the uproar and general mayhem that I perceived. “Look at those lazy people blasting around in circles... How can they experience true mountain beauty on one of those machines?”

And then they would zip away as if on greased lightning and climb the far horizon.

So I eventually got a sled. There is the debate, in BC at least, that you can get away with a smaller sled because you just need to access the 20k of logging roads before you get to the good alpine terrain where you can ditch the sled and get back to good old skinning, only because the sled can only take you so far. On the other hand a big sled can actually climb the steep alpine terrain with two people on board and deposit you on the top of a run.

In Turnagain Pass there is no logging roads or trees for that matter and a small sled will barely get you out of the parking lot, let alone up close to the good skiing. So I opted for the REV 800 with a 151” track. Pretty sweet ride, all I had to do was learn to ride the damn thing. After about ten days of burning fossil fuels I finally figured out how to counter steer in powder and how to basically not get stuck in the first place. It was time to really get after it!

Usually you ride two people to a sled when you are skiing or boarding. Both people ride up, one skis down and the other shuttles the sled to the bottom where you reload and go up again. I find it interesting that people in BC will argue until blue in the face that the best way to ride two people is to use the 'tandem' method. This is where the riders stand side by side, each on a rail while one hits the throttle and the other is on brakes. The riders both steer and negotiate the terrain together. This method is useful when traveling on logging roads or established trails but to me it seems unwieldy when it comes to more aggressive terrain.

The other method, which I prefer, is called 'potato.' Basically one rider is in control of the whole sled and stands up while a passenger sits in front and hangs on to the steering column. This way the center of gravity is lower and is actually centered on the sled. The driver yells “LEFT!” and they both lean left as the driver counter steers right and you make a right hand traverse...

Anyway, this is all child's play. The true experts ride solo and rely on the 'ghost ride' method.
As the name implies, one rider rides up gets off at the top and pushes the sled into the fall line and if all goes well, she will be waiting at the bottom like a trusty steed. Sometimes you will fake ghost ride, which is just riding without braking or steering, so a track gets put in. This technique is not for the faint of heart and really only works in wide open alpine terrain with obvious fall lines and no real obstacles.

There is one guy in Girdwood who only ghost rides. I would watch in amazement as he would release his brand new REV and not even look twice while he strapped on his bindings before he slayed powder for 2000 feet. I did see him nearly demolish his sled one day. He kept ghosting down Juniors and since the whole slope rolls over from the top, he did not see how his sled was punching in a depression at the bottom of the long steep pitch. Lap after lap I watched from a distance until finally it was too much and his beauty of a ride compressed and then launched and then nose dived and then came cart wheeling out the bottom. He seemed unfazed, strapped it back together and was off to the races.

I only ghost rode a few times and never really liked it. It is kind of like sending your kid off to college. You know they mean well, but you know they can also 'get off track', if you know what I mean.

Jared and I were poking around in one of the southern bowl that spills down into Seattle Creek. Later in the sled season this bowl is a real highway of traffic but as it was now mid February, no one had been down into Seattle Creek yet, at all. We were up on the ridge top speculating on our next run. From where we could see, there is a small bowl that rolls off the ridge top and it flattens out before falling another 1500 feet to the creek bottom. Even though there were two of us with a sled each Jared was pushing for me to ghost my ride into the first small bowl. I did not want to because I knew that my track was on the loose side and when she coasted, she coasted farther then other sleds.

He really thought it would be all right and I finally caved. I took my skis off and pushed and guided the sled about 50 feet before releasing her to the world. Jared sat perched on his ride right next to me. As my sled disappeared over the roll I had a moment to tell Jared to get his sled ready, he would have to hurry and save mine if it looked like trouble. Just then she popped out on the lower flats and I knew right away that she was moving fast. She slowed... and slowed. I told Jared to get on it fast and he paused and I finally pushed him to get going. I could see my sled slowing, slowing. This was going to be close. I could see Jared down on the flats now racing. I could see that my sled was now not slowing as she actually crested the point of now return.

Jared raced over the gentle roll and managed to get right up along side of my sled but there was nothing he could do. Mine was accelerating now and was about to roll over the real steep part. Jared was ride up along side like he was trying to corral a wild bronco. He could save mine bit he would loose his! He had to pull a shit-hook turn at the very last moment as my ride disappeared into the no-mans land.

It was a walk of shame for me as I turned up hill to gather my skis and my wits in preparation for the what was to come next. As I skied down by myself it was quite enjoyable. On skis it felt fairly low angle, in the 30 degree range. About half way down I made the mistake of looking back uphill, over my shoulder, and felt my spirits sink. As a sledder trying to go uphill it looked steep and completely covered in powder. I made dollar signs with my sled track and could see where it caught air and where it dipped and rolled with the terrain. For a while I could not see the actual sled until about three quarters down the run when I saw a small speck at the very far away bottom of Seattle Creek.

'Ho-Lee Shit' I thought as I skied up on to the scene. There she was looking all innocent with powder piled up around the cowling. I took my skis off and it was a solid waist deep. I knew that this would be a test of my minimal sledding abilities. I got the skis strapped on and took a deep breath.

I got her started and made a tentative tap at the throttle. If I dug a trench with my track here, I would be hooped. I stayed light on the throttle and then eased into a full throttle display of machismo that only the ptarmigans would witness. The sled pitched in the air and wallowed and wailed and I managed to pull an all out survival turn towards uphill and then I really gunned it! I made a high mark up, oh, about 20 feet before I had to pull her down hill again with all my might. I got back to where I started and carefully tried to stay on my track as I gunned it again and made it another 3 feet. 'Three feet?! Holy fuck, this is bullshit' I thought as I circled again and made it another 3 feet. At the top of each of my mini high marks the sled was damn near vertical in the snow pack as I struggled to maintain control and composure. A lesser man surely would have cracked right then but I knew I had to dig deep.

My first real goal was to surmount a small wind drift thingy about 50 feet up hill. I can remember how that first little goal seemed so big and daunting. I felt that I would be happy if I only made it that far because I knew I had tried my hardest. Soon enough I made it over that first roll and realized that my up track was quickly becoming more like a highway. After the first steep mini pitch it was a long, long medium pitch that I had to dissect one high mark at a time. I would be racing up my sweet track and then get bobbing back and forth and all of the sudden loose all my momentum in the deep snow on the sides.

After about an hour going balls out, I was becoming fatigued. I had to position my knee on the seat just so that I took the weight off my arms as I battled the G's uphill. On each down lap I would hang my arms loose and try to shake them out in preparation for the next rep. It was funny because if I was skinning, I would have taken only about 45 minutes to get out of this same drainage and here I was only half way out and damn near beat.

There was one more main crux that I could see. At the top of the long, more gentle pitch, it turned fairly steep before rolling onto a flat knoll. I can remember the first time I cleared the knoll my sled was actually vertical and digging deep in the snow. I was hovering 8 feet in the air and could look to the top and see three of four people sitting on the ridge watching over me. I spun a 180 on the tail of my track and descended to the bottom again. The problem now was the trench I had just dug at the top of the knoll. It was a good 4 feet deep and 16” wide and it kept throwing me off for the next 5 attempts.

Finally, after an hour and a half of sheer battle I gained the little knoll and ran out of gas. Luckily I had a the reserve jerry can strapped on back and it took all of my effort to refuel. By now the cavalry decided that I had had enough and they descended to help punch a track up the remaining 750 feet.

That night I could not sleep because I kept dreaming that I was still trapped in Seattle Creek. It started snowing the next day and 15 feet of snow and a week later it cleared. If I did not get out of there when I did my precious REV would have been buried for the season.

Maui, Last Wave


... now imagine the trepidation in trying to figure out the 'rules of the break' as a kook haole on a SUP!

First thought is to see if there are other sups out in the line up you are good to go. Until the day I was watching this break and the only sup guy came out and he was the classic leather brown haole who had been on island for 25 years. First thing, he chastised me for parking with tire on the white line on the road. Then proceeded to tell me the only reason he could sup there was because he'd put in his time otherwise... ok buddy. In general the rule still applies.

So I try to be over respective of not pissing people off. Which usually means avoiding busy breaks.

One time I was at Kukio and there were just two locals taking turns. I kept hanging back, hanging back, just watching from the shoulder until they called me in... new best friends!

Closest to actually getting ass kicked?

I'd been surfing/supping at the Lahaina break wall most every day all winter. As it turns out that is the off season for south side swell on the islands. Lots of waist high to shoulder with the occasional over head set once a week type thing.

Vesna, Rosie and I stayed on a volunteer farm for 6 months over the winter of 2012/13. It was the first winter I had ever ‘missed’ in my life. I did not put ski boots on once.

Then the first south swell of the season hit in early May. I rolled to the parking lot early got all baked and jumped in the water. To my astonishment there was like 100 people in the water. Not one paddle boarder. Whatever I thought as I literally bee lined out about 50 feet past the deepest guys. This is where the wave break so this is where I am going seems logical right?

It was a nice day, perfect glass and these waves had serious meat to them unlike the waves that had been coming through all winter. Then I noticed the silence. And then I looked around and realized these dudes were all tatted locals. No tourists to be seen. Then I saw a couple guys looking at me as one whispered and pointed at me.

Ah shoot, I know what is going on now. At least I was as tanned as could be but that only gets you so far...

I tucked tail before even trying for a wave and went on the inside where the inside breaks were surprisingly good! I caught 7 or 8 maybe but kept looking longingly to the sweet overhead glassy walls on the outside.

This was my last surf session of the year and was getting on plane back to Alaska the next day. Fuck this if I'm gonna sit in here picking up scraps on the best day of the season! I slowly made my way back out through the line up ignoring the stink eye. Right as I was near the front of the line up I could see a rogue set on the hazy horizon.

I saw it before everyone and just stated digging! Then they all were but I was in the lead. It was a 1,2,3 set with the tallest looming in the rear with the first of the three being bigger than anything else of the day anyway. I made it over the first one easy, barely made it over the second one. I figured that cleaned everyone one out but when I looked back I saw 8 or 10 dudes all smashing the water behind me. OMG they want to kill me! I thought as the monster wave stood tall. I had to muster all the skill in me to turn the board 180 deg as the face picked me up and right at the top of the lip I was in position and made the drop!

Now I was staight-lining though the crowd that was duck diving. Made one heel side bottom turn to the left and saw that 4 or 5 other guys snake my wave!

* pause* this is the point of the story about who has right of way, technically I do because I dropped in the deepest but I broke a bunch of rules to get there *unpause*

The wave basically smashed everyone to oblivion as I had to stayed on my feet and got in front of the huge pile of white water and rode straight to the beach. I double stepped to the parking lot fully expecting to get chased down for a beat down. Hopped in the van and drove away. That was my last wave in Maui.

Girdwood Marathon 2018

I survived a trail marathon this morning and it wasn't pretty. I jumped into the lead off the get go. This was my first marathon distance race (outside of triathlon) and I was pretty sure I’d go out too hard, so I did.

The first 6 miles were quick with 8:30/miles. Then route became tight twisty root snarled trail with a lot of steep short ups and downs basically for the next 15 miles. maybe 40% of entire course would be considered 'muddy'.
Lots of quick feet and trying to keep dry feet as long as possible. Lots of steeple chase style log jumps and whatnot.

At mile 12 I was 2 hours even (10 min /mile) No one around. Following fresh bear tracks for 3-4 miles, and had close run in with huge bull moose.

There is a 3.2 mile out and back section with the turnaround being approx. mile 15. The trail devolved into nasty rock pile stuff covered in leaves. Ankle twisty ground. I kept think I was close to turn around and was loosing hope and energy quickly. Had to walk numerous short steep sections.

2nd place guy caught me right at the turnaround and he was cruising. I struggled on the return and was passed by another guy about mile 18. I was deep in bonk territory. Carried 2 Gu packs and 2 gel chew packs and no water. Planned on drinking from streams along the way. I would steal a sip here and there but felt pursued by a pack of wolves.

Probably only drank liter total. We pulled out onto nice wide gravel path for last 5 miles and I was feeling surprisingly refreshed. Then my right hamstring seized up. Dehyration. stopped me in my tracks. 30 seconds later it subsided and I kept at it.

I knew there was a guy couple hundred yards back slowly reeling me in. Then with 2 miles remaining, my left groin hamstring combo seized. Wow! That shit will stop you dead.

The last mile is climbing up broad grassy ski hill run. I knew the guy would be able to see me hobbling and he could smell blood. Right as he caught me I had full double leg cramps, lol. Seriously 5 minutes from finish at this point. He passed easily, I came across finish 2 minutes later in 4th.

4:20:30 @ 10 min/mile average with 3500 vert or so. Winner was 4:08.

I drove home and laid on the couch on deaths door for a while. My stomach was topsy turvy and i had to eat carefully.

6 hours later I'm feeling better. The Zombie Half Marathon next Saturday on pavement will be a joy after this. Last big race of my season…

Zombie Half Marathon

I knew this last half marathon race was gonna be a tough nut to crack. I told my self I needed to be on aggressive rest program for the week and to freshen up after that trail marathon 7 days ago. But it is hard when you want to keep things moving...

I partially took my own advice:

Sunday: 1 hour on mtn bike, trying to spin legs into recovery
Monday: 30 min lap swim in pool
Tues: rest
Wed: run 20 min. Fatigued legs and body
Thurs: run 30 min faster, residual fatigue in core, legs felt better
Fri: Rest, I knew I was still tired deep down

Race morning : heavy drizzle, 40 degrees

650 people at the start line. Whole stack of 20 something college runners. Oh god this is gonna suck..
As far as pacing I did exactly what you strive to not do:

Mile 1) 5:18, felt surprisingly spry. Looked at watch and knew this was gonna lead to trouble. Intentionally slowed down.

Mile 2) 11:28 (5:45/mile) Ok if I can just hold this, I'll be around 1:15... my predetermined arrogant goal for the day. 4th place

Mile 3) 17:15 (5:45/mile) 6th place

The reality was setting in. I could tell my gas tank was not topped up. The rain picked up in intensity.

Mile 6) 36:06 (6:01/ mile) Ok Ok, not so bad. I felt mid race surge. It literally took 20 min to really warm up. My legs were bright red from the cold water. 10th place

Mile 11) 1:08 (6:12/mile) My legs were cold. I could feel the tendons in knees grinding and popping around. Hypothermia real concern. Absolutely soaked. It was now raining so hard my eyes were constantly filling with water like my face was in the shower. And could see breath at same time. The bike path was covered edge to edge with yellow dead leaves and standing water for 100 yards at a time. 12th Place or so

Mile 12) This section of the trail comes around a point and is now exposed to full blast of wind barreling up the grey cold waters of Cook Inlet.

The last mile is serious grind up long hill to finish. I am literally slobbering like crazed black lab chasing a ball. Finish on top of hill: 1:23: 24, exact same time as my first half marathon back in June. (6:23/mile) 16th place

Haggard, went and stretched it out with 30 min lap swim which was nice because when you start already beat, you can focus on good technique. But that is another subject. Hey, any you guys watch Ironman in Kona today? Poor Lionel, I wonder how he will take it…

Finally finished this one, been busy around here.

Called 'RGB'

I think if two concepts here.

1) The basic division of the colors Red Green Blue from the left, right, top and bottom panels coming together in the middle panel.

2) The political divide between the left and the right, the red and the blue. IN the middle there is harmony.

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