Weekend

Andrew and I headed back to Egmont for some wedding planning stuff but also for the relaxation, and the beautiful outdoor setting! We took some pictures (yet to add), rode our mtn bikes, hiked and had some r & r. We even got to pick our dinner for Saturday night straight from the beaches of Egmont. We went Oyster, clam and mussel picking in the low tide and "caught" our dinner fresh off the shores! Lexi, a french woofer made us a sweet belgian style mussel dish with "pomme de frite", a classic, apparently.

We had to return Sunday morning as I had a lululemon luncheon function at the top of Grouse. After very little deliberation I hiked up instead of taking the gondola. It was in pretty good condition until closer to the top where the snow was a little slick but really not that bad (probably a different story now after some heavy snow fall this week). I made it in time for some delicious lunch and great conversation. I also made it before the massive hail thunderstorm hit the peak of Grouse. It was quite the spectacle.

Of course the grind wasn't enough for me so I went out for an evening run in the rain around east van (my rockin' neighborhood if you didn't already know).

What's next? Well, some backcountry pow fun to be had this weekend and then.... Andrew and I are headed to Southern Baja for a weeklong sea kayak expedition and some r&r on the beach. A little celebration for making it through my long teaching practicum and getting that much closer to becoming a full fledge school teacher! woohoo!

Upon our return we will paddle hard in the snow to surf comox relay race and then some local run/AR/etc races in May.

live, love, laugh,...DREAM!
lina

Tuesday Night Paddles

Love it!

we had a wonderful paddle last night... good to be out on the water with Ben, Johnny and Andrew! No more night paddles though... it was light the entire time...summer is coming! Look forward to warmer times so I can get out of the ski without worrier about hypothermia!

Last day at Moscrop :(... I will miss it all. Soon to be a teacher though.... exciting stuff!

off to the sunshine coast for the weekend! mtn biking and wedding planning! woohoo!

live, love, laugh,..DREAM!
lina

To the top of Mount Baker

(photo of us on the summit from Paul's camera)



We climbed MOUNT BAKER!!!!!! WOOHOO!

The weather forecast looked promising, the group came together and the summit was reached.

Friday evening the group was formed: Paul, Andrew, Kala and myself. I was excited yet nervous. My body has not been feeling up to par as of late and I was a little worried what a 12 hour day might look like for me (or not look like) but I wanted to climb Baker so bad.... So I promised myself to focus mentally and work on pushing through if anything were to happen with my body.

Saturday morning Andrew and I slept through as our alarm was set for 4PM rather than 4AM... OOPS. It was good luck that Kala rang us and was picking the crew up.. phew... thank goodness for Andrew's mad organizational skill as we got up and ready to go in less than 5 min and were in Port Moody to pick up Paul around 5am.

The border was a breeze and the American officer actually made some jokes mostly consisting on us realizing how early it really is and that Baker doesn't open for several hours.... Good thing we were being hard core and propelling ourselves to the top!

We hit the trail head at about 7:30AM.... and looked like we were one of the last groups to begin our ascent...



Paul set us off with a solid pace and we made it into the alpine in about one hour... The view was stunning with Baker hovering infront of us and sharp aspects of the glacier jetting out of the snow... We climbed a ridge for awhile and eventually started making our way to the Col. Baker is definitely one of those mountains that grows as you get closer. You think you are there but then there is another ledge to climb over.



As we were gaining ground towards the Col/saddle the Wind was starting to pick up. The wind was still quite warm and blowing in gusts. So in other words quite pleasant.

We eventually reached the saddle where the wind was pretty unreal. It was becoming difficult to see in front of you as the wind was picking up the snow off the ground and blowing it in many different directions enough so it almost felt and looked like we were in the midst of a squall.



We shedded our skis and put on our crampons to begin our trek up The Roman Wall. The snow was icy in points but on the whole not too bad but the wind... oh the wind... Basically neither of us spoke to each other for 3 hours until we made it back down to the saddle as comprehension would not have been possible. We got ourselves as bundled up as possible. As people were coming down from the summit their expressions and actions described the wildness of the wind we were to experience on top of the summit... The wall seemed to go on forever until we reached the flat section just before the summit.

The wind was gail force up there and unfortunately we did not spend too much time on the summit. It was hard to even stand up there! It truly was an amazing feeling to reach the top of something people in Vancouver constantly stare at on a nice sunny day.



We quickly retreated back to the saddle trying not to get blown off the cliff. Once we reached the saddle we put our skis back on and quickly escaped the worst of the winds. It is such a pleasure to be able to ski down rather than walk... the legs were definitely sore but the speed and ease of skiing is so wonderful. We even scored some nice pow!



We had lunch just before our last forest section... well deserved I think! We skied/hiked the last bit through the forest, the snow was thin and we could tell the sun was shinning down in the valley.

I cans see why mountaineers keep heading back into the mountains. There is some sort of addiction to it all.

Of course a little apres dinner and beers at Graham's in Glacier was in order to celebrate our success!

i think there will be more trips like this in the future

Andrew's Blog: write up and Pics

Paul's blog write up and pics

live, love, laugh,...DREAM!
lina

Getting Dirty at the Dirty Duo

quite literally..

Despite wanting to do this event for several years now, this was my first year racing in the Dirty Duo. I wanted to try it out with my partner Andrew as he has mad skill on the mountain bike and I love to run.

Waking up in the morning to cold pouring rain, I felt horrible to have asked Andrew to race with me as the weather was quite crap. But thankfully for the both of us this proved to add further excitement to our races. I started us off with the 25km trail run. I have been feeling a little off my game the last few weeks and wasn't sure how I would feel on this tough trail run. I didn't particularly train for this race but saying this I rarely ever "train" for a race... I mostly enjoy playing outside on the trails everyday for fun. I might have to rethink this concept as some amazing athletes are now out on the trail kicking some butt... Anyways, before I digress too much, I took off at a fair pace wanting to feel good from start to finish (well, when I mean good, I mean I would like to finish wanting to race again...). It took me until old buck to get aspects of my old racing self back... I ran up old buck in its entirety and it felt good, passing some folk made me feel better and I got my mental game back... I absolutely loved running in the freezing cold slush, mud and snow... It reminded me why i love adventure racing so much and got quick flashbacks from Patagonia Expedition Race where we traveled without trail for many days in the pouring rain, freezing cold... this was not quite to that extreme but it got me going.... pushed through until the end and managed to run in in a decent time. I then passed it over to Andrew. Andrew rocked it and got us a second place finish. It was good fun to race with him and it was a wonderful race! thanks race directors and volunteers!





the team! Pictures from race website

live, love, laugh,...DREAM!
lina

Weekly Night Paddles: Deep Cove

Due to my hectic schedule with school, teaching, and life my thursday night paddles with my men was put on hold. Last night Andrew had a friend in town so I headed out with Johnny and Ben. The weather was chilly and the rain was coming down hard. We deliberated heading out but experience told us that once we were out on the water we would be lovin life.... lol and behold it was true....despite the nasty weather the paddle was just awesome.... there is something about paddling at night on the ocean with the city lights in the distance, in a storm and noone else on the water except the three of us... odd for some to comprehend and others to get itchy feet waiting for their next adventure...

live, love, laugh,....DREAM!
lina

Kootenay Coldsmoke Festival, Nelson, BC

Having a couple of free days and some cause for a little celebration Andrew and I headed off to Nelson to enjoy the Coldsmoke Powder fest. I had been two years ago on the fly on my own and had a blast. Although it is called the powder fest both times the pow was a little hard to find but enough determination and fitness it was there, waiting....but nonethless there were good times to be had.

As per usual Andrew and Lina standards we had few things planned and we were not sure what to expect. Before heading out we were Praying for our lax schedule to work out....it did!

After we decided after much deliberation not to head to the festival earlier in February, we found out Andrew had won a G3 ski graphic competition. His mad skills had won us/him some accomodation and tix to the event.... We were off.



We arrived late friday night after work/school and had an easy long drive to Nelson. We got ourselves comfy in the Dancing Bear Inn, a cute hostel in the heart of downtown Nelson.

Saturday I had signed up for the rando race.... a grueling but beautiful 7km course in and around Whitewater ski resort side country.... The hill is awesome for easy access backcountry.... One day I hope to do the race in powder (both years the fest landed on a dry spell for the mountain)..... At some points on the downhill I was feeling the vibrations of my skis throughout my entire body on the frozen, crusted aspect of the run..... I was a little weary to go on but to my surprise some pow pow was to be found higher up off Ymir bowl.... to bad my legs were finished by this point and I couldnt really it to its fullest. Andrew ran around and met me in spots and kindly skied the last quarter of the route home with me..... not my best performance but a wonderful way to spend the day out in the sunshine. Andrew later went and demoed some skis and I managed to score a probe in the beacon olympics.... its always good to find times to practice beacon searches... It is one of those things similar to lifeguarding... you practice scenario after scenario with possibly never having to use your knowledge (hopefully) and skills (saving a life....) but if you ever have to it is literally life or death and by gosh you will be happy you practiced your lifesaving skills...



we finished off the glorious day with the western style buff-eh and foto face off contest and party....

Sunday, proved to be another beautiful day (a little less sunny but still awesome...i got a tan on my face). Andrew and I entered the poker run, believing it would last all day but it lasted only a couple of hours... and we probably scored the worst hand possible... but had fun anyways...



We spent the afternoon skiing the lift and enjoying the little jumps and sneaking onto the banked slalom course. Our legs were spent in a different resort skiing kind of way.... we enjoyed a little rest some mexican and a live jazz gig in town

Monday rained... so we decided to give it a go on the nordic trails for a little exercise before hitting the road home. We had a little powder shreddin on the skinny skis from the new snow... AFter a couple of hours of skinny ski fun we headed into town to check out some of the fine stores, enjoyed the patagonia outlet and then it was time to say goodbye to Nelson.....

We got it all on our drive home from rain, snow, sleet, and sun...

We will definitely be back to the little paradise called Nelson.

live, love, laugh,...DREAM!
lina

More writing to come as my teaching practicum comes to an end....but in the meantime a quick synopsis

I forget what i forgot as I have electricity, invertebrates and aerobics on my mind...

This past weekend there was some solid lina and Andrew time...so nice.

awesome awesome awesome mtn bike loop right off the ferry on the sunshine coast. We met with our Justice of the peace in our biking clothes in Gibson for our wedding and kept riding on to catch highway 103 and ride up for a while and then a sweet down for awhile.... good times... and the rain held off for us as well! must do for all of you mountain bike lovers out there!

skiing Backcountry baker style... despite numerous things going against our arriving to baker (sleepin in...no alarm, missing the turn off the highway, border, directional mishaps,....) we made it and had a fab day in the backcountry.... Skied Herman's Saddle.... had to keep it relatively low key due to avalanche risk.... just being out there no matter what we did gave us the right buzz..... love the mountains!



MT CAIN Feb 20th weekend... Telefest....

it was my first and hopefully not my last.. I am a relative beginner on the telemark skis but enjoyed the practice, the race and the good times with friends.... We skied the lift, the side country, the backcountry, drank some yummy liquids, got ourselves a tan and enjoyed good food, good friends, good music etc etc..... I'll be back


for now, its back to the books

but I do have some fun in store for the future....
Nelson COldsmoke Backcountry ski fest
Dirty Duo
Mexico 6 day sea kayak trip, Baja....

PICS! I have been lazy with camera...but others have not been. As always Paul and Andrew provide good pics and memories!

Paul Pics Mt Cain

Andrew Pics Mt Cain and Baker and more

live, love, laugh,...DREAM!
lina