Downtown spring weather

29th of March and the weather has gone bananas! This is not snow but HAIL!













I drove from North Van (where it was sunny for once) and as I came into downtown the hail started - by the time I got to mid-town (half a mile later) there was a good inch of hail settled on the ground!









It was crazy by the bridge as cars slid backwards down the hill! Ridiculous! I suppose Vancouver is the precipitous capital of the world so I should expect every version of gravity supplied moisture!

Bonkers!

Neds Atomik Dustbin

As I write this some 6 weeks after the fact I cant remember for the life of me who was on this ride! I'm pretty certain I was there cos I took the photo and Meg was too as I have the photographic evidence. Anyway, I'm sure it was a blast!

Whistler

Its getting pretty late season but there's still a ton of snow being dumped on Whistler every week - it'd be rude not to go wouldnt it? (oh and forgive the poor picture quality from my phone)

Rich, Meg, Pierre and I went for a Spring Sesh on Blackcomb - given the company I knew it'd be a good day - one of those where the only places we go seem to have warning signs at the top!

...just like this one - "experts only" the guide book says this is possibly the steepest skiable slope on the continent - worthy of a sign then I guess.







Naturally, we didnt go straight down but skirted across the top of the cliffs to Hawaii-5-O (its a name - they all have silly names, you get used to it)

Here's Meg contemplating her first turn - it was kinda narrow and steep so mess this one up and you go all the way down on the head-toboggan express! Of course being Mega, Meg nailed it beautifully











So then Rich found this bit that was even steeper - in fact it was getting a little ridiculous. For once the photo does the pitch justice - we were quite literally on the edge of a cliff. Fun though! You should have seen Rich's first turn - normally our fearless and highly capable Blue Leader he had a moment here and took about 50ft of vertical to make his first turn - sketchy or what!!












....and Mega Meg again


















After all the excitement we decided to sample the Glacier. Normally quite a mellow run (aside from the super steep (and short) blowhole), we traversed to the far side and saw a hike up. The photo is at the beginning of the hike.















25 mins later we found ourselves far from the madding crowd and ready to drop into the unknown. You may have noticed I dont have any photos of Pierre - its not because I have anything against the guy - its just he decided not to risk life and limb on the steep crazy stuff and then went up a slightly different hike to us. So. Here's Rich and Meg ready to drop in. We lucked out too - after some lightly tracked snow we found a HUGE piece of untracked virgin snow - I was last down and I had a choice of 50ft in either direction before crossing any tracks - sweeeeeet!


Ah, Whistler.

Seymour

Just a quick ride on a Wednesday afternoon with Dr Meg. Here she is approaching the drop on Empress - a sketchy trail at the best of times but doubly so in the rain.

Sunshine Coast

The Sunshine Coast is ALWAYS good. We were bored of pushing through the slush on The Shore so we took the boat in search of more ridable trails - and we found them!











Although we found this new "trail" which is apparently in the new Kranked movie - this dirt jump was about 10ft high and 25-30ft long - serious stuff....










As is this 8ft dirt take off to wall ride to elevated ladder - nuts!












....but I think this was my favourite bit - an 8ft high wooden take off to 8ft step up - fail and you die - seriously!
We didnt ride any of it obviously.
















but we did ride the usual splendid trails - Janet's Jungle - DNA - Jumpy trail being the favourite - I even did the drop on Janet's that's vexed me for so long :) here's Rich on it










and Jon

















We bumped into the Shuttlewhores - they were roughing it with a 30ft RV and a spit roast













damn did that pig smell good!













but all too soon the ferry beckoned and we said our goodbyes to the smooth swoopy trails of the Sunshine Coast - we'll be back soon. its sooooo good there :)

Cypress

Just a quick couple laps with Jenn on Cypress - ShorePlay and Wild Cherry/S&M. Great fun but a little slippery in the wet!

I saw the weirdest thing I at the library the other day....

I couldnt quite work out why there was a small crowd outside the library as I came out - until I got out and looked up!

Dangling from the 5th floor were a load of people "performing"- they each had their own rope tied off to a fixed length and they'd either make arty shapes by stretching out from the building (sometimes foot to hand on each other) and sometimes they'd swing out and do some kind of synchronized spinny thing. Very odd but kinda cool :)

Fromme...... Hiking(?)

This was the scene at the bottom of Fromme a couple weeks back when we tried to ride it (we failed of course) 2ft of snow at the bottom gate didnt bode well for an early bike season!










A couple weeks later the snow had receded a bit so Jenn and I decided to hike up and check out what was rideable

This is me at the beginning of Pipeline (half way up) clearly we weren't going to be riding here anytime soon!




















Ah well, at least the trails arent getting worn out eh?