Ski Jumping

There's some kind of event happening in these parts next year so they've been busy bees building lots of wonderfully expensive new facilities for it. The new ski jumping thingy at Callaghan just south of Whistler is one such facility. There was a world cup event there in January so I wandered up there with a couple friends to watch the lemmings flinging themselves off.











There were many, many fine people prepared to stand in the sub-zero temperatures for this. I found strategically standing in the sun was the way to go. Next time I'll also take a phone book to stand on - brrrrr cold feet!










The hill - it was pretty impressive how far these nutters jump - from just out of site over the brow right down almost to flat - it looks way cooler in the flesh















This video (click on it to play it) shows what you don't see on TV - the sheer sizeand distance they hurl themselves. As Yoda would say: "hmmm. Impressed, I was. Hmm"






As I said, many many fine people. Many many fine outfits


















"I'll see your massive truck and see you a set of tracks!!" Serious off road.

Saaff o' the border

There's this place not far from here where all the people are fat and carry guns. It's called America.

In our dirt desperation (an overwhelming desire to ride a bike on mother earth and not ice and snow) we took the drastic step of leaving the country. Actually it wasn't that bad. There were normal people, dogs and even children - and some weren't carrying firearms at all! There wasn't a single one of our group shot so maybe, just maybe the cliche isn't quite all true.....

Ice Ice baby

Miwllions of trails....

Apparent Americans think this is art - I'm not convinced

Galbraith is a forest on a hill about half an hour south of the border. I'd never been there before but Jon gave me the low down: "you leave the car park, ride uphill for six hours only to arrive back at the car park!" This didn't really put the place on my list of places to go but desperate times call for desperate measures and I found myself in late January in the line up to leave dear sweet Canada for the day.

As it turned out, it was pretty sweet. Excellent singletrack and some of it decidedly downhill. ....and we didn't escape completely from the snow either - up top there was a fair bit to play in but it didn't really detract from the enjoyment of mother earth :)

T'was a good day, few hours tearing up the dirt was brilliant after so long flailling around in the snow

The technical bit

I'll be back :)

Local skiing - Cypress

So guy called me up and suggested heading up to the local hills for some snow action. I hadn't been locally for ages - not since last season when Jon persuaded me to get a pass for Seymour (something I still haven't forgiven him for) in fact I haven't been to Cypress since they've expanded it for the Olympics so I was keen to try it out

They installed a new high speed lift on the main hill and moved the old lift to some new steeper runs on the newly opened section of the mountain

The new runs were great - steep and deep and virtually no-one there

Unfortunately the old (moved) lift wasn't so great. After waiting for it to re-start for half an hour we (along with a hundred other people) gave up and hiked out




It was a 15 minute steep hike but gave us some exercise.


After the hike it didnt take too long to tire ourselves out so it was off home for a nice nap :)

The trails are good at Cyp so go, you'll have fun

:)

Whistler Peak to Peak

No this isn't a picture of Whistler, it's the view out our front window! As I mentioned in the last post, it's been snowing more here than in Whis so here's the proof.










Meanwhile, a couple days later it's blue skies in Whistler - that's what it's like when it doesn't snow


This is the new Peak 2 Peak gondola. It holds a few world records longest distance between towers at 1.88 miles being the most obvious












There's 29 cabins, two of which have glass floors.
This was all of our first time on the P2P so it was jolly exciting :)
















The view of Fitzsimmons Creek






















and again














loooooong way across there. I don't think I could jump it ;)

















When they opened it, a couple nutters jumped off it - I really don't get it: 50 million dollars and they only go half way across!!!

Snowshoeing

Forgive me for I haven't blogged :(

It's been months since I've blogged but it's been weighing on my mind so here I am at last... blogging.

Many moons (well perhaps 2 or 3 .....or maybe 4 moons) ago, Michele and I decided to get out and enjoy the snow.

The problem being we have way too much snow locally but bugger all at Whistler. Hence no biking, no skiing and well, no nothing really - or so you might think unless you own Snow Shoes.

Slightly bizarre to the uninitiated they're actually quite fun when you get the hang of it. Walk up and through crazy deep snowand then slide down on your bum!

Please - no autographs ;-)

I recently felt the desire to expose a larger audience to my writing talent so I wrote an article for one of the foremost bike websites: pinkbike.com Check it out HERE