You show me yours and I'll show you mine

Two rides of completely different character and a singular theme this weekend, exploration. Friday I had the opportunity to guide a few top-level pro and former pro mtn. bike racers on the slopes of Cypress. Sunday it was about tackling a little known descent for perhaps the last time during perfect conditions.

The North Shore skyline has a new addition. For the past couple of years the Grouse Mountain ski hill has been planning on erecting a large wind turbine on their property to supplement their electrical power requirements. The 37m. blades had been flown to the site in early July and this last week the complete windmill was fully assembled for all to see. Sunday was a good opportunity to make our up Mountain Highway to get a good view of the massive new structure and given that this was to be the last good weather for the season it was also an opportunity to make our way onto a little known and hard to access classic old trail.

Sundays ride while a rare long descent that incorporated a number trails to make up an epic XC style ride, was a much more relaxed affair than the high paced guiding adventure I subjected myself to the previous Friday.

Following many months of back and forth Facebook discussions I finally managed to get together with the Traslin brothers to share some trail beta. It just happened to coincide with a ride I had also planned with former pro Andreas Hestler to introduce him to the series of trails that make up what Sonny and I refer to as Urban Warfare.
Friday would prove to be no Sunday cruise, the pace was brisk from the start with Andy Traslin fresh off a 3rd place finish in the Chekamus Challenge and both he and his brother Mike had just had successful campaign in the BC cup race series. Andreas himself while not fully active on the competitive circuit had participated in the solo division of BC bike race this year and placed well. I had not raced in over 15yrs and did my best just to hang on.

The day would prove to be a success all around, I introduced them all to trails that were easily accessible and had been around for years yet were little traveled. Because of either a lack of technical difficulties or the numerous little climbs, the shuttle crowd has little interest in making their way onto many obvious lines but still hidden gems. The guys all appeared to be quite surprised at what had been for years in plain sight: a quality marathon XC ride. We also knocked over an hour off the time that I had done the same ride only a week before.
Sunday was a pleasant cruise by comparison and just what I needed as it would be the 100th ride for me this season. The original goal of getting a glimpse of the giant white icon accomplished our group of six, carried on to link up Per Gynt and Bitches Brew, very rooty and at times dubious trails that are best traveled in dry conditions. A quick traverse along Dreamweaver would take us back to base camp to put a cap on what has been great summer of discovery. We were fortunate to have with us Barry, a Squamish trail builder keen to see that a car isn’t needed to access some of the best singletrack on the Shore. In a case of you show me yours and I’ll show you mine, the fall looks to include new bounty of goodness in Sea to Sky country.

Let the discovery continue…

The Memorial

"You'll know you are on it when you have found the cross"

An off hand comment about the location of a new yet old trail.

Years and years of riding and hiking the trails of the North Shore and not once did I ever notice this memorial some 8 feet tall that had been erected sometime after the death of Ryan Page. I have no idea of who he was but his loss had an obvious impact upon his friends and family.

The Tin Man Returns

This past weekend saw another great performance by the Tin Man following a summer in physiotherapy, the result of a little mishap while riding on the Sunshine Coast at the end of May. A group of us had decided to have a run at the trails included in the BC Bike Race and an innocent slip off of a short bridge 3hours into the ride led to a severely sprained ankle and a long and memorable experience with the local volunteer search and rescue. It wasn’t until the end of August that he returned to the trails having had to listen endlessly to all his buddy’s telling him about all of the new found trails we continued to discover in the backyard. Fortunately for the Tin Man he was still able to get out on his road bike and retain a good portion of his fitness but now back on the trails he is full of a renewed enthusiasm that he is doing his best to keep in check as his heavily supported left foot reminds him that falling to that side again is not an option.

The North Shore has very few trails that retain their original smooth and soft character because of the immense pressure of high traffic loads; the most popular trails have easy access by smooth gravel roads or right off the side of the pavement that lead to the ski hills. Those that require even a little effort to enter or have exits that are not conveniently located anywhere near a parking lot or the original starting point see little to no use at all. The ultimate benefit to all is a small selection of trails that can be nearly 10-20 years old that look as if they might have just been created yesterday. A good portion of these were carved out at the time when hardtails were the norm and built up stunts had yet to be created, technical difficulties only coming from the use of the natural characters of the terrain.



Saturday the Tin Man and I had nice leisurely cruise up to the top of West Vancouver’s British Properties and made our way up a steep 40-minute climb that was still quite wet from a very early morning deluge. The climb is quite aerobic in nature, the steeper sections often having tricky outcrop sections interlaced with roots that this day being quite slick added to what is normally quite challenging in dry conditions. The brief effort is rewarded however as it leads to a hidden gem just off of the lower section The Big Eye that leads to a loamy, twisting fast flowing ribbon that offers little in the way of hazards save for one giant fallen tree. With so few bikes tearing up the trail traction even in the wettest of conditions is still quite good though you still have to be mindful of the roots. The Big Eye was a perfect step on the Tin Mans return to the trails that provided improved confidence in his wonky ankle and tremendous amounts of satisfaction.

It’s good to have him back.

36 pounds of glory

Going over old work photos and came across an image of the highly coveted supercycle, still in the last spot I left it only to remain there for the next very cold 6 months. That bike was my preferred mode of transportation while being positioned at the Norman Wells base. Wondering what has become of the old girl since the big summer of '06...

Take the trail on the left... or was it the right?

Two days two different sets of conditions. Wednesday was my first ride in three weeks back on the Shore I and couldn’t think of a better way to return… In the pouring rain! Having had crazy hot and dry summer conditions the first ride in the rain for 2+ months comes as a bit of a shock: It gets slippery here fast! Regardless along with Heinous J. Panderkook and his ever improving fitness and unstoppable enthusiasm we made short work of Oilcan in less than ideal conditions. The rain soaked little skinnies numerous roots and rock armored sections being a far cry different from the little bit of exploring the day before.

Scotty and I finally made the short journey out to Abbotsford to have a go at the Ledgeview area and search out XCelerator, a trail only known to us from the power of the Internet. After a quick visit to a local shop and armed with a small hand drawn map and conflicting instructions from the outdoor store next door we lit off uphill into the middle of a maze of trails that for the most part were well developed and completely unmarked as the whole system of is located on private property. The terrain here differing wildly from what is in our backyard we were informed that we would either enjoy the smooth fast rolling terrain or be bored by it. Variety is truly the spice of life and when we finally managed to find our way to our objective having zigged many times when zagging was the best option, we were rewarded with a smooth clay rich trail that constantly climbed and turned back on itself as it lead to steep twisting descents and a few sections where off trail excursions on the downslope of the trail were not an option.


All in all a successful day exploring another new area. Now armed with an old map, a slightly better sense of direction and rumours of a new trail sharing much of the character of XClerator we look at how to further maximize another Ledgeview experience.

Seasonal Maintanence

A brilliant return to the saddle this weekend, but first a little maintenance was required; a worn pivot axle, migrating pivot bearing, soft titanium bolts and a little issue with my cranks.

Nothing that the right tools for the job, handy instructions and liquid encouragement couldn’t solve. First order of business was to remove the sheared bolt from the new(ish) axle and replace it with a more durable hardened steel equivalent. Resetting the bearing was easy enough and also allowed me to clean and grease the whole swing arm assembly and in no time the frame was reassemble and we were back to business, save for the cranks. My old cranks were still at Race Face, the warranty issue still yet to be settled but fortunately I have some generous friends and one of them just happened to have a spare set I could use, it just required a trip to Squamish.





The first ride would be a solo affair; everyone else had other plans, a race to participate in or was out of town. Too bad for them as I had one of the best rides in Squamish in sometime, easy access to the Alice Lake trails via 4Play-Slurm and the Mashiter trail. The first loop was up Mikes to upper Entrails and then down Marc My Word back to the Mashiter trail. The second much the same but this time Entrails in its entirety to Roller coaster then back to my starting point the same way I started: Slurm and 4Play. It would have been nice to have had someone else to ride with but being the first ride in a few weeks it was just as good to rip along at my own pace. It’s good to be back on the bike.

Next up: XClerator in Abbotsford. This season has been made up of exploring new areas and a few of us have been looking at hitting this trail for sometime now. Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

D. Day: The D is for Demobe.

It's all over but the waiting...

The punctuated field season came to a close this week, it was never advertised as being long or arduous and it certainly lived up to it’s billing on both accounts. It’s demise most likely couldn’t have come at a better time either as Mother Nature was surely about to encourage us to leave shortly anyway. Autumn rewarded us with some stunning visuals as the tundra had already turned from green to the brilliant reds and yellows that greeted us upon arrival. We were fortunate enough to have clear skies present during the first week so as to witness some of the most amazing displays of northern lights I have ever seen. Those conditions of course cannot last forever and eventually the days of temperatures approaching 20ºc. were to come to an end, cloud cover and increasing strong winds were to be the norm. Our un-insulated canvas walled tents would soon not be enough to help keep the heat provided by our oil stoves in let alone keeping the elements out.

Time to go home.

All that was left to do was to take down those very canvas tents, a few pieces of the infrastructure like the generator that provided us with our power and our satellite system that gave us our link to the outside world. Much like many of the other duties I had to perform these last 14 days these chores would not take much time either. All that was left was the waiting and reliving the moments I have heard so many times before:

“When’s the plane coming?”

“Has it left yet?”


The only difference this time being that while those words were internalized they were in fact coming from me.


The Freedom Plane Arrives

Loaded up.

The awkward crawl back to the right seat

The last look at camp
Eventually that plane would arrive and spirit us back to Yellowknife which was still pleasantly covered in green, the trees yet to change colour like our weeds had done weeks before and at the time of our departure had rapidly been shedding their foliage. One more night in the Territories before the next flight that will take us further south to our respective homes and the opportunity to experience the transition from summer to autumn once again.
The last look at Yellowknife

Nice Rack!

I named him Carl, our only frequent visitor and temporary camp mascot. He and or another caribou that looked liked him spent about 3 days here lounging and getting fat off of the abundance of the bushy goodness we have surrounding the camp. Depending upon the duration of the project and the frequency of floatplane flights in the region, Carl could have been called upon to be more than just a mascot.


This morning we had our first frost, as well as signaling the end of bug season when coupled with the rapidly changing colours of the tundra it foretells the inevitable onset of winter. Summer is known to have a rather short duration north of 60º, but autumn’s visit is even shorter.


View Larger Map

For all intents and purposes this is a pretty sweet gig I find myself attached to, the smallest camp I have ever had the pleasure to keep running in the arctic. There are a whole 5 of us out here: The cook, pilot, 2 geologists and myself. Everybody’s job is pretty much self-explanatory. The geo’s and the pilot head out to some un-disclosed location in the field every morning to run around consulting old maps and sampling locations while hopefully coming across new discoveries, then return to the camp late in the afternoon. The cook feeds everybody and I keep the lights on, the water running and the tents warm, I rely a fair amount upon combustible fluids and lucky for me there is no shortage of those here. But the daily thrill of setting the garbage alight with an otherwise apocalyptic blaze does not last long. The tents require little fuel and due to our very limited numbers the water pump sees limited action as well. Until the numbers swell to 10+ people the fuel supply will hardly appear to have been touched.

There is safety in numbers here: 3 out in the field, 2 back here in camp. It is grizzly country here and as such no one gets left or travels alone. Walking trips from home base are few and not very long in neither distance nor duration. The dense bush that our caribou friend was so fond of surrounds us here and is in places over the head of the average adult and thus provides perfect cover for any inhabitant with a more varied pallet than Carl. Preparations for a short walk are nothing sort of comical. Bring shotgun and ammunition. Familiarize oneself with the operation, when familiar split between both persons and stick close together in case a moment requires the former for the latter… Or is it the latter for the former. Regardless the likelihood of accidental shootings are lessened and the likely hood that the firearm will be used as club are heightened… Safety first! The end result is a short walk and needed escape from the confines of our current Arctic abode.


The days left here are short, budgetary constraints being a prime concern and the wrath of Mother Nature another. Carl aside, not to mention his dead friend, the wildlife here has not been terribly abundant and the sic-sics that had been causing us trouble in camp are eerily quite and likely preparing for a long winter themselves. Loons fly by occasionally and it can’t be too long before the geese make their way south at all hours of the day and night. If one is awoken form their evening slumber by the sounds of these southbound travelers, it is safe bet that you have been here too long regardless of how early the field season began.

The irony about this “exploration” job I currently find myself at is that just over two weeks ago with a few friends I managed to travel 60 plus kilometers over two mountain passes with little holding us back yet here with few topographical impediments we are hemmed in by what we cannot see, perceived or otherwise.