The post was REALLY written on Jan. 13th, 07.
. . . .
So, currently, my pastime activities include:
1: House hunting. Looking for a place to rent. Not the easiest thing to do, because Im also
2: Job hunting. People dont like having tenants who are job-less. But not having a job, or a home to take care of, leaves me very veeeeery fleeeexible. In the Karma-Sutra forest yoga sex scene kind of way.
3: Crashing on bicycles. Due to ice. My last two crashes have been because slick road tires and ..ice, dont stick together like sand and custard, like they should.
$: Haveing fun in the winter conditions that are everywhere, Victoria, Courtenay, and alberta too.
Two cool stories Id like to share:
1:
A while ago, in Calgary, Alberta, I went climbing outdoors for the very first time in my whole entire life. Although.. Ive done random redneck climbing without ropes and things, but this was the first time Ive ever climbed using rope.
The Story...
We are in Kananaskis (how do you spell or say that word) Country, just west of the Rocky Mountains. The roads are covered in ice, the sheer, clear as glass, frozen rain kind. Enormous mountains in the background loom, their seemingly endless rock faces almost unbelieveable for a coastal boy. The red VW Golf glides elegantly into a vacant parking lot, which shows evidence of lacking visitors for some time. Wisps of snow and ice turn the surface of the parkinglot into a moving sea of coke; gusts rock the vehicle as it pulls into a convenient spot and stops. The 4 of us climb out of the car, and quickly collect our harnesses, helmets and rope, while fighting off the strong winds and peircing cold. We begin walking, heads down, gear held tightly, trudging through the crusted ice, up a valley against the pummelling wind. The road and our vehicle fade around a corner behind us, and all signs of human presense fade away with them. To our right, across a long-frozen mountain stream, a large hill engorsed in pinetrees ripples as if clearing itsself of the ice that coats it. To our left, mustache'd by a stand of trees, tall, grey rock shoots skyward, accented and occasionally divided by crags and cracks.
We cut left, weave between a few treetrunks, and gaze up at a route on the 50' rock face before us. We drop our packs, and begin to assemble the gear needed for scaling the wall. We talk of who will climb first, and I volunteer. After some discussion of how to 'lead climb', and reassurance that it was easier than it sounded, I saddle up with my harness full of metal contraptions, and tie myself to one end of our rope. The other end is fed through an ATC (air traffic controller/belaying device), and attached to my good friend Jenn Bundy. After putting my feet into my freezing rock shoes, I trudge through several metres of icy snow to the base of the rock wall. A thought flashes through my mind, "What a kick-ass way to start my outdoor climbing career, lead-climbing for my first time up an icy rock in high winds!! Fookineh!"
The Legend...
I begin climbing. Very quickly, I notice a tingling sensation in my hands, but choose to ignore it. Several minutes and four vertical metres later, my hands feel similar to a pair of meaty 5-finger'd bludgeoning tools. Try as I might, I cannot even vaugly feel what it is that Im gripping. Not so fun, when climbing a rock face. I also note that the coloured, painfully obvious handholds of the climbing gym have been exchanged for flat, featureless, grey rock. I glance upwards, the next fourty feet seem daunting, and perhaps... a little over my head. The happy thought of a successful first-time-lead-outdoor-climbing floats back in to my brain. I hold it there for a moment, taste its milky goodness, and then swallow it down, deciding that perhaps what's best for my general well-being isnt best for my personal records book. I call out for tension on the rope, and I decend back to the safety of the icy turf, momentarily defeated, but far from conquered.
The Summary...
In the end, I climbed the sucker, but only after someone 'more-experienced' climbed the route first, and set in the necessary hardware for the rest of us. The hardware basically made it impossible for us to hurt ourselves, if someone fell. The wind added an extra obstacle however, as if needing to warm your hands in your groin every few minutes wasnt difficult enough. We were occasionally forced to throw ourselves against the rock to keep from being tossed off the face (with rope-attached). It was by far the coolest climbing experience Ive had to date.
Jennifer's real name isnt Jenn Bundy.
2.
This is the first time that Ive ever heard of U.E.. U. E. stands for Urban Exploration, and apparently has followers world wide. UE followers all have one thing in common; a love for going places that people usually don't. Some thrive on exploring storm drain systems, others love sneaking into abandoned buildings, just to see whats to be seen. The UE followers that I met up with happened to have a love for old mines.
On saturday morning, a group of 5 of us donned rented snowshoes, collected our backpacks of caving gear, and began hiking up a mountain in the Rockies near Field, BC. It wasn't snowing, but it was still really windy. The powder went up to our knees, even with the snowshoes on. We climbed for an hour, hiking the one kilometre to the entrance to the Kicking Horse mine. The secondary entrance we used to gain access to the mine was hidden from view from the outside. Tucked in the bottem of a rock face on the mountainside, one had to roll over a bank, and dissapear down a steep hole between the rock and the snowpack. As one entered the mine, there was an immidate climate change. In seconds, the blizzardy deep powder of the howling mountainside gave way to a noiseless, snow-free room, complete with benches, and plenty of room to kick back and dry out. Railroad ties littered the floor, along with some random articles left from previous splunkers. We took the time to mutate from snowshoesing outdoorsmen into cave-dwelling heroes, as sweaty clothes were torn off, and thigh-high gumboots were pulled on.
I dont have the gumption to finish off this story in full detail, but that cave was amazing. Huge underground walls of ice, hundreds of feet of ancient wooden ladders, bottemless pits, hidden rooms, and a mining cart! We spent 7 hours inside that mine, and only explored a fraction of it.
Thanks for reading, eh.
T
