Bryan Jones 10/26/24 Bryan Jones 10/26/24

Biking the Balkans pt. 2 - Istria

It was now time to descend out of the mountains to begin the seaside part of the journey. The pedal down the Soca River valley was the definition of tranquility, winding down a variety of gravel country roads and a riverside paved bike path. Hard to imagine this region as the scene of sustained trench warfare as the Italian Eastern front in WW1 against the Austro-Hungarian forces. Proud signs of Austro-Hungarian resistance dotted the trail network; interesting to gain a perspective of the “other side” of that (especially) pointless war.

One interesting historical note I wasn’t aware of was Italy’s involvement in WW1 and the ramifications for its role in WW2. The Italians were initially eager to remain neutral, but pressure from England to join on the side of the Allies included promises of significant land annexations across the Adriatic to reclaim what Italy felt should belong as part of their Republic. The Italians took heavy casualties fighting along the Eastern Front in very challenging conditions in the same rugged mountains we explored, enduring brutal winters moving through the high passes. Eventually succeeding along with the rest of the Allies, Britain, through pressure from America, reneged on much of the promises, with only Trieste and the surrounding area ending up under Italian sovereignty. The US wanted to break up the large empires they saw were the catalyst for the war, and saw the Italian control of these lands as counter to that strategy.

If the scope of the original land promises were kept, almost our entire trip would have been through in Italy, including all of Istria and Dalmatia south to Dubrovnik.

The long term consequence of this was the infuriating of the Italians, and likely contributed significantly to the rise of Facism in the country, the rule of Mussolini, and their role in the Second World War.

We did not have much of a set itinerary for this trip, and so as we crossed over a Slovenian-Italian border for the 5th, but not final, time this trip, we discussed a plan over lunch to check out the farming region north of Trieste instead of heading into the city itself, and stay In one of their agritourism towns at a farmstay. The place was adorable, served cool red wine from the tap for 1 euro a glass, amazing local food, and we enjoyed a noisy local experience at dinner surrounded by a massive family (including their dogs) celebrating a birthday, immersed in a cacophony of exuberant Italian energy.

Next was a smorgasbord of rich history, visiting the city of Trieste and Muggia at the Eastern end of Italy, then rolling onto the 123km Parenzana Trail, a historic rail line operating from 1902-1935, recently converted to a bike trail. We spent a memorable night in perfect seaside Piran back in our final pop into Slovenia, and then on and up into Istrian hill country and Croatian wine region. We stayed in a nice guest house down the hill from the incredible town of Motovun, and enjoyed delicious and cheap vina Rossa from the local winery. Finally, we headed to the south end of Istria and the city of Pula, a historic marvel boasting thousands of years of sites and stories.

Sanctioned Roman Abramovich's seized $800 million super yacht, anchored outside Trieste..

Caffè San Marco - Famous cafe in Trieste, complete with these super cool copper espresso machines.

Pretty farmland on the Parenzana to Piran

Mary's "meal of the trip". After a long grind on the bike that day, only a piece of cake for lunch at Caffe San Marco in Trieste, and being our first night on the coast, she was ready for a big seafood feast. Pirat Piran restaurant delivered the goods.

The rich and complex history of various cultures that habituated these lands is fascinating to read about and experience. The Romans, Greeks, Celtics, Venetians, Ottomans, as well as countless smaller sub-groups and modern slavic cultures were present in these areas, and all left their mark.

Groznjan

Hilltop Motovun, in central Istria, originally a Celtic settlement, before a long history as a Byzantine and then Venetian strategic fortress and stronghold

We were definitely stoked to visit the "World Truffle Center"

Roman Arch dating back to the 2nd century AD, a few feet away from our hotel balcony in Pula

Pula has such a rich and fascinating history that many pages of writing would not adequately cover it. Looking at its location on a map, near the southern tip of Istrian jutting out into the Adriatic, its strategic importance is obvious. The Romans has the most obvious impact in its archaeological wonders, seeing significant development at the time of Julius Caesar, but was destroyed when it sided on the wrong end of the subsequent civil war after Caesar’s legendary assassination. Rebuilt on the request of victor and now current Caesar Octavian’s daughter Julia, it then changed hands many times after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

As someone who has not visited the classic European archaeological sites, and from a place where a century old building is considered “historical”, this small seaside city was fascinating.

One of six major Roman coliseums in the world resides in Pula, Croatia

This took us to the end of our Istrian adventure, the beginning of our train misadventure, and our group expanding to explore Dalmatia and Montenegro.

The 15 euro "Croatian Meat Platter for 2"

Bryan Jones 10/8/24 Bryan Jones 10/8/24

Biking the Balkans pt. 1 - Northern Slovenia

As I sit on a slow train chugging south towards Split, on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, I gaze out the window at the rolling hills and farmland passing by, savouring a celebratory breakfast Crni Lemon Radler, reflecting on the Stoics. After 30 hours and numerous logistical challenges, Mary and I have managed to navigate the final leg of our unplanned re-route following the cancellation of our ferry from Pula to Zadar. Word was that it was unlikely to sail again that week due to stormy weather. The culprit behind the disruption was storm "Boris," which has brought heavy rains and snow across Europe, causing widespread flooding across the continent. We're in the midst of a bike tour that spans from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Montenegro, exploring the stunning Julian Alps, the history seeped Istrian Peninsula, the Dalmatian Coast, and the breathtaking Kotor and Lake Skadar region of Montenegro. As mine and Mary’s first proper bike tour, our journey so far has more than adequately confirmed that this mode of transport is indeed an incredibly enjoyable way to travel; a pace conducive to immersing oneself in the sights and sounds of an exciting new region.

However, over the past day and a half, we've learned that cycle touring can introduce its own challenges to travel.

Croatia's transportation network has a mixed policy on bike travel, leaving it up to the discretion of drivers and ticketing staff to decide whether to allow bicycles on board, even when it seems there is plenty of available space. This unpredictability has introduced our first significant logistical challenge to our adventure.

We took a major backtrack north from Pula via train back near the Slovenian border and then east on a bus to the city of Rijeka, where our confidence was reasonably high after watching a pair of Germans and their bikes get on the southbound bus to Split that we were aiming for. The driver capped it at their 2 bikes, and we were told to wait for the next one. 2 buses, and 2 aggressive denials later, our confidence was weakened, and we had to make a tricky choice between continuing to try this discretionary bus option, or head over to the last southbound train option, where we had heard mixed reports of success with two wheels.

We have some pressure to get south reasonably quickly, as Hollywood “Honk” Holden (otherwise known by his Christian name, Zac) has just arrived and expecting us south on the Dalmatian Coast. We are also connecting with my parents, and have a place booked in a few days time on Hvar to explore the southern islands together.

In the end, we gambled on the train, where we had success loading the first leg, delivering us to a very remote rural station even further from our destination for the transfer south. The moment of truth arrives with our last connecting train rolling into the station, and just as we’re loading our bikes in, an impressively towering, and equally stern female ticket collector storms over and yells in a heavy Eastern European accent, “no room! no bicycle!”. We protest and begged as she hopped back aboard, but within seconds the 1/2 empty train was accelerating off into the setting Croatian sun.

Well, fuck…

We assessed our surroundings. Surprisingly, for a major transfer point connecting the Istrian west and south Croatia, the train station was completely isolated in rural farmland. A look at the map showed that we were a 15 minute pedal to the nearest town. The train station attendant spoke precisely zero English, though liberal use of Google Translate allowed us to glean that he has seen this before, and previously, people have disassembled their bikes, placing them in large garbage bags to make them into “luggage”, and bring them on board. Not a guarantee, but worth trying.

The next train was the following morning, and it was getting dark, so it was time to try to find some large garbage bags and a place to stay, and hope we make it on tomorrow, as our options were rather limited here in, as Mary eloquently put it, “the middle of Croatian buttfuck nowhere”.

That’s when the negative thoughts creep in: “Why the fuck did I plan a route that was so dependent on this damn ferry?” “Why didn’t we just stay in the city and wait for the eventual bus ride?” “Why didn’t we pack the bikes up better in the first place for the train?”

Time for a deep breath, a reminder to focus on the present, and embrace this new challenge, instead of sliding into frustration and self-criticism of past actions that cannot be altered. A key component of numerous philosophical teachings, including the Stoics, that I’ve been working on adhering to more in daily life, to combat instinctive tendencies. In hindsight, it seems insane how we can treat ourselves sometimes in the face of ‘not-at-all-adversity”.

An hour later, we were checked into a quaint country home (60 euros for an entire house), heading off through pleasant countryside passing cute farmstands to a quirky grocery store and restaurant for supplies and an enormous local “mixed meat platter for 2” (that could have fed 4) for 15 euros with tall brews to wash it down, reflecting on how incredible the previous week had been.

For me, these elements are inevitable and essential to the joys of travel: the creation of lasting memories, testing patience, navigating logistical challenges, and imbibing just the right amount of high-value domestic beer and wine to soothe the nerves.

To celebrate a significant-yet-meaningless milestone in aging, I wanted to plan a Europe cycling trip around my 40th birthday, which is a pretty classic activity for aging adventurous folk. Mary and I being foodies, the idea of biking up and down pleasant hills all day, providing the caloric motivation to stuff ourselves with local grub at every chance is a recipe for a great time.

If your idea is to “go biking in Europe where they have good food and drink”, you’re going to be presented with a lot of options. The bike culture in Europe is incredible, and there are countless classic routes well beyond the main Eurovelo list that I had first discovered many years ago. I was keen to build a trip that included some more remote mountains and big pedals, as well as warm coastal Mediterranean time where I could extend the invite out to friends and family. Through enough online research, I landed on this loose route which seemed to tick all the boxes.

Our trip began in the capital of Slovenia, Ljubjlana, which is a wonderful city, small for a European capital at only ~500,000 people, with a beautiful downtown river promenade complete with cute restaurant patios, cobbled pedestrian streets, and a hilltop castle resting like a crown above the historical city centre.

After a lovely day in Ljubljana, due to some significant weather approaching with Boris rolling across the continent, we had to push through some jetlag to kick off the pedalling with a big 100km day. The riding was so good that it was easy to find the energy, and we had an awesome intro day riding out of the city exploring the Slovenian countryside.

Gotta put those 41mm gravel tires to good use!

After getting some bad beta for a gravel "trail" on our mapping app, Komoot, leading to an adventurous forest hike-a-bike, we were overdue for a refreshments stop by the time we rolled through the small town of Radovljica, just outside Bled.

Mary's first of a near-daily strudel habit for the trip

Rolling along Lake Bled and its iconic island monastery in the mid afternoon, Mary contemplated a swim but we decided to keep rolling and enjoyed a beautiful cycle up along the edge of the towering peaks of Travnig National Park.

Incredible section of road riding after Lake Bled, dipping into Triglav National Park

Celebrating at the top of our last steep climb of the day!

Descending back down into the lower valley, in time for dinner, followed by a mad dash to get to our destination before dark.

First Day Riding Highlights

Following a damp rest day in the ski town of Kranjska Gora waiting for the meat of the storm to roll through, we stuffed ourselves with the extensive buffet breakfast at the Kranjska Hotel, packed our bags, and adorned all of our cloths and raingear, as it was still drizzling outside. Observing the snowline only a few hundred meters in elevation above us, we felt good about the decision to reroute through a lower pass at 1200m in Italy, instead of the straight up and over 1650m Vrsic Pass that would be in full winter mode.

Fortunately, as soon as we hit the road the rain stopped and the skies began to slowly clear. We enjoyed beautiful pathway riding alongside the Julian alps and Triglav, and our first jump over to Italy.

Our first of 5 times we crossed the Slovenian/Italian border. The Euro zone is pretty cool!

Incredible views heading south from Tarvisio, Italy

This region was absolutely stunning, with quaint farms dotting deep mountain valleys, ancient aquifers connecting mountain streams to mills. Heading south from the town of Tarvisio climbing up into the mountains, we passed an old mining town before ascending an old dirt road with beautiful views of the lake below, back up to an old WW1 post at the top of the pass and the Slovenian border.

Ascending back up to the Slovenian border

From there we were treated to an incredible 1000m descent through the mountains with snowy peaks towering above us.

We stopped for a pastry and microbrew in Bovec, where Mary didn’t pay attention to the ABV in her order, and, instead of 2 “tasters”, somehow ordered a regular sized and strength pale ale AND a large full pint 9.2% malty face smash “pancake breakfast”….

Following the inevitability of me taking it on myself to correct Mary’s mistake, we rolled out to explore some gravel on the river Soca feeling a bit wobbly. Just in time to leave pavement and bounce down varying degrees of gravel rowdiness, including a wet walk across a flooded river.

Beautiful gravel section along the River Soca

More beautiful road riding through pleasant countryside took us to Most Na Soci, a quaint little town on a wider part of the Soca, more like a lake. We stuffed ourselves with an epic pizza dinner (1: burata, ham, with pistachio sauce and 2: truffle porcini and procuitto. Sploosh) and then Mary got her custard fix at the great bakery attached to our hotel (Happy Rooms). The matron, Mimosa, was adorable, and extremely proud of herself reverse engineering this custard treat recipe they were importing from out of town, finally gaining her husband’s approval after numerous attempts.

The perfect post ride dinner: local wine, pizza, accompanied by a giant bottle of olive oil and various vinegars

I learned about Mary's love of custard treats tonight. In her happy place!

Lovely Mimosa (sp?) in her bakery and guest house

It felt as though we could easily spend the entire trip in the Slovenian mountains, but the next day we continue down the Soca out of the Slovenian mountains to the Mediterranean.

Bryan Jones 9/2/24 Bryan Jones 9/2/24

The Tantalus Traverse

Slipping through the final weeks of my 30s, recently I’ve spent a fair bit of time considering the past decade, including the many challenges, obstacles, and successes that defined this period of my life. Reflecting on the lowest lows alongside the highest highs, and everything in between, it's easy to draw parallels between the great challenge of life and climbing. Success requires significant effort in building skills and gaining knowledge, as well as a willingness to take risks; without risk-taking, you never get off the ground.

Matching capabilities and risk taking, pushing yourself towards the next goal or objective, can be a very tenuous bridge, often leading to hard lessons learned along the way. I’ve learned many a hard lesson in climbing, and this really describes my general path through life as well. Progressing skills, taking risks, working hard to accept failures, learning from mistakes, reveling in success.

2024 has seen a few major tick list successes, the latest of which was an incredible trip across the Squamish River to complete the Tantalus Traverse. The pinnacle of this southwest BC classic is composed of the incredible ridge line above the wild glaciated terrain of the Rumbling Glacier that every driver to and from Whistler ogles as they drive by and gazes west. The route has numerous technical challenges, requiring extended time spent in exposed terrain, providing a significant mental challenge as well as a physical one. Though the climbing never jumps above what most climbers would consider 4th class (no rope needed for safe travel), steep loose choss, crevassed snow slopes, and exposed-yet-easy moves on quality alpine granite keeps your focus for many hours, as making a mistake at any point would be highly consequential.

I had a very narrow window to sync up with Jem “Moat Daddy” Morrison to make this happen following a work trip, and we needed an early start to squeeze this into two days. After flight delays, a midnight packing job, and a few hours sleep, I met Jem at 530am at the Watershed pub to drop a vehicle to tackle this new challenge.

The ideal window in the summer comes when the snow has retreated from the upper ridge, but before significant melt increases the size of the many glacial “moats” along the route. This incurs an additional challenge getting on and off the glaciers, as the yawning mouth of the moat opens, wanting to swallow you up into the depths of the mountain.

The full traverse typically starts on a trail ascending from the Squamish Valley at Sigurd Creek, and climbs a sizable 2100 meters up and over a col just east of Mount Pelion. Once you leave a marked trail heading up towards Mt. Ossa, the routefinding begins, as there is essentially no markers and minimal sign of a “trail” until you descend towards Lake Lovely Water at the opposite end of the traverse. There seems to be some intention with the complete lack of sparse flagging tape or a cairn markers on this reasonably well utilized route, as these beacons are a controversial practice counter to the hardcore “leave no trace” mentality, with the expectation being that parties should be capable of route finding on their own.

Jem had done the route previously, and with that knowledge and the magic of modern GPS phone maps, we did not have any issues on our journey.

The South Tantalus Range, from the Sea to Sky Highway

We quickly discovered my new filter had a small hole in it. Jem here is experimenting with different blocking techniques.

For gear, we tried to keep things as light as possible for a basic overnight, and so the tent was left at home in favor of a minimal bivy setup with sleeping bag, pad, and a small tarp. Climbing gear included 4 mid-sized BD Camelots, standard climbing setup of a harness, belay device, double length alpine slings, a Petzl microtraxion for recovery, and an unneeded ice screw and snow picket. A small stove for cooking a basic meal and melting snow, and other typical essentials.

The equipment fail of the trip was a spillover from an awesome trip I did with Mary the week before up in the Tolkien group, on a shiny new pair of ArcTeryx Vertex shoes, which on paper and in practice seem to be exactly the shoe I’ve been looking for as a mix of a hiker and a light climbing capable “approach shoe”, but unfortunately gave me savage blisters which made a lot of this trip super painful…

Based on the objective, and the work required to keep up with Jem, I opted to leave the bigger camera at home, so these are all iPhone shots, and I’m pretty happy with the results. Low light capabilities and a telephoto option were missed, but overall I think the quality is acceptable considering it is no extra weight!

Low angle snow slope on the final push to the top of Pelion

Overview of the ascent route, following the Zenith/Tantalus Ridgeline, with Mount Tanatalus at the end.

Closer shot on the Zenith ridge with the glacier crux

After grinding hard for 3 hours up from essentially sea level to 2100 metres at the Pelion Col, you are rewarded with a massive stoke boost taking in the breathtaking view of the route ahead. From a distance, the gnar level definitely looks high! Nerves and excitement start to pulse deeply through the veins, and a jolt of energy washes over tired legs.

This is why we’re here!

At the first technical crux: a traverse across a crevassed snow slope to a steep loose rock gully to gain the ridge. Nothing steep or difficult necessitating ropes, but from here on the mental game starts, where careful footwork and controlled movement is required to stay on your feet above consequential terrain.

Descending down on the far side of the previous climb onto the next snow slope, where you ascend high to the left to finally gain the proper Tantalus Ridgeline

At this point, the weather played into the mental game, with distant pockets of thundershowers to both the East and West. The lighting was beautiful, but immediately became aware of our exposed position on the ridge if a storm rolled through.
We were about to receive another warning shortly…

Arriving at the “pièce de résistance” of the journey: kilometers of beautiful solid alpine granite scrambling leading towards Tantalus summit

As soon as we started moving across the ridge, I noticed a strange sound coming from my backpack. After a few moments of adjusting my pack to determine its source, I realized it was an audible “buzz” from my ice axe when facing upright! Above us was some light clouds, with a few thunderclouds looming in the distance, and so the electrostatic force in the air must have been enough to cause a reaction in the exposed metal of the axe. Jem confirmed the same, and so we very quickly retreated to better cover at a rocky pinnacle at the start of the ridge.

We assessed the weather situation, and it was clear that we were fortunate to be in a good spot with no significant weather moving in our direction. The forecast showed a clearing trend, so it felt like this was a “wait and see” situation, and be ready to move if conditions worsened.

Ominous thunderstorms surrounding your exposed position on an alpine ridge? A perfect opportunity for Moat Daddy to provide a little spark himself with a stylish costume change!

Also a good opportunity to take in the absolutely wild and appropriately named “Rumbling Glacier”. We were treated to numerous enormous serac falls, where house sized chunks of ice and snow crashed down the glacier in spectacular display.
Very happy that the modern route we were on did not take us anywhere near this angry maelstrom. The first ascent in 1911 required a boat ride to Squamish from Vancouver, followed by a long bushwhack straight up to the base of this splintered maze of ice and overhead hazard. Crawling their way upwards with the heavy expedition gear of the day in this terrain must have been exciting indeed.

Fortunately, our assessment of the forecast and the moving weather was correct, and so once the weather cleared after an hour of rest around 5pm, we decided to keep moving on to get as far on the ridge as possible today. With the questionable weather and the delay, our stretch goal to summit and navigate the challenging descent of Tantalus on Day 1 would have pushed the safety margins too close..

Beautiful late day lighting amongst the clouds

Rainclouds in the distance, but signs of lightning had abated, so we felt confident setting up our basic bivy and cooked dinner. After much deliberation we decided that the threat of rain dictated that we abandon this beautiful wind sheltered camp spot in favor of an adjacent rocky location where we could string up the tarp in case of rain.
The 3 hours of sleep the night before and 12 hours + 3100 metres of climbing that day meant that despite our exposed quarters, I slept solidly, even as Jem stumbled around in the middle of the night removing the noisy flapping tarp inches from my face after peeking out in the middle of the night to a clear sky of stars.

The next morning we were immediately met with our next challenge from our camp, with two options available:

Walk down lower on the glacier and make an awkward snow and ice mantle above a 10 metre deep moat
Find the reported rappel anchors and descend to a section where the obvious existing tracks on the glacier meet a much easier climb onto the snow

#1 looked super sketchy, while rappels take time and have their own dangers. In the end we opted for option #2 which was the safer bet, but cost us a fair bit of time.

Following the rappel, we kept the rope on, attached our crampons, pulled out our ice axes, and scrambled onto the snow before untying. Then a straightforward but exposed traverse across a bridged bergschrund got us to a steep slope of rock which thankfully was significantly less loose and terrible than it looked.

Rappel down to the glacier next to our bivouac site

Back on fantastic solid alpine granite for the final push to the summit

Looking South to our descent route, which drops down below the “Witch’s Tooth”

Gazing East towards Squamish with the incredible north Tantalus ridge behind

Incredible views from the summit in all directions, along with the elated feeling of accomplishment standing in a place you’ve gazed at admiringly for many years. We were treated to calm, beautiful weather, alongside the best cold pizza I’ve had the pleasure of eating courtesy of Chef Jem, who pulled out all the stops adding chicken and extra cheese to a frozen (then baked) Hawaiian pizza.

If that’s not the sign of a quality climbing partner, I don’t know what is.

Beginning the descent following various ledges to a series of 4 rappels to return to the upper Rumbling Glacier

The descent from the Dione ridgeline on the far side involved another rappel, and another awkward transition to crampons to gain the glacier

Following the long traverse around the Dione Glacier, Mount Dione (sister peak to Tantalus) behind.

View to the South of our next challenge of another crevassed glacier crossing and ascending the far ridge, before finally descending into Lake Lovely Water basin

Moat Daddy never misses a chance to practice his poi skills

Back down in the flowers on the beautiful basin above Lovely Water. Still challenging route finding here all the way down to the “Russian Army Camp” below..

The “Russian Army Camp” was beautiful! Meandering streams surrounded by incredible alpine flower displays

At this point we were very keen to keep to our plan of returning to our paddle boards at the Squamish River in time to float down the hour or so it takes to get to the Watershed Pub, to finish the trip in style. Arriving at Lake Lovely Water at 6pm, 12 hours after we started that morning, we moved quickly down the trail in a speedy hour and a half, getting to the boats at 730pm, and the Watershed before 9pm in time for well deserved burger and beers.

Bryan Jones 6/3/24 Bryan Jones 6/3/24

Mt. Baker

Iconic Mt Baker is on the tick list of any Southwest BC/Northwest Washington mountain enthusiast, and I am certainly no exception. The “little” brother of Seattle’s overlord Mt Rainer, Baker stands at 3288m, the 3rd highest in Washington state (Ranier rises an impressive 1100m higher to 4400m).

Jem and I were in conversations about tackling this during the Spring prime ski mountaineering season, and the weather looked ideal for a mid April attempt. And a great opportunity to go round two in the Peebles, and test out the heating in:

Jemotorhome Shredventures 2: The Re-thermocoupling

After a gear and passport check in Squamish, we hit the road to cross the border to Washington, with a plan to drive and sleep up the Glacier Creek forest service road with access to the popular Coleman Deming route, hopefully making it reasonably close to the actual trailhead with an unknown snowline in early April.

We stopped at a classic American TexMex joint after we crossed the border to fuel up on a carb explosion. My plan to order a burrito to go as my trail lunch backfired when I discovered that a burrito by definition in this establishment was a completely flat wet mess completely saturated in cheese sauce. The only way this thing was making it in my pack was after a visit to a blender en route to a water bottle, but a) the concept of an alpine burrito smoothie wasn’t sounding particularly appetizing, and b) Jem’s rig was understandably void of most common kitchen appliances, so it looked like my plentiful stash of sugar snacks and RX bars was going to be the menu de jour.

Mt. Baker towers above much of the region, with an enormous prominence. View across Georgia Straight from the Gulf Islands. From this photo I would guess the Coleman-Deming Col is just to the right of the little nub down and left from the summit.

We rolled up the Glacier Creek with the truck camper bouncing around a recently rebuilt and reasonably well maintained single lane road winding through the forest, until we came across the row of vehicles full of like minded folks ready to climb North Washington’s iconic volcano. We had managed to drive only 3-4 kms away from the trailhead, which for early April felt pretty good, as this was early season for Spring ski mountaineering.

After a bit of a gear review, next to the glowing warmth of a beautifully functioning propane heater, we crashed early with a 5am alarm set to get a reasonably early start on the day, unsure how long the climb would take. Unfortunately, a constant stream of even keener snow nerds started rolling in around 330am and so we were regularly woken up by the sound of parking trucks, ripping skins, and tired but excited voices. By the time we crawled out at 5am, there was around 25 vehicles surrounding us.

The walk in started with a slog up the forest services road for the 3.5 kms to the proper trailhead, then another 4 kms of forest shuffling across a mix of snow and dirt. We managed it with skis on the feet in contrast to our Matier march earlier in the season, but a lot of dirt shuffling and exposed creek crossings made travel arduous, and mental preparations were made by the splitboarder of the group (me) that this part of the ski out would be less than enjoyable.

Ascending onto the flank of Baker and the Coleman Glacier at tree line, around 1500m elevation, our massive objective was immediately in clear site. With a mountain the size of Mt. Baker, the distances are deceiving! With a clear view of the summit, it felt like it was reasonably close, but that was definitely not the case. 600 metres of climbing done, another 1800 to go!

As we continued to climb to the upper reached of the Coleman Glacier and the last of the skiis-on skinning, one thing became quite clear: Jem is a beast! We kept a very solid pace and I was working hard just to try to keep up. By the time we reached the Coleman-Deming Col, the hip flexors were screaming, and I was actually relieved to see that we were switching to boot packing for the remainder of the climb, allowing a completely different group of muscles to descend into the pain cave.

There was an elated, communal vibe between all the parties ascending this final push, and terse yet quality conversations were forced out through shortened breath with the other climbers that had linked up through the few choke points in this section. The steepness of the slope was such that you could easily walk upright with ski poles and plod along, one step at a time, for the final 400 metres to the summit plateau. I definitely prefer my solitude in the mountains, but I will say it was enjoyable to connect with another group from Bellingham and share in the stoke.

My energy had returned, as that sweet sweet drug of adrenaline started to seep through the veins, and the proximity of the approaching summit calmed the mind and reduced the number of “how much fucking further is this thing!?” thoughts. The views were stellar, revealing Ranier in the far distance to the South, along with views out to the San Juans and Juan de Fuca Straight, with the Olympic mountains far in the distance.

On top of the summit plateau, true summit within reach just ahead

Coming up the summit, the San Juans, Juan De Fuca straight, and the Olympics in the distance

One surprise for us was the noticeable sulfur smell that hit us as soon as we were on the summit. At least that’s what I assumed it was, and not Jem processing the bean-heavy tex mex from the night before. We were standing on the top of a volcano, so I took him at his word that he was not the guilty party swamping out the summit.

Beginning the loooong 1800 meter descent back to treeline. The Coleman glacier had some great easy spring glacier skiing!

Monstrous Mt. Ranier off in the distance to the south

Back at Peebles, enjoying a well deserved beer and… ONE DELICIOUS WET BURRITO!

A very satisfying day up an iconic peak, with some decent skiing, and a solid cardio effort getting to the top. Lots of talk about keeping our eyes open for a weather window for the final boss of Washington stratavolcanos: Ranier.

Need to keep pushing my cardio to keep up with Jem on that one, although you do start 1000meters higher, so it isn’t a significantly bigger day vertically, though it comes with increased technicality, and pushes you up into an elevation that can definitely take its toll if not acclimatized.

Will definitely plan my lunch better for that effort!

Bryan Jones 5/14/24 Bryan Jones 5/14/24

The Backyard Summit - Nch’Kay

Squamish is one helluva town.

Downtown Squamish, with Nch’Kay towering above. Mt. Atwell is the prominent triangle peak on the right, and the true summit is the small bit in the centre back.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have called this place home for the much of the past 13 years. Each year continues to reveal new hidden zones, fulfilling (albeit expensive) hobbies, and a dynamic and exciting culture of its own. The area is experiencing a cultural renaissance, with demographics shifting from the old industrial logging town to today's vibrant outdoor tech community.

However, this transformation comes with the usual drawbacks of gentrification. The affordability crisis is hitting Squamish hard, especially affecting the locals who have nurtured this town from its humble beginnings. They are now being priced out of a housing market that aligns more closely with Vancouver than with smaller, traditionally industrial towns in BC.

Looking further back, this rapid transition has been even more impactful to the original inhabitants of the region: the Squamish First Nation.

Land use management in the 21st century in this region is a highly complex issue, one without a perfect or eloquent solution. Many of the beautiful locations we enjoy are considered sacred, and while honestly initially it felt a bit awkward and insufficient, I've come to realize that acknowledgment is indeed a critical part of the path forward. The more time I spend experiencing the beauty of the unceded lands of Canada’s First Nations people, the deeper my appreciation and love grows for this region , and the peoples who have called this place home for thousands of years.

Speaking of peoples I love and appreciate, who also share a spiritual connection to the Squamish lands, buddy Mike “Dank Fromage” Martenson and my wonderful fiancé, Mary “Matsu” Pines make up the dream team for bottomless levels of stoke and energy for quality adventures. I had convinced them of the ideal window to summit and ski the Squamish Overseer, Nch’Kay (pronounced N-Cheek-eye), hopefully soon to be the mountain formally known as Garibaldi. Named after Guiseppe Garibaldi, an Italian from the mid-19th century that never visited Canada who, historically, seemed like a decent enough guy as far as these things are concerned, but probably doesn’t need an eponymous sacred mountain in British Columbia.

Nch’Kay is a dormant stratavolcano that sits imposing above the townsite of Squamish. The name means “The Dirty Place” or “Grimy One”, and as someone who lives in a decent neighborhood called the “Garibaldi Highlands”, it would definitely be a laugh to have my locale translate to the “Grimey One”.

I’m doubtful that some of the upscale residence would approve…

It is also sometimes known as “Diamond Head”, but technically that name applies to a lower sub-peak following the ridge south of Mt. Atwell: the “pointy one” that is most obvious when viewed from Squamish.

In winter, access is actually remarkably straightforward… provided you have access to a snow machine. The Brohm Ridge snowmobile area, slated for redevelopment as a commercial ski hill (though that plan is starting to look more doubtful), provides easy access to the perimeter of Garibaldi Provincial Park, which hosts it’s namesake mountain. From there, it is a beautiful ski tour across stunning glaciated terrain to the middle section of the Warren Glacier, and an easily travelled slope that brings you to within only a few hundred meters of the summit before things get proper steep. From there, a large bergschrund guards the upper slopes of the fan, though in mid-winter, this barricade is covered by a season’s worth of snowfall. Even in the low snow season of 2023-2024, this proved to hold true, and travel was indeed straightforward.

Straightforward in the mountains definitely does not equate to easy, and the 200 metre bootpack up the steeper upper face definitely gets the heart racing, and drives a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Cresting the upper ridge to glimpse the first views down into Howe Sound and the backyard of our home we know intimately was an overwhelming emotional experience for all of us, and we were elated to be standing on the crown of Squamish finally after marveling at its majesty for many years.

We were even treated to some decent glacier skiing after the initial steep crux of the upper slopes, which was icing on the cake, descending down towards Garibaldi Lake and the deeper parts of the Provincial Park.

Considering the ease of access, and the emotion of standing on top of a such a stunning mountain that backdrops our home, this is definitely a trip I will aim to complete every year!

Sleds are dropped, time to start walking

View of the upper slopes and the final steps up to the summit. The Bergshrund is the obvious horizontal line mostly filled in with snow.

Incredible views back down to Squamish and Howe Sound

From the summit, looking North. Garibaldi Lake on the right with Black Tusk visible above.

Table Mountain, Garibaldi Lake, Black Tusk

Bryan Jones 4/8/24 Bryan Jones 4/8/24

Mt. Matier

For many a mountain junkie in the dark months of winter who enjoys craves compulsively obsesses over sliding long metal and plastic planks across snow, the 2023-2024 season for much of North America has been a test of patience. After a few weeks back from Japan smugly stating that I had had my fill at the all-you-can-eat pow buffet of Hokkaido, with everything else this season purely a bonus, reality kicked back in and it was clear that was a blatant lie, as I was in need of a good day in the mountains.

Ski season comes with a lot of hype: spent money on gear, trip plans, objectives added to the lists. But you are completely helpless when a bad ski season hits, and besides jumping on an expensive flight, all of your spent energy on your desire to shred is just a call out into the empty void.

Jem Morrison and I had been trying to get out for some kind of mission since we crossed paths through mutual festival scene groups a few years back. Avid rock climber, skier, as well as a key local member of various Burning Man collectives including the silly party pirates of the Boobs and Berries crew. A Venn diagram alignment I’m always appreciative of between these two distinct and seemingly distant life pursuits.

He had purchased a new propane heater for his camper and wanted to drive it up the Duffey Lake road and hit some kind of ski objective, with the secondary objective of testing out whether the heater was working reliably.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

View of the Joffre (front) and Matier (rear) from the Duffey Lake highway

For our ski objective, we had our sights on a classic peak that he had summited once before, and I had only looked at and dreamed of: Mt. Matier. Though its comparably lofty neighbour, Mt. Joffre, gets a bit more of the hype due to its popular lakes, gnar town ski lines, and sometimes-a-tad-crumbly North face, Matier stands a cool 52 meters higher at 2783, and is the highest peak in the core region of the Duffey Lake mountains popular for ski touring and mountaineering.

Our journey was inspired by a recent attempt to climb adjacent Mt. Joffre, documented by the Southwest Peak Baggers group on Facebook. Shout out to this wild bunch who seem to generally abhor the idea of long planks connected to their feet; anathema to their love of plodding through deep snow in boots and sometimes snowshoes to climb as many unique peaks as possible while missing out on all of the fun sliding back down them (Yes, I am aware glissading is a thing, nerd).

I kid of course, just a bit of friendly cross sport trash talk. Big respect for their drive as they put up some massive days. The beta and info they post regularly far surpasses the often dumpster fire of the South Coast Touring page, though there are some great regular contributors there too, along with the barrage of both top and bottom shelf trolling.

#makeSCTLeeLauAgain #Duffeypoopgate2020

Truth be told we ended up having to take a page from the peakbagger playbook anyways, and due to low snow conditions, ended up walking the first 6km on foot with boards/skis on our backs, almost all the way to Keith’s Hut. Wild for mid-Feb. The Anniversary Glacier was a mess of exposed moraines and wet snow avalanches, which meant it was mandatory to take up and return on the high route above the hut along the upper bench to the spot known as Motel 66, which would be an incredible base camp beneath the imposing slopes of Mt. Joffre.

Looking up towards the Joffre slide. Apparently they are expecting another similar collapse of another massive buttress. Kinda scary place to be! https://gripped.com/news/major-alpine-climbs-on-north-face-of-joffre-peak-collapse/

Classic Duffey early season alder bashing… in February

“Motel 66”, looking up at the summit pyramid of Matier in the back.

From there, we traversed over onto the glacier proper, and ascended the gradual slopes and switchbacks up to the Joffre-Matier Col, below towering walls on either side.

We had brought our glacier gear, but didn’t end up needing the rope and harness in the end, as conditions were as reported with a decent snowpack up high. We were able to skin above the col to around the 2550 meters where there was a flatter bench to transition to crampons and ice axes for the steep 47+ degree climb to the top. The snow conditions were great for kicking steps and the exposure didn’t feel overly imposing, and so it made for an exhausting but solidly type 1 fun climb.

Easy travel up the Anniversary Glacier. Cruisy classic low angle glacier turns were beautiful on spent legs for the return trip.

Preparation for the final push at the Matier-Joffre Col. Slalok in the back.

Steep, and in parts exposed, bootpack to the summit from 2550m. Snow was soft with easy purchase made the climb feel solid and secure.

Steeeeeep! Glad we didn’t return this route, as Jem did on his previous summit.

At the Matier summit!

Mt. Joffre, with the incredible “Aussie Couloir” splitting the SW face.

Joffre, Matier Glacier, and Middle/Lower Joffre Lakes below.

The views were incredible, seeing as far as Mt. Baker to the south, and a massive swath of the beautiful coast range we know and love. I’ve spent many days on and around the local peaks of this region, and so it was special to get to look down on this incredible range from this long dreamed about vantage.

We tried to get eyes on the classic ski descent of the Northwest Face, which drops down the far side, hoping things looked promising. A ski/board back down the way we came on the exposed steep face would have been much scarier as a fall would definitely send you over the lower cliffs, with the pitch significantly steeper than the ~45 degree NW face.

After quick investigation, fortunately things were looking solid, with a short down climb on wind hammered rime that made up the entire windward side of Matier’s summit, and then we were strapping into skis and boards, ready for the fun part.

Spicy down climb on the wind hammered Matier summit to access the skiing on the northwest face

A look back up to the summit and the beautiful consistent pitch of fantastic skiing on the NW face

The skiing was surprisingly excellent, not even just for this shiite season, but actually pretty good for a higher alpine line. We took a long awkward traverse back to the Joffre-Matier col where I quickly boarded the pain train to the all-to-familiar destination splitboarders often visit when on a big day out with a skier, cursing the deficiencies of my chosen toolset. Though it was quick work to regain the Joffre/Matier Col for the return descent.

The stoke was extremely high between me and Jem at this point, that buzzing energy of adrenaline and excitement felt after a day well spent in the mountains. Those Peakbaggers are definitely onto something: summiting truly is a wildly spiritual experience. Maybe they do actually have their priorities in order…?

A beautiful, friendly cruise of low angle glacier skiing in shin deep powder on the upper Anniversary Glacier answered that question very quickly. Snow surfing really is just so fucking fun!

That fun ended very abruptly - a shockwave reminder of the 2000+ meter freezing levels and heavy rain that ravaged southwest BC over the previous weeks. I’ve written this in the past, but the adage about the best mountaineers having the worst memory comes into play at this point, and the melt/freeze crust ski, alder bashing, and exhausted march out, are probably all best forgotten.

We returned to Casa De Jem for après-ski beers and chili, hastily eaten in an attempt to replenish the approximately 4,900 calories my watch indicated I had consumed that day. Regrettably, the atmosphere was slightly diminished due to the aforementioned fact that the star of the show, the shiny new propane heater, was not staying lit. Fortunately it was pretty toasty in there from our body heat and the heater’s earlier operation, and I had brought my winter sleeping bag as insurance against this possibility, so comfort was not a concern.

Nevertheless, he was eager to diagnose the problem, and thus the great battle of the Jem v. thermocouple commenced.

Having sold my vintage Airstream, Winston, last fall, I relished the break from such maintenance that previously occupied much of my free time. Unable to assist with the heater, I ventured to Lower Joffre Lake for some night photography.

The conditions were far from perfect; it was hazy and pitch-dark, and my basic astrophotography skills and equipment fell short. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the complete solitude by the lake: sipping whiskey and observing the repeating lone hoot of an owl, gazing back up at the distant peak that we had stood upon earlier that day.

Bryan Jones 3/27/24 Bryan Jones 3/27/24

Zen and the Art of Hokkaido Powder

Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, truly is a magical place. It really has it all: world famous seafood and ramen, beautiful lakes, mountains, and beaches, wonderful people, over 250 onsen (hot springs), metres of reliable powder snow on the planet, and one hilarious mascot. “Marimokkori” takes on the anthropomorphic form of the strange Marimo, a regionally celebrated algae ball that develops in Hokkaido’s lakes. Passing by the obvious, easily “cutifiable”, local mascot options: bears, deer, foxes, pikas, or even the world famous Hokkaido scallop, the decision was made, not only to select an obscure piece of algae to represent the prefecture, but to endow it with… notable prowess.

http://www.myjapanesewife.com/what-is-marimokkori-anyway/

When traveling in Japan, you spend a lot of time observing things that leave you questioning: are they in on the joke, or are our cultures just so distinct that this is just business as usual? You also repeatedly find yourself comparing our relatively brutish and unrefined ways with their kind, polite, thoughtful, and civilized nature. With pristine bathrooms, quiet public transit, respectful strangers, maybe sometimes you just need to put anthropomorphized genitals on some algae to spice things up a bit?

We flew into Sapporo from Osaka, met by a very enthusiastic waving Narihito at the airport, who picked us up and took us to his home where our rental RV was waiting for us. For whatever reason, we had decided to bring the cramped living space of Tokyo on the road with us north to Japan’s most spacious region. And so, four of us piled ourselves, 6 snow/splitboards, and all our gear into a cute Japanese RV, to explore Northeastern Hokkaido.

Narihito is a retired snowboard instructor from various Hokkaido resorts, who decided to buy an RV to rent out seasonally when he wanted to move away from the ski bum lifestyle. Unfortunately, as he described it, the RV “came with COVID”, and so his entrance to the tourism industry was hindered for a time.

Being used to a flexible lifestyle as a ski bum, he simply moved into the RV and traveled around exploring every square inch of his native island, building up incredible documentation of the island’s sites, sounds, and ubiquitous rest areas. Here is his awesome site.

He provided a great overview of his favourite hills, some guidance on driving the RV (“if you go up THIS winding mountain road, make sure you choose your BEST driver”), along with his recommendation and even a sample glass of his pick for local value whiskey (Nikka Black).

We waved goodbye to this local legend, and on his recommendation, headed to a Wagyu BBQ place by his house on the way out of town. $30 CAD each included a mix of Wagyu strips, a thick tenderloin, grilled veggies and mushrooms, 2 Korean bibimbops, kimchi pickles, a large salad, and beers. And that Wagyu was every bit as wonderful as its stout reputation.

After that, we pushed on into the night in rather dicey driving conditions across the city of Sapporo to our first overnight rest area experience. It was -5 and lightly snowing, and the excitement of our first taste of Hokkaido ski culture was high.

The next day, we rolled into “small in size, big on vibe” Kamui Ski Links . I had found it only a few nights previously on the Powderhounds website, and looked like a great intro to Hokkaido resorts, and happened to make a convenient first stop on a loop of the Northeastern ski hills from Sapporo. It was exactly what we were hoping for: $35 lift tickets, knee deep powder, no lift lines, super cute small ski hill vibe with mostly all local Japanese, and a great backside lift that boasted inbounds low angle tree runs continuously refilled all day by the constant descent of imported Siberian freshies. And of course, high quality on hill ramen in the cafeteria to warm the body and soul.

After skiing til close, we pushed on to Hokkaido’s second largest city, Asahidawa, for a soak at a terrific onsen, and a delicious sushi dinner. From our rest stop home for the night, in an urban part of the city, we remarked how incredibly clean and safe it felt when we went for a late after dinner walk. I don’t think there is an urban public rest area in North America where anyone would leave commenting on how safe and clean it was.

Of course, the heated seats on the Japanese bidet toilets really make the experience quite civilized.

The next day, we drove through beautiful hilly countryside under the near constant light snowfall, to the largest resort in the region, Furano. It definitely felt like a different world from Kamui, waiting in a long line to buy tickets in the morning surrounded by vacationing Australian families. But the legend of Hokkaido lived on, and we had an awesome day exploring the resort hitting lots of great inbound tree runs, a decent bowl of ramen for lunch, and one slackcountry run to finish the day that gave us a good taste for some more consistent untracked goods. Though the main gondola line was a bit longer (`10 minute wait), the upper mountain lifts were ski on with no waits.

We hit up a terrific Okonimiyaki restaurant that night, where the staff were as much of a highlight as the food (which was also terrific). We ended up picking the wrong parking lot to sleep in, as we got a visceral appreciation for how incredibly active the snow plowing is in Hokkaido, as it felt we listened to them scraping all around us for the entire night.

The next day, we decided to bust out the touring gear and work off some of the constant stream of convenience store snacks and rich Japanese cuisine. It ended up being fortuitous timing, as the sun came out and we had fantastic conditions for a walk in the Hokkaido mountains. The day was everything I had dreamed about for Japan skiing, and even though lift access pow hunting is easy pickings here, you just can’t beat a walk on skis in a beautiful forest. We had a great 3 laps of the Furano backside before a long and at times spicy creek drainage ski out to valley bottom.

With snowboarding this good, I can definitely relate to Marimokkori’s constant… excitement.

That evening, we decided to drive south to complete a loop of the area back to Sapporo, and tried to find a spot for an onsen and dinner along a beautiful lake south of Furano, but everything was closed. You definitely cannot rely on Google Maps for business hours in Japan. We continued on and ended up in a small town of Minamifurano, where we had a silly dinner at a tiny homestead restaurant called Svalbard (no actual relation to the Norweigen island, they just read about it in a book and thought it was cool!), with a puppy and super cute owners. This was a very small town, so the other two parties at the restaurant and owners all knew each other, and we had fun attempting to connect through a significant language barrier.

The next stop was Tomamu, which you could describe as the 3rd flavour of Japanese ski hill. Kamui represented the small, undeveloped vibe, Furano was the larger resort adjacent to an existing town, and Tomamu is the modern purpose built family oriented Japanese ski resort, complete with giant wave pool, Club Med, and many different types of tourist activities like an Ice Village, snow cat rides, etc. It was definitely worth the visit, as like many things in Japan, sometimes it’s just about seeing the grand spectacle of it all.

We decided to keep rolling as Tomamu was quite overpriced for pretty much everything except their $10 single ride lift ticket. We drove 30 minutes down the road to a wonderful onsen (Shimukappu Yunosawa) to freshen up. The hot spring was extra hot, the cold plunge extra cold, and the tiny sauna extra cozy, with only a couple others there, including a local who has splitboarded around much of the area, and had some great advice for Furano side country for the next time we’re back.

We ended up in a small village of Shimukappu where we finally struck out on finding an open restaurant, and so we just enjoyed a hilarious but sub-par convenience store dinner of microwaved noodle bowls, a plastic wrapped cheeseburger (Ali dared me to try it), and various other strange snacks and bits and bites. A quirky finish to RV life on this phase of the trip, as the next day, we roll back into Sapporo to return the RV, and begin the final phase of our trip at our Airbnb in Niseko.

Back in Sapporo, we swapped vehicles, bidding farewell to the RV and wonderful Narihito and embraced a much more maneuverable Delica 4x minivan. We thoroughly enjoyed the RV, but the driving in wintery conditions was definitely on the spicy side for much of the trip. The major freeways are salted and cleared, but the side and country roads were not, leaving hard packed roads of snow and ice to navigate, leading to a rather active driving experience.

The Delica was generally more than ready for the challenge, though later on we would find out that in the most extreme of winter driving conditions that Siberia can throw at you, things get very sketchy regardless of vehicle choice.

We stopped for terrific sushi at a family run business running since the 1940s, with a multi-generational staff of the son currently working as the chef, and the adorable elderly Mum helping clear plates and serve.

After that, we drove south along the Hokkaido coast towards Niseko, with a stop at the bear sanctuary; which was an as expected ridiculous Japan experience. The Japanese brown bear is friggin’ enormous! The “human cage” where the male bears come to receive food they are fed by tourists all day was wild, the bear “athletics” performance was a bit of a letdown as I was expecting juggling and trapeze, and we don’t even really know what was happening with the duck race…

Onwards to niseko and our Airbnb, and you immediately knew we had entered the snowy part of Hokkaido! Driving through 3 meter snow banks in a blizzard to arrive at out relatively palatial abode, we had just enough time to unpack before heading to pick up the rest of our crew, Neal and Limor, who had just flown over from California.

We popped out for a confusing but delicious izakaya experience, hit a convenience store for snacks and whiskey, and headed home for an early night to prep for an early start on our first taste of the Niseko United ski area.

Niseko United is a collection of 4 interconnected hills that have individual lift passes, or a combined united pass. They all have somewhat different characters, from the more basic to the comically opulent.

Our first day was at the less developed Annipurni, which has more of a westerly aspect and was getting absolutely hammered by wind. So much that the main gondola was not forecasted to open, but we made the call to stick it out and ride some very cold lifts and avoid the crowds. The day was great and we found some solid stashes, in between nearly freezing to death, and learning some hard lessons about how flat terrain can be at Japanese ski hills when there is a meter of fresh snow.

We wanted to take advantage of our spacious kitchen, so we went to a large grocery in neighbouring Kutchan to pick up terrific value sashimi, wagyu beef, local Hokkaido scallops and rice, and 7 kinds of various mushrooms, to make some tasty noms.

We tried out Hanazono next, representing a more high end resort side of Niseko, complete with a Luis Vuitton Mongolian hut at the base, heated six seater chairs, and some longer lines. Some pow stashes were found though, and the remote Onsen we checked out that was actually a bit too hot felt nice on the body that was starting to feel so many days on the board.

Fortunately we were looking at another 20cms overnight, as our day at Niseko Village was the kind of resort ski day you dream of. Riding the main gondola from opening to close, with a delicious lunch at an Italian themed restaurant at a local dairy farm, each run was fantastic powder tree skiiing. The Gate 11 zone and the adjacent “Superstition” area was an incredible area of open tree skiing descending into a lower gully that had freshies all day.

The system of “gates” adopted by the main Japanese ski resorts is a way for the culture of slackcountry rope ducking typical of pow hunters to mesh with the strict rule abiding culture of this beautiful nation. By providing a dedicated access point, with information about recommended avalanche safety precautions, while keeping some level of enforcement for the classic rope ducking elsewhere, you have given the shredders what they want (access to the goods), while still providing a level of control over the less informed to get themselves into trouble in the wrong spot.

It’s a smart system, and seems to work fairly well. Technically, you’re supposed to have typical avalanche gear (beacon/probe/shovel) to enter these zones, but enforcement there is non-existent and definitely looked more like a suggestion. Pretty much all of the terrain we accessed was not actually avalanche terrain, so that is fine, but the upper alpine gates on Niseko should definitely be taken seriously, judging by the terrain we could see.

Iconic Mount Yotei towers over the Niseko area

Giles and I were keen to spend a bit of time walking on skiis, so while the rest of the crew took a rest day, we checked out the classic Niseko backcountry zone of Nito, adjacent to our much-to-hot hot spring experience from a few days prior. Fortunately, there is a wealth of info about the backcountry skiing options in the area, so we picked a fairly popular one to ensure we weren’t the only ones around, and headed off. Nito starts literally at the end of the road. Snow plows end their work on Hokkaido’s own Route 66 just past a military training base at an abandoned ski hill, and adjacent Yumoto onsen. Leaving a snow covered snaking trail providing simple access into the Niseko area back ranges.

Again, luck was on our side for conditions, as although the forecast had us expecting low vis but quality deep tree skiing, we were treated to clear skies and the opportunity to ascend Nitonupuri, and take in the incredible views from the North Japan Sea to the Tsugaru Straight separating Hokkaido from Honshu. The riding was phenomenal as we lapped the incredible pitched treed slopes that every powder aficionado that has seen a Hokkaido ski film segment has fantasized over.

We watched this local woman struggle up the skin track in snow shoes with this plastic toboggan on her back. I wish we got to see her on the way down!

We watched this local woman struggle up the skin track in snow shoes with this plastic toboggan on her back. I wish we got to see her on the way down!

We finished this leg of the trip with a fun cruisy half day back at Annupri with a running gondola, with a fun apres celebration on our last day with Neal and Limor. We decided to cook up another feast at home, heading back to the Kutchan grocery for thick Wagyu steak, snow crab, tuna sashimi, and other delicious random Japanese goodies.

All in all, even the crowd averse Giles agreed that Niseko was well worth the visit. It now has a reputation for being crowded, and we definitely could see signs of that, but nothing compares to our home hill of Whistler. In fact, during our time in Niseko, the crowds were essentially a non-issue, with the exception of when we foolishly tried to venture into the main town of Hirafu for apres and got frustrated by long lines for a quirky bar in a vending machine, and likely the busiest convenience store in all of Japan.

At the hill, the lift lines for chairs were often non-existent, the gondolas pretty quick <10 minute waits at most, and if powder is what you’re looking for, as long as the conditions are typical Hokkaido, you will not be disappointed. Even on our last day at Annapuri, when it hadn’t really snowed much the past couple days, we were finding easy access stashes tucked away in the trees through Gates 8.

We found great food wherever we went, though it is likely better to make reservations beforehand, over the phone. Mary had made our sole reservation via email, and when we showed up they had no record of it, which lead to an uncomfortable stand off before they seated us anyways. The backcountry opportunities are plentiful. There is a good mix of accommodation options, and we found our Airbnb townhouse to be ideal for our stay, and reasonably priced.

It was an absolute treat to get to spend some quality time with Neal and Limor, with tons of laughs, and the usual smorgasbord of quality food and drink and silliness, with dirty Grandma jokes from Neal kept to a minimum, I assume out of respect for the polite Japanese culture.

Hokkaido lived up to all the hype and then some, and we are so excited to return. If you enjoy skiing or snowboarding, great food, hot springs, and strange and wonderful culture, a trip to Japan’s north island will definitely leave you looking like gleeful Marimokkori every single day.

Bryan Jones 2/11/24 Bryan Jones 2/11/24

Elemental Kyoto

Kyoto is an incredibly special place, and truly the Yin to Tokyo’s Yang. Well, more appropriately, Kyoto is the “in’yō” to Tokyo’s “onmyō”, which is the rough Japanese equivalent to the classic Chinese philosophy of universal balance. Historically, in Japan the practice is called Onmyōdō, which literally translates to “Way of the Ying and the Yang”, and became a component of Shintoism, and evidence of this doctrine is still seen throughout Japanese practices today. A key component of this philosophy, directly brought from its Chinese roots, are the 5 elements balanced in harmony, reflected in much of our living world: Water, Earth, Metal, Wood, and Fire.

Kyoto, with its traditional Japanese aesthetic, exemplifies a harmonious balance between these various natural elements, creating an immersive experience for those who wander its streets and temples. The city is adorned with water features: ponds, waterfalls, and numerous rivers and canals. The interplay of deep wood tones and dark metals fosters a connection with nature even in the more urban environments, and is further enriched by the surrounding network of pathways, forests, and mountains.

Fire, the wildcard Keith Moon 5th member of the elemental band, which is often seen as a disruptive force, also symbolizes rebirth and transformation. This element reflects Japan's history of overcoming challenges and evolving, contributing to its unique identity today.

Even in relatively quaint Kyoto, with a population of 1.4 million, the same rules apply about the crowds. Get up and out there early, and you will have a significantly better time. Though of course don’t expect any businesses to be open.

Tanuki - Everyone’s favourite good luck racoon with oversized scrotum representing “financial luck” for businesses, found all over Japan.

We started our Kyoto explorations in Gion, the beautiful Geisha district, with beautiful traditional buildings and canals. Much of this area is forbidden for photography, as apparently there were too many tourists harassing the Geishas. We did walk past the Ichiriki Chaya Tea House, famously frequented by a group of Samurai in the 18th century known as the 47 Ronin, and the source of one of Japanese history’s more brutal tales of Samurai lore:

The tale begins when Asano Naganori, Lord of the southwest town of ‘Ako’, gets into a spat with Edo official, Kira Kozuke-no-suke Yoshinaka, and unsuccessfully tries to kill him. Naturally, due to his failures, Asano is to forced to commit the savage Japanese ritual suicide of seppuku, which typically involves an initial self-disembowelment by sword, and then generally some assistance is needed at that point to complete the ceremony with a final beheading.

With Asano dead, this left behind his master-less samurai (“Ronin”) to plot their revenge.

The Ronin frequently met at Ichiriki Chaya, concealing their revenge plot by acting despaired, and often feigning drunkenness. After one year of patient waiting and secretive planning, they stormed Kira's mansion, assassinated him, and placed his severed head at Asano's grave. The tale concludes dramatically with the Shogun mandating that all the Ronin perform ritual seppuku.

The Way of the Samurai, or “Bushido”, was some gnarly stuff!

The Teahouse is still running almost 300 years later as an invitation-only establishment, where you can spend an evening sipping green tea and entertained by Geisha for 500,000-800,000 yen ($5-8000 CAD).

Wandering along one of the smaller canals, Shirakawa, with beautiful cobblestone streets and pretty bridges. With the cherry blossoms in, it must be spectacular.

We had a recommendation for a popular tea house, Tsujiri, who have been making their own tea for over 160 years, in central Gion. We had to take the opportunity to try out what passes for a complete breakfast in Japan, and ordered one of their ridiculous layered parfaits. It tasted as epic as it looks!

East of Gion your start to climb up into a hillside area full of a variety of temples, large graveyards, and a maze of pathways. Some areas were extremely busy, but many remained peaceful and serene, often just a block away.

Yasaka, Kiyomizu-dera, and the road leading up the Kiyomizu were packed. Most of the surrounding area was relatively quiet.

Tourists loved to dress up in rented traditional kimonos and walk around for photos. Selfie sticks outnumbered the temples 2:1, and there were a hell of a lot of temples!

The super busy climbing street up to Kiyomizu-dera temple, filled with tourist shops

We’d put in a lot of walking by this point, so it was time to chow down. Mary’s food goals for the trip was to eat as much Okonomiyaki as she could find, and we managed to track some down eventually. Finding food on the go was a bit of a challenge throughout the trip, as Google was often out of date or wrong about the hours, and often if you did find a place you were excited to check out, there was a crazy long line.

This one was worth the wait, as these Japanese flour and cabbage pancakes really hit the spot. So much cuisine in Japan is absolute comfort food; simple yet rich flavours, plenty of layered sauces and textures, and the Okonomiyaki and side Yakisoba noodles was kept nice and hot as it is often served on a heated surface at your table.

You’ve gone too far Japan… “American Dog Parfait”…? wtf mate.

We ate a couple of terrific meals in Kyoto, the first being a bit of a fancier Izakaya (small plates). We had some of the best sashimi of the trip, including some variety of squid that was insane (just buttery smooth and not rubbery like you’d expect), and a number of other delicious treats like fried mushrooms, and chicken karage.

Our other terrific restaurant experience was at a kaiseki, which are higher end set menu establishments, offering seemingly endless courses of what really is culinary art. Each dish was beautifully prepared and plated, and we got to try some more wild and exotic fare, including the poisonous pufferfish, fugo, served in a gelatin, served inside an orange peel. The exciting part was that even though this was a fairly high end restaurant, the servers spoke barely any English, and so the descriptions of the dishes only came through in bits and pieces, and usually involved a lot of random guessing on our part like a game of poisonous pufferfish charades.

The experience definitely captured the essence of Onmyōdō, striking a tasteful equilibrium among the diverse elements. The visual appeal of the dishware, the thoughtful selection of accessories, and the broad spectrum of flavors created a harmony for the senses.

On our final day in Kyoto, we popped back onto some rental Luups, and headed out towards the popular Arashiyama bamboo forest area. The cycling alone was a highlight, and though there aren’t really bike lanes or suggested routes (at least not on Google Maps), we just picked a rough direction and fortunately most of the 10km ride snaked along quiet residential laneways, where a masterclass in Japanese landscaping was on display framing beautiful townhomes.

Once again, due to the New Years Eve holidays, a few of the main sites in our area like the Imperial Palace and Nijo Castle were closed, but we definitely didn’t run out of things to do. Kyoto was a wonderful place, and one I’m excited to come back and visit at a different time of the year to experience sakura (cherry blossoms) or the autumn colours: new natural elements added to the already rich palate.

We were off to the Osaka airport the next day to catch a flight to Hokkaido. Meticulous weather tracking suggested that the renowned skiing conditions in northern Japan were shaping up well for the next leg of our journey.

Bryan Jones 2/5/24 Bryan Jones 2/5/24

Kaleidoscope Chronicles

I’ve been fascinated by this beautiful and peculiar country for much of my life, but never took the opportunity to visit until now. In 1970, my grandfather took a year’s sabbatical in Tokyo, plucking my mum at 14 years old out of high school along with her two younger sisters and my grandmother, for what must have been quite the cultural experience. They have many incredible stories from this time, and an admiration for the land and culture persistent through to today.

Visiting Japan in 2024 is quite the culture shock; I can only imagine what it would have been like in 1970…

And from the stories, they had to really put in some work to fit into life in central Tokyo. As there weren’t English translations in the buses back then (though they generally did exist on the subway thankfully) my Mum took it on as a project to, as a solo 14 year old, travel on all the surrounding lines from their central Tokyo apartment, meticulously documenting various distinct features of each to assist with future travel.

Japan is famous for its shopping, but I’m not sure too many foreigners in history besides my grandfather managed the logistics of finding, inspecting, procuring, and freight shipping a 27 foot cruising sailboat in 1970 Tokyo, which became their second home exploring the coastal seas of BC for the subsequent decade.

It feels special to write this today, as I just had an emotional final conversation with that incredible man, my grandfather Doncaster Russell, still sharp as a tack at 95, as he prepares for his anticipated medically assisted in dying procedure this week. Guitar player, artist, world traveler, and obsessive computing scientist since the 1960s, I can recount many stories from him that over the years laid an inspirational foundation for my own life’s pursuits. Over the years he made many connections with incredible people across the world, and had a wonderful ethos about him, with a respect and appreciation for people across all walks of life.

In a post about Japan, it feels appropriate to write a Haiku in his memory. I’m far from a poet, but I’ll do my best, and include a classic Grandad-ism for good measure:

A curious mind
Care and compassion for all
Will it run Linux?

Thank you for all the great stories. You will be missed.

Sayonara, Doncaster-San

Japan has changed immensely since 1970. The history of this nation feels as wild and chaotic as the streets of Shinjuku, evidence of which is easily observed as you explore the sites and sounds that drastically vary from street to street. Modernity came to Japan fast and furious in the mid-19th century with the Meiji Restoration, and, in between a few significant interruptions and setbacks, continued at a frantic pace. The Tokugawa shogunate, a military government run by a single family for over 200 years from the early 17th to mid 19th century, enforced strict rule over a feudal system throughout the land, imposing a rigid social hierarchy and banning foreign influence and trade.

The Meiji Restoration in the mid-19th century, which saw the return of power to the emperor and advisors, the removal of the shogunate, reintroduction of relations and trade with the West, and significant shifts in social and economic frameworks and mindsets, lead to a rapid shift towards modernity, industrialization, and free market capitalism. Japan’s explosive growth during this period took it from it’s peasantry roots to a leading industrial economic power in an incredibly short period of time, fueled in no small part by some rather nasty imperialist tactics across East Asia.

World War II dealt a significant blow to Japan’s progress, through massive destruction of infrastructure, loss of life, and a collective national trauma. US efforts to curb the spread of Soviet influence including immense financial aid invested in Japan, lead the country to not only recover to pre-war output levels by the mid-1950s, but rapidly expanded into the world’s second largest economy by GDP after the US in the late 60s, remaining around that position until the end of the 20th century.

The 1980s saw another period of wild modernization and growth, until the major bubble and crash of the early 1990s lead to a crippling period of stagnation for 20 years, referred to as “the lost decades”. Though there are some serious warning signs about the future of Japanese economic growth, requiring some significant ideological shifts and progressive policies, currently the stock market and larger economy is finally ticking upwards again. The future looks to bring more challenges though, with a dwindling and ageing population, antiquated workplace culture, entrenched gender roles, and immigration policies, and Japan looks to require a significant overhaul to help drive the nation’s momentum through the 21st century.

Popular claustrophobic nightlife district Golden Gai in Shinjuku, with 17th century Hanazono Shrine behind

Parts of Tokyo feel straight out of a 1980s dystopian sci-fi movie, interspersed with beautiful 400 year old traditional Edo-era temples (rebuilt replications of the originals, as sadly not much has survived the many fires over the years , particularly WW2). Referred to as “The City of a Thousand Villages”, it makes for extremely satisfying exploration, as it seems every block is different than the last, mixing and blending many different styles into a smorgasbord of lights, colours, shapes, scents, and sounds.

Truly an experiential kaleidoscope, nearly overwhelming the senses.

Regardless of the past and the future of Japan, it is an incredible place to visit today. We absolutely loved it, and spent a significant amount of the trip planning our next visit. The people, the food, history and culture, ease of travel, not to mention the cherry on top for deep powder connoisseurs like ourselves with Hokkaido skiing, made for a magical time in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Our trip was loosely broken up into 3 phases, the first of which was an attempt to scratch the surface of at least a handful of the thousand villages of Tokyo, and explore relatively quaint and natural Kyoto. Giles and Ali joined us, maybe feeling a bit overwhelmed flying from the tiny town of Rossland to a city with the population of Canada. We then flew to Hokkaido, where the four of us squeezed into a rented RV exploring the Northeast of Japan’s winter-smashed island and powder skiing mecca, before finally migrating to a relative life of expansive living in an Airbnb house in Hokkaido’s more developed ski area of Niseko.

In Tokyo, we stayed in Asakusa, which we all felt worked out well. It was pretty far from some of the major modern Tokyo sites and sounds, and unfortunately some of the closer east Tokyo highlights such as the Imperial Palace gardens, and the museums at Ueno, were closed for the New Years holidays. But Asakusa has a chiller, older vibe, with a large temple complex at Senso-Ji that was definitely an experience on New Years Eve, where we visited at midnight to watch people queue up for their first blessing of the year. This is a significant event, called Hatsumode (literally “first shrine visit”) for many people, and it’s reported over 3 million people visit the shrine on the first few days of the year! The temporary food market at the temple was incredible, and we all regretted having bothered to eat a rare miss Izakaya dinner prior instead of gorging on the various random Japanese street food delicacies more.

Asakusa Street Art on a closed shopfront

Endless popular Izakayas (casual drinks/small plates) dotted the area around “Hoppy Street” in central Asakusa. They seemed very popular with college age Japanese.

There appeared to be a massive, quirky, and quintessentially Japanese “Don Quijote” department store in the all the popular Tokyo neighborhoods. Everything from snacks, liquor, pets, sex toys, and, apparently at the Akihabara location, a purpose built theatre for an 86 member J-Pop girl band named after the neighborhood, “AKB48”. Split into many “teams” to share the load of their insane schedule, they alternate performances at the “Donk”, touring, or fan meet and greets around the country.

After learning the hard way that the overwhelming quantity of restaurants can make for some challenging decision making at meal time, we settled on a random spot for our first proper Japanese meal, that turned out to be a bit of a Chinese fusion place, but still had a Japanese favorite of ours, delicious Takoyaki (flour and octopus balls).

Senso-Ji Temple is generally a beautiful enclave of peace and tranquility (except on New Years Eve/Day, or other major festivals) in amongst the chaos of larger Tokyo. Staying in Asakusa had the benefit of having this space very easily accessible, and we visited it multiple times during the trip. Senso-Ji is Tokyo’s oldest maintained temple, dating back to 625 AD. It is considered the most commonly visited religious site in the world, with 30 million visitors annually.

Buddhism came to Japan from China in the 6th century, and after brief conflict, became the dominant religion in the country ever since, leading Japan to become the third largest Buddhist country in the world, after China and Thailand. Somewhat confusingly, it is also home to a separate though often complementary religious practice of Shintoism, and shrines and temples commemorating both Buddhist and Shinto beliefs can be found interlaced throughout the country.

Shintoism is an amalgamation of ancient indigenous Japanese beliefs, and the term generally was used to distinguish itself with the newer doctrine of Buddhism. There is no known founder, core dogma, or central organization. It is considered a religion of nature, worshiping the beauty of the natural world.

Worshiping the natural world sounds like a practice I can get behind, and the care and attention to incorporating majestic gardens, ornate landscaping, amidst meandering pathways, was clearly evident in both the Buddhist and Shinto shrines we visited on the trip.

Charms for purchase to wish for good luck in a wide variety of topics and areas

Older Buddhist statues with the imposing Tokyo Skytree in the background

Beautiful water features surround Senso-Ji

We decided to see how the Gods were looking down upon us by contributing 100yen (~$1 Canadian) to receive a fortune. You put the coin in a slot and help yourself to a narrow stick you shake out of.a small cylinder. This provides a number for a drawer you open to retrieve you fortune.

What I wish I knew before engaging in this act, is that they also have “bad fortunes”. After more general wisdom on modesty and maintaining reasonable expectations, mine wrapped up with the following rapid fire bombardment across a wide swath of life’s primary concerns:

Your request will not be granted
The patient is hard to get well
The lost article will not be found
The person you wait for doesn’t come
Building a new house and removal are both bad
To start a trip is no good
Marriage of any kind or new employment are both bad

A bit harsh if you ask me, and some of these hit a bit too close to home… Couldn’t they have contained them to just one individual bad fortune each, not a barrage of an entire life of anxiety? What happened to all that Japanese kindness?

Thankfully, they have a system where supposedly all of these bad fortunes are negated by twist tying the paper around a kindly provided adjacent rack. I would have preferred to have skipped this part and instead received even a neutral fortune, but I am not one to allow my cultural naivete to judge foreign religious practices.

We ventured out on our first Tokyo subway mission (besides the uneventful trip from the Airport) towards the Tsukiji Fish Market. Though the entire system is dauntingly massive, we found it fairly straightforward to navigate once we had a few key pieces understood. In hindsight, we definitely should have found a station that sold a special day pass specific to tourists, that would have negated the need to awkwardly dig through our collective spare yen to come up with the required fare each time, but we learned too late.

Tsukiji was at times unbearably busy. Maybe due to it being the Christmas/New Years holidays, we’re not sure, but I wouldn’t recommend going there mid-day like we did. As with any popular tourist destination, the early bird gets the worm.

We were in bad need of a convenience store beverage and snacks after the chaos of the fish market, so we found a nice riverside park.

“The Future” - As we thought it would look like in 1985

We decided to stop into Akihabara on the way home to check out the “OG” Tokyo electronics/anime/manga district

A 1970 photo from my grandfather’s collection

Returning back to Asakusa, we walked across the river towards Skytree and the Asahi Building, complete with it’s “Golden Flame” art. You be the judge whether “golden flame” is the first thing that comes to mind… Behind is the Asahi Headquarters, and the gold building with the grey “head” at the top is supposed to look like a frothy pint…
Sure, why not?

Mandatory conveyor sushi stop. For the best sushi, go elsewhere, but sometimes it’s nice to have a simple option for efficient eating when on the go

Nightime in Asakusa. Tokyo Skytree towers above all.

We found a random bar on Google called “3wood” that looked like a nice spot for a cocktail to wind down. It was a cozy little space with all wood panelling and a great bartender who was excited to connect with us, but didn’t know any English, so he brought out his laptop and talked through Google Translate. We enjoyed some quality negronis and Japanese whiskeys.

Unfortunately much of Ueno park, which is a major attraction near Asakusa in East Tokyo, was closed. Home to a crazy urban zoo and some of the main museums and art galleries, it also has some nice trails and lakes, so Mary and I decided to go for a run to check it out. It was likely not the best idea to push it after a mediocre jetlagged sleep, straining the immune system, but I was just super excited about exploring and so we ran around some of the open areas of the park.

Our hotel, the APA Asakusa, even had rooftop baths/spa (you can’t technically call it an Onsen unless it is actually geothermal water), which was a nice touch to freshen up, and was a welcome escape from our comically minuscule hotel room.

After figuring out a decent breakfast, which was a surprising challenge in Japan (though admittedly were coffee snobs), we decided to venture towards one of the epicenters of Tokyo shopping insanity, Shibuya. Ali was keen to check out a crazy high end food mall at the Shibuya Station Food Show, which was a totally overwhelming smorgasboard of gourmet versions of all things Japanese (and European) cuisine.

The cool thing about Tokyo is that within just a few blocks, you move from one of the most dense urban experiences to quaint little side streets and surprisingly cute neighborhoods. We charged through the dense mega-shopping area of Shibuya to escape to the relative tranquility of Yoyogi Park and the surrounding neighborhoods, traveling along beautiful arcing narrow laneways. Adjacent Meiji Jingu is a Shinto Shrine dedicated to the Emperor Meiji (the same “Meiji” who was in charge during the Restoration), and is an enormous complex including long wide forest pathways separating the different components.

Ali had a desire for a specific food craving she had heard about in adjacent Harajuku, a shopping district popular for modern youth culture. We passed this oddly named donut shop that had a 50 person line around the corner as we first entered the neighbourhood, which I thought was likely a bad sign for Ali’s desires. Sadly, she did not find what she was looking for, but Mary and I did come across a Takoyaki shop directly adjacent to one of my bucket list items for the trip, a Japanese Crepe Parfait.

This ended up being a somwhat poor choice for what ended up being my lunch and dinner, as by the time we made it the one hour journey back to our hotel via the subway, I was absolutely wrecked from jetlag and the onset of a cold, that I ended up crashing at 4:30pm for the night.

The next day, I woke up feeling a bit better, and decided to try to move around away from crowds, and signed up for Luup, a bicycle share service. They ended up being super awesome in both Tokyo and Kyoto, and although the transit system there is incredible, getting around on two wheels will always be my preferred way to travel.

Mary and I visited the mostly closed Imperial Palace area during the day, before making our way to Odaiba, a strange man-made island now home to some enormous mega-malls and large attractions, and also home to the Teamlabs interactive art exhibit we had tickets to check out that evening.

“Tokyo Big Sight”, an enormous convention center in Odaiba

TeamLabs Interactive Art Exhibit

We returned to Asakusa to enjoy the final hours of 2023. The Hatsumode festival at Senso-Ji was a whirlwind of attendees of all ages and nationalities, winding through row upon row of temporary food stalls. The line for the shrine itself extended as far as you could see, as people excitedly awaited their first blessing of the New Year. The air was filled with the delicious aroma of a huge variety of Japanese street foods. Although completely full from dinner, Mary and I sampled some Japanese seafood savory crepe dishes, as this trip we tried to run on the principal to eat as much food as was physically possible, regardless of hunger levels.

As the clock struck 12, a roar arose from the crowd. As this was a religious site and not Times Square, the only notable celebratory activity was the ringing of a gong, and the forward momentum of a massive crowd of practicing Buddhists shuffling towards the Shrine to bless the upcoming 365 days with good fortune.

Since none of us were practicing Buddhists, had our fill of busy streets and lines, and were all completely bagged after a very full day, we headed back to the hotel, wrapping up the year, and an awesome time in Tokyo.

The next morning, our plan was to take the Shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto, for a more subdued and traditional flavour of Japanese culture.

Bryan Jones 12/6/23 Bryan Jones 12/6/23

Winter 2023 Highlights

My 2022/2023 winter season felt like it played out a bit like a Greek tragedy. A series of rather comedic errors kept me off the slopes for a significant portion season, following a nasty and persistent herniated disc at Burning Man. Apparently desert revelry can have its own share of musculoskeletal risks. Shortly after I felt fully recovered and gained more confidence on the hill, an unseen patch of ice at Whistler sent me tumbling like Sisyphus’ boulder right into a tree, causing a mid-severity MCL tear.

The snowflake spirits whispered, “Hubris, mortal. Hubris.”

Fortunately, in the final act, the Gods took pity on me (or maybe it was the Peptides?), and I regained the strength to tick off a local classic, the Spearhead Traverse, to finish off the season.

Early in the season, I spent a solid day up at the local Squamish Sledneck Snow Club, Brohm Ridge, with Sterls and Dylan, rooping (yes, that’s a verb) and noboarding (also a verb). The holy trinity of pow, sun, and the mid-week lack of crowds made great toppings to spread on top the deep dish pizza of a gorgeous ridgeline off Nch’Kay.

In early Winter with the shorter days, on the rare occasions that you can actually see it, the sun treats you to an hours long sunset as the consistent low angle creates a beautiful color effect across the sky. As a local resident, it is hard to beat the incredible view from Brohm Ridge down into Howe Sound and the town of Squamish. The contrast of colors and light shades create a surreal and ethereal effect.

It’s hard not to feel a sense of tragedy when contemplating the possibility of yet another ski hill taking over this pristine area. While I generally oppose the idea, I recognize that there may be some positive aspects to consider.

Sharing this area and that view that I love so much with a wider audience is a positive thing. Local families I talk to are very excited and will appreciate an alternative to Whistler for skiing, and I imagine I will utilize it if it’s right there. Access to Garibaldi (soon to be Nch’Kay?) Park on skis will be incredibly easy, for mountaineering and ski touring around the Warren Glacier.

Clearly this is a real estate opportunity first and foremost. The weather and the terrain is not suitable for an elite ski hill, and with warming temps, this is only going to worsen over time. Deforestation and the impact on local resources, and potential increase in the cost of living of an already extremely difficult place to find a home. Numerous objections make it clear to most that generally speaking, this is not in the interest of the many.

Regardless of personal opinion, it seems a Squamish local ski hill we shall have indeed. Let’s hope it’s managed reasonably well, and that the benefits of introducing more people to this beautiful area outweigh at least some of the drawbacks.

The 1970s built Brohm Chalet can be seen down the hill in the background. This could look VERY different in just a few years.

I received an invite from Sterling to head into Marriott Basin and the Wendy Thompson hut with a solid crew, which is hard to turn down. Carrying an overnight pack with a few more beers and liters of wine as was sensible definitely pissed off my lower lumbar for a time after that, but a great weekend was had with some great lads (and lass).

A good demonstration of snowboarders having all the style

I think JS linked 17 spreadies + daffies in about 30 seconds on this run

What’s now become a bit of an annual tradition, Mary and I headed to the interior for Giles’ birthday, which managed to coincide with a brutal cold spell in the Interior. Mary and I spent a nice few days in Revelstoke remote working, skiing the resort on a busy but fun pow day in frigid temps, an awkward time spent learning to cross country skate ski, and some smaller hikes/tours.

When Giles made it up to Chase and Nicki’s place in Albert Canyon, we went out for a beautiful yet also savagely cold (-25) tour in Rogers Pass to try to ski a classic zone, Puff Daddy. The views were incredible, but we had difficulty finding the right line as it was just way too cold to be fumbling around with phones to route find, but had a great day regardless.

The rest of the crew arrived in Albert Canyon, and we had a fun day tour in Rogers Pass on McGill Shoulder with a larger group in slightly warmer conditions. Still too cold to for much photography!

The following photo series is a visual representation of Ali’s opinion on splitboarding 😂

Parking lot apres - good times with friends on Giles’ birthday

The outdoor kitchen that Chase and Nicki built is incredible! Had an awesome pizza party that night to celebrate.

The back was feeling strong by the end of the Revelstoke trip, but fate had another plan in place. Nearing the end of a great resort day up at Whistler, I hit a patch of ice popping out of the trees, and slid knee first into a solid mountain fir. I had thought I had dislocated it at first, as the pain was incredible, but managed to limp down the hill on my own.

6 weeks of rehab and slow recovery later, the carrot of a final proper mountain adventure for the season was too strong to resist. The 34km long Spearhead Traverse puts you an awfully long distance away from, well, anything, so it was definitely a risk dragging a partially recovered knee injury deep into the Coast Mountains. Fortunately, the Spearhead Traverse is essentially a very long, mostly non-technical walk on skiis. In ride mode, your knees are well supported for the down, so you don’t have the concern about unexpected lateral movement in the knee joint that skiers do.

Mikey and Dev were keen to try to sneak this in at the very end of Blackcomb’s lifts being operational, and a short weather window meant we had to look at a long day push instead of an overnight.

My assessment ended up being sound, and the traverse was phenomenal. The idea of a really long “fast and light” push in a day, instead of taking your time on an overnight is a debated concept with these types of objectives. It’s hard to walk past all these incredible remote ski lines, as you have to just keep grinding forward to complete the traverse in a reasonable amount of time. This was my first experiment with this concept on a splitboard.

The day exceeded all expectations. The incredible feeling of moving fast and efficiently, deep into the remote reaches of a mountain range, was absolutely exhilarating. On a high alpine traverse like the Spearhead, roughly each hour is distinct from the last, as you travel across one expansive glacier, gain a ridge or col, and descend onto the next one, with each having its own awe inducing character.

The traverse takes you across 13 distinct glaciers, many of them enormous in scale, up and over 11 mountain passes, all above treeline, with stunning views into the vast and almost entirely empty regions of the area. We were all definitely pretty wrecked by the time we pulled into Whistler village at 11pm, roughly 13 hours after we started.

Still within the resort boundary, on the Blackcomb Glacier. First transition of many for the day

Shredmaster bringing the steeze as always

Adventurous animal tracks, not sure what kind?

Trorey Glacier - feelin’ fresh at this point, but questioning the amount of camera gear being carried

A short bootpack to gain the Pattison Ridge. The final Spearhead Hut will eventually be located here.

On/near the MacBeth Glacier, looking out towards the much more remote and less travelled McBride Range. The middle Spearhead Hut will be in this area, expected to begin construction in Summer 2024.

Cheakamus Mountain and the Diavolo Glacier

Looking back to the start of the journey from the Overlord Glacier, the far left on the ridge is Blackcomb. We had the best turns of the day here, with quality thigh deep powder on its sheltered North aspect. Mikey, in his exhaustion, somehow managed to forget one of his skins on his skiis for part of the descent!

Looking down at the end of the route from the Fissile-Whirlwind Col. The Kees and Claire Hut can be seen middle right. Sadly the snow quality deteriorated significantly here, so the final downhills were not at all enjoyable.

As we planned to avoid the often brutal Singing Pass trail exit, we still had to walk/ski all the way to the further end of the visible ridge to access Whistler resort for the ski out.

We refilled our water at the hut, and by the time we left, it was well past dark, and so we finished the final hours of the exit by headlamp grinding out of Singing Pass, and making the long gradual traverse back to the Whistler ski boundary.

Useful map of the route showing the extent of the glaciation.

Route finding and travel was all straightforward, as this is a well trodden path when the conditions are right. It was a long day, but enjoyable throughout, and a flavor of adventure I’m now very excited to explore more in the future.

It was a rather emotional day for me, after a long haul of physical pain and injury the previous 8 months kept me out of the mountains for a significant chunk of time. In addition to whatever physical damage and subsequent pain you’ve incurred, the spirit takes a significant bashing too, which can often feel even more challenging to manage and treat.

Fortunately, the mountains are always there, ready for your next adventure. Never take your physical health for granted, and get out there and explore as much as possible while you can!

Bryan Jones 11/19/23 Bryan Jones 11/19/23

Trophies, Turns, and Tartiflette

Our backcountry ski trip to Discovery Hut in Winter 2022 lead Mary to fall in love with the area and the experience, and so plans were immediately put in place to run our own trip with a Squamish contingent the following year. She was able to secure a slot over the Christmas holidays at the alternate “Trophy Hut”, managed under the same operator, Wells Gray Adventure.

Trophy has a similar character to Discovery, with a cozy, well equipped cabin including a small sauna for post ski rehabilitation. The ski terrain is similar to Discovery, with fantastic abundant and varied tree skiing. Trophy has the advantage of having a lot of easy skiing descending essentially from the cabin itself. Lower angle open glades also presented plenty of options for the group’s varied powder skiing skill levels on this trip.

Another advantage of Trophy Hut is the fact that it is fairly easily accessible without the need of a helicopter for access, unlike Discovery. A fun snowcat ride deep up a valley driven by the legendary owner/operator of Wells Gray Adventures, Ian Eakins, drops you at a short 1 hour skin up to the cabin itself. Ideally, you have a single helicopter flight bring in your food and drink for the week, and then the skin is an easy one with a daypack only. It also ends up being quite economical compared to multiple helicopter flights, and you are not dependent on flying conditions to access the hut, like what happened to us at Discovery previously, ending up stuck in the town of “often-not-Clearwater”.

In this instance, we had no issues getting in ourselves, but our supply heli flight was grounded, and so we were forced to make the agonizing choice about how much booze and snacks we would need to carry in with us for an indeterminate amount of time while we waited for a suitable weather window for the pilot to fly in.

I’m honestly not sure if you can get much more “first world problem” then that…

In the end, pilot Ken was able to fly our food and bagged wine in the next day, thus avoiding the chaos and cannibalism that otherwise would have certainly ensued.

It was a stellar trip. The snow was great and stable, everyone brought their A-game for cooking fantastic group meals, and celebrating the start of 2023 on the side of a mountain in a cozy hut was a blast. Champions were made and crowned in the Wells Gray classic dice game.

All the meals were terrific, but extra credit is due to Joe and Beth for their absolutely insane tartiflette they put together on their dinner night. It may have not finished until around 930, but everyone agreed it was worth the wait for the litre(s?) of heavy cream and 3 large wheels of brie that contributed to the overtly rich French carb fest.

As a new experience for a number of the crew, the stoke level was very high. The terrain is pretty much ideal for the more beginner backcountry skiers, with simple terrain surrounding the hut on all aspects. Though there are some fun pillows and steeper trees in the area as well for more advanced runs.

Will definitely be back!

Bryan Jones 10/23/23 Bryan Jones 10/23/23

Waking Dreams: Burning Man 2022

What to say about that big festival in the Nevada desert…

It is a serious challenge to describe this strange and wonderful event without ending up mired in, much like an Opulent Temple port-o-potty line at 1am, a long uncomfortable stretch of cliches. My apologies to 2023 attendees: I understand the use of the term “mire” surrounding Burning Man could be triggering for some.

To clarify, in my joke above, no stones are being cast, for I am not without sin, shamelessly flaunting cozy fun fur jackets, bright tutus, and leopard print… everything. I believe I currently own more pairs of “meggings” (that’s “mens leggings” for the uninformed) than regular pants, numerous heart shaped sunglasses, and steampunk/steampunk-adjacent attire, adorned both in and out of various porto lines across the playa since 2011.

I absolutely love it, and although I will likely only continue to attend “the big one” sporadically, for a few reasons I’ll touch on, I hope some flavour of the Burning Man experience is a part of the rest of my life.

I’m not quite sure what drew me initially, but I’ve always been interested in various aspects of counterculture movements. A lot of this initiated around music, an early obsession with the sound and story of classic rock, and the surrounding cultural movement that represented a break from the mainstream to explore the further reaches of artistic expression, often underpinning a message for social change. This expanded to include periods of history like the early punk scenes of New York and London, the political hip hop movement of the late 80s that continues strong today, as well as modern rave culture.

All represented a significant break from what came before it. A rejection of the status quo, and often, the rules and regulations that inhibited their radical expression, and in some cases, their very livelihood.

A deep respect for these movements instilled a propensity to question common practices and outdated ideas, and promote new and progressive ones. I’m far from an anarchist or libertarian. I think the answer to bad government is better government. Same goes for policing.

But let’s make sure we continue to get better.

And sometimes that takes dramatic action, outside the box thinking, and, on occasion, a healthy dose of mind expansion.

Burning Man’s origins are tied to a San Francisco group called the Cacophony Society, an avant garde collective ranging from the die hard anarchist to more playful pranksters that enjoyed a good bit of revelry. After outgrowing their welcome on the beaches of San Francisco in the late 80s, they moved to a topography more apt for the wilder and chaotic sides of free expression.

I’m far from an expert on the history of this event, so I shouldn’t attempt to describe what the scene and intentions were like back in the early days. But as legend goes, it was definitely an experiment in the extreme; a truly lawless environment. The few close friends I know that attended back as early as 1998 definitely attest to this, and the common catch phrase that remains today - “Safety Third” - likely had a significantly heavier weighting to it back then.

It remains pretty damn wild and chaotic, but with enough structure in place to create a relatively safe environment required for the now roughly 70,000 attendees. Personally, I’m okay that a level of freedom needed to be sacrificed to restrict automatic weapons being fired by intoxicated individuals from the back of racing pickup trucks. But to each their own I guess, and this newfound cap on the limits of “free expression” certainly rubbed some of the early hard cores the wrong way.

September 5th, 2015 - Terrible photo, but one helluva birthday party

I believe my earliest introduction was in 2005, on a backpacking trip on the Juan De Fuca trail with my University hiking club. I met an Australian on the trip who ended up being my introduction to a truely committed global wanderer. He also had an excellent blog that was early inspiration to start my own digital diary, and one such entry documented his trip to a strange event in the Nevada desert. It included descriptions of wondrous art, incredibly kind and open people, wild parties, and a truly unique and incredible experience. I was hooked, and although it took me another 6 years to actually make the long journey to the Northwest Nevada, I followed news articles and photo journals studiously every September.

Fortunately, we had our own strange and magical modern age counterculture scene here in British Columbia. In 2003 I attended my first Shambhala Music Festival, at the ripe young age of 18. The wonderful Lyster brothers mentioned it to me when I returned to BC for my second year of University, and as I’m pretty consistently a ‘yes’ person when it comes to the threat of a good time, I jumped on the opportunity and we drove out to the Kootenays to experience a new world I was completely unaware existed.

If you know, you know, when it comes to Shambhala, but at the time, it was a true life changing experience for me. It introduced me to a wonderful, loving community of good time seekers, the joy of youthful play and silliness well into adulthood, and spawned a deep love and appreciation for a wide range of electronic music that has really only grown to this day.

In 2011, a group of 8 close friends including those same Lyster bros, all piled into a rented RV to drive down to Nevada. Burning Man was still there, waiting to provide a significantly larger scale, more dynamic, more mature, and somehow even more silly version of that experience, and once again, caused a profoundly dramatic affect on my life and world view.

I could go on and on about the specific areas that represent catalysts for these affects. The sharing community, an appreciation of new forms of arts and culture, the energetic power of large groups of humans in synchronized joy and harmony. I have observed the residue of this state of consciousness in myself, and many of the attendees, spreading outward in our common lives back home.

Likely the ethos of Burning Man was part inspiration for our dear friend and avid Burner, Reza Marvasti’s incredible non-profit, “The Power of Play”. Play brings joy and happiness that echoes out through peoples lives, and into those surrounding them. People thrive and, I think, operate at their best in these conditions.

And, who am I kidding… I do love a good party.

And oh boy, Burning Man is definitely that.

The Burn is not without it’s share of problems. And no, I’m not talking about environmental factors such as the flooding that occurred in 2023. Ideally, you should be reasonably prepared for these types of events, and although it dampens the good time temporarily, to me it is not a major call for alarm or questioning the entire program.

Primarily, for me, the issue of this event is around the ecological challenge of having a 70,000 person event where a large percentage of attendees fly around the world, rent large RVs, and drive into an off grid location, that requires the constant hum of 1000s of generators to literally keep the lights on, and the party moving. Add on to that art cars constantly jettisoning enormous amounts of fuel simply for the (very true) fact that “flamethrowers look cool”.

At least it seems that most people have figured out that the 7.4 minutes of life you get out of EL-Wire lights was likely not a good use of resources in recent years.

It’s unfortunate, but it’s kinda just how things are there, and it’s difficult to see that changing anytime soon. You may disagree with me, but a sustainable form of society it certainly is not. As a microcosm of the larger world, I hope that our advances in battery tech, etc. trickle down to address some of these problems along with our larger issues of climate change.

The Org has also reached a difficult position with the purpose and direction of the festival. It’s difficult to accept massive sums of fundraising money from billionaires, and not have to twist a few rules that make up some of the core ethos of the event. This trickles down to a more local level, with the issue of the “turnkey” camps being difficult to manage, as wealthy people will pay for this experience, and especially the larger, more elaborate, high budget camps, require the capital to make their show happen.

Saying all that, of course I do think it brings more good than bad, and it has brought significant inspiration to many a wealthy modern philanthropist. The ‘leave no trace’ ethos is generally kept as religious commandment, violation a cardinal sin, and implemented very well by individual camps and the post clean-up, literally sweeping the entire 16 square km area. The Org is involved with many sustainability projects outside the event, building solar arrays for the local town of Gerlach, and a variety of other initiatives. They are tracking ‘green camps’, which I’m proud to say our camp in 2022, “Planned Playahood” was awarded with some accreditation for the work we did in this space (waste management, bike repair, car pool organization, participant involvement, etc.).

I imagine there are countless social initiatives directly spurred from this event, and I could go on and on here about the positive affects, but I did want to share this challenge I see that puts a damper on the larger event for me. The growing numbers of regional Burns arguably provide similar positive impacts without the same format which creates such an environmental challenge, and so it’s great to see these continue to grow and thrive. For a variety of reasons, many people I talk to now prefer these smaller gatherings to the main event.

Speaking of Planned Playahood, camping with this incredible group was one of the standout features of Burning Man 2022 for me. I had not been a part of a larger organized camp (we were roughly 100 people aged from 6 to 80(!)), with meal plans, and significant infrastructure.

One of our primary purposes was as a women’s reproductive health resource, as we have a number of health practitioners that were able to bring various tools and resources to our camp to provide guidance and assistance where needed. This felt particularly relevant as the US had just decided they felt 50 years of progress wasn’t really the Supreme Court’s jam, overturning Roe V Wade, and reversing the ability for women to reliably receive abortions and other forms of reproductive health in many conservative states.

What the actual fuck America?

This was our special service to the playa, though we also advertised a full bike repair shop open every day, wedding officiant services by the legendary Doctor Z, a great bar and sound system for funky house parties most afternoons, and of course, a Museum of DilDon’ts, because, well, it’s Burning Man, and it’s fucking hilarious. The museum represented a culmination of efforts throughout the camp to bring together many objects of various shapes and sizes that should NOT be inserted into anyone’s… well, you should get the idea.

Mary and I were a part of a team for dinner duty for one night, which was a ton of fun, and an interesting challenge to cook a healthy and delicious meal in the middle of the desert for 100+ people.

Does this look like enough broccoli for 110 people?

The camp is made up of a terrific group of humans, many who were previously introduced to me by Mary, who had camped with this group for many years, even running as camp mayor once, which is no easy task! It was an absolute treat to get to camp there and experience what it was like to build a larger collective camp.

It’s an insane amount of work! Major kudos to all of the core group that makes it happen, in this, and all other camps. If you don’t know, most things that make Burning Man, well, Burning Man, is brought, built, and paid for, by individuals and collective groups. Key infrastructure, the Man itself, and a unique iteration of a spiritually focused “Temple” each year is what is covered by the ticket and built by Burning Man itself. Everything else you see is shared by the attendees themselves.

Four days before the event officially opens, we’ve driven into an entry line that is already quite long, as 10,000+ early entry ticket holders descend on the playa to start their own build and setup for their respective camps. Even before they’ve got their wristband, people are ready to perform.

The camp build was actually a ton of fun. All “back of house” needed to be shaded for camping and the kitchen/dining, as was the front of house for bar and dance floor. There was a classic geodesic dome that housed one of Mary’s key contributions to camp: “The Lady of Shorn Beaver”, a giant female form to provide the dome with an entrance/exit ‘birth canal"‘. And a cool swing for the front corner that made for a great spot to finish the night before retiring, taking in the view out to the open playa.

It was super hot, windy, and dusty, I absolutely destroyed my back, and it was a ton of work for 3-4 days, but was incredibly fun the entire time, with a great, well organized team.

I also took part in building an approved piece of art to be displayed out in the open playa. Apparently I’m technically part of a San Francisco art collective now, which is rather hilarious. I really should investigate whether there are any lucrative tax benefits associated with being a member of “The Goodest Boys and Girls Art Collective”…

Our dear friends, and camp mates, Luke and Lisa, lost their wonderful pitbull mix Charlie in the previous year, and Neal “constantly-scheming-a-heartfelt-surprise” Gottlieb organized a special piece to commemorate his life, all other dog’s lives, and apparently anyone named Charlie’s lives too.

My small contribution was building a dog house to keep a signing book for people to record memories of their beloved pets. Neal spent an inordinate amount of time building an incredible scaled up replica dog collar that Charlie used to wear.

It was a beautiful and tearful moment as the whole camp walked out with Luke and Lisa to surprise them with the gift. Luke coincidentally was even wearing his Charlie underwear!

Planned Playahood day parties

Deep playa random martini bar with a velvet rope and table service

A big highlight art piece from this year was “Paradisium”. An enormous grove of reclaimed wood-built “trees”. It was hard to capture, but the attention to detail was incredible in some of the individual trees you could climb up and inside.

The daily afternoon party at Dementha (“Mint, Music, and Misting”) was a saviour during this particularly hot year, as they had a ton of misting hoses, unlimited delicious Mojitos (all bars are open/free at the Burn), and good daytime house music:

Dinner prep

New (I think?) since I had previously attended in 2015 was Golden Guy Alley, a Nevada desert take on Tokyo’s Golden Gui district. A super cool narrow alley network of unique bars pack the better part of an enormous block.

As we were leaving Golden Guy, we heard reports of an impending thunderstorm. 2023 attendees really learned that this can mean a significant emergency situation, but even in 2022, we still took heed and booked it back to the safety of camp. Neal, rightfully not trusting the roofing job I did on Charlie’s dog house, booked it to rescue the booklet in a dust storm, and came back proud and disheveled saving the day.

One of our many awesome day parties - “Funk the Supreme Court”

Longtime camp member Jurgen (left) all the way from Austria on his 80th birthday!

The infamous “Beam”

It’s hard to beat the magic of a Burning Man sunrise

Especially with delicious bubbly from Neal and Limor’s excellent wine collection!

With fresh breakfast sandwiches served up!

I had attended Neal and Limor’s official wedding back in the Spring. It was an great event on a beautiful property owned by friends and fellow Planned Playhood-ites John and Natalie outside Mariposa near Yosemite. But never one to shy away from an opportunity for romance, a Neal and Limor playa wedding was held and officiated by Dr. Z at the Good Boy Charlie.

Squamish hometown hero Andrea (The Librarian)

Campmates from the San Francisco bluegrass scene put on a great show at Centre Camp

The Temple

It was very special to be back there with Mary, who I had attended the Burn with 9 years earlier as friends in 2013. To avoid the possibility of vomit splashing across phones and monitors, I’ll spare you any sappy analogies to “Waking Dreams”, which was Burning Man’s official theme that year. But needless to say, it was an absolute treat exploring that wild and crazy place together.

This turned into a longer post than anticipated, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… Honestly, I could go on and on. As I suspected, avoiding cliches was an impossibility.

We were there for 12 days that year, and so I’ve left out a ton of stories, special pieces of art, interactions, moments, names, etc. In that time I had so many meaningful connections with so many different individuals, that I just can’t list them all here.

I’m not sure when I’ll go back, as it’s sounding like it’s not really on the table for 2024. The regional events and our own variations here in BC are adequate replacements. But that “Power of Play” energy - to live weird and silly for as long as you do, lives on. Promote art, new music, and fashion. Share new progressive ideas and promote social change. Build cool shit, and maybe just burn that same cool shit right back down.

And there are still plenty of opportunities to wear those meggings.

Bryan Jones 10/15/23 Bryan Jones 10/15/23

2022: Socially Acceptable Gatherings and Personal Growth in a Post Pandemic World

2022 was a weird and wonderful year.

It represented a transition back from the grip of a global pandemic, and I think it took some time for many people to adjust back to previous ways of life. The lock down really shifted a lot of people’s perspectives, social habits, and general life focus. Myself definitely included.

Reflecting back on the year as I write this now, in late 2023, this really was a hugely pivotal period in my life, as many seismic shifts took place during these years. As I haphazardly flung my way towards what is commonly referred to as “middle age”, an abrupt and jarring global “ctrl-alt-del” provided time and space to look inward, and to try and figure shit out.

In late 2021, I was able to move back into the Thunderbird house after roughly one year completing the renovation. The project was a success, albeit an expensive one (Helpful reminder from 2023 Bryan to 2021 Bryan: variable rate loans are, in fact, variable). One massive unplanned bonus was that I was moving back into the house with a new roommate: the brilliant, beautiful, and beyond inspiring, Dr. Mary Pines.

All of this coming together, along with a great community of new/old friends here in Squamish, set the groundwork for a period of significant change, and I believe, growth in mental and physical health space. It was some of the most challenging years of my life, as I forced myself to move away from my standard escapism techniques of self deprecation, substance abuse, and generally keeping myself overwhelmingly busy. It felt like for the first time in my life, I had the time, space, and maturity, to properly work on myself.

It feels a bit ironic to write this here, as when I look through the photos and events that took place over the course of 2022, it sure seems like I was keeping myself very busy. But the pace was definitely slower and more mindful. Having a stable home living situation made a huge difference, as did having some semblance of a routine for much of the year. My physical health improved significantly, particularly as I pulled back from a rising tide of substance abuse. Up until this period of my life, I was completely in the dark about preventative medicine, sleep, nutrition, supplements, and other key areas of health. Mary has done an incredible job educating me on these topics, and now when I look back, I am honestly shocked by my level of ignorance, and how I was treating myself.

A failure on my part, but I do feel this area is also a massive oversight in our current health care and education systems.

A lot of this stuff is definitely a part of age and maturity, and has little to do with pandemic-induced lock downs. I don’t want to downplay the devastating effect that COVID-19 had on the world, and individual health and happiness. But, reflecting back, one silver lining of COVID for me is that it provided an opportunity and space to begin a critical personal journey, and press that reset button. I feel like a significantly better person today, though it was a very difficult process involving plenty of counseling, meditation, habit breaking/forming, and a transition to embracing the dark and the challenging instead of running away.

I do owe my wonderful partner, now fiance, a huge amount of gratitude in supporting and guiding me along this path.

With all that out of the way, let’s get back to the good stuff.

2022 was filled with many wonderful experiences. It represented the first year of post-pandemic unrestricted social events, and boy were some of us missing those.

Sure, time at home reflecting on all your psychological bullshit can be good and all, but remember Burning Man?! Reliably booking travel without the overarching worry that a new viral wave would epidemiologically shit all over your plans!? Leaving your house without scrambling to find your last reusable face mask?! Dancing at a beautiful wedding?! Socially acceptable hut trips?! New deep connections and friendships?! Air travel with only the guilt of the ecological disaster that is air travel?!

Well, get ready 2022, cause it’s all back on the table, and it’s going to be exhausting!

Rogers Pass for Giles’ Birthday:

Costa Rica

Misc. Winter Activities

Neal and Limor’s Wedding in California, post road trip

Gulf Island kayak trip for Ryan’s bachelor

Misc summer adventures:

Marble Range with Mike and Audrey
Kootenay Roadtrip with Mary
Sky Pilot back in Squamish

Ryan and Blaze’s wedding

Festival Season! Shambhala and Bass Coast

Tofino

Maui with the Pines’

Bryan Jones 10/5/23 Bryan Jones 10/5/23

Discovery Hut - 2022

Hmm, I guess I really screwed myself over by finishing that last post… Now I feel a slightly elevated desire to keep this thing going.

I’ve got a bit of catching up to do, but there were some great trips in the interim between the Central Coast and now (October 2023), and so it feels a shame not to capture them here. I’m also 94% off social media these days, so it does feel important to capture some especially magical moments in some fashion beyond the opaque infinite that is “The Cloud”.

If I’m going to carry 47 fucking pounds of expensive camera gear up and down the mountains, I damn well should do something with the photos!

Disco Hut is a backcountry cabin in the Caribou Range north of Kamloops. It’s within a very small sub-range of mountains in Wells Gray Park, that gets consistent good cold snow as the first range east of the arid desert lands to the west. Ian Eakins has owned and run the Wells Gray Adventures for close to half a century now, building a series of 3 remote cabins starting in 1988 with his partner, Tay.

Ian is an absolute gem, and a pleasure to spend time with, which was fortunate as the weather grounded the subsequent heli rides after the first bird flew a 1/3 of our party in, and we were forced to enjoy the cultural experience that is Clearwater, BC for a few days.

I had been to a different Wells Gray Adventures hut, Trophy, twice previously, and absolutely loved the experience. As I’ve rambled about previously, it’s hard to beat a warm hut in the mountains after a terrific day of powder skiing, and the Wells Gray cabins have a sauna to really up the bougie-yet-rustic mountain experience. The mountains have less vertical relief than elsewhere in BC, making for quick up and down laps, with tree skiing being the name of the game, with well spaced tall and skinny old growth framing playful little gullies and chutes for safe and fun pow plundering.

To play a bit of catch up, and to save the world and my future self from having to read through paragraphs of mediocre metaphors and poor prose, once again, the photos will do most of the talking here.

Ian likely regaling us with some epic story from the Himalaya

It’s seems practically impossible for Dylan to sit still for any lengthy period of time, so he decided to show off his artistic skills while we waited for the heli to arrive on the last day. It worked especially well, as the shaft created a runway of sorts that Ken the pilot enjoyed navigating his bird down to land right where I’m standing in photo #2. Apparently, he almost crashed the helicopter he was laughing so hard!

Bryan Jones 10/4/23 Bryan Jones 10/4/23

When you lose your lemons in the king tide…

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”
–Henry David Thoreau

This quote from Thoreau was the inspiration for the name of this site, though I adapted a more modest variation (admittedly driven by the availability of domain names at the time). The goal with this page was an attempt at documenting the actualization of various lofty dreams and adventures that I am extremely fortunate to experience.

It can take quite some time and effort developing this foundation. But sometimes, stupid carelessness, a bit of bad luck, and the relentless force of nature just not giving a flying fuck about your pathetic emotional needs, can pull the castle from your grasp and slip away.

I struggled quite a bit writing this, as I’m extremely hard on myself when it comes to what I perceive as my failures, which happens more than I care to admit. But in the end, I do believe that Mary and I heeded the words of “The Judge” well in this case, building a solid foundation under a lot of hard work, and we were able to experience an incredible (mis)adventure to the incredible Central Coast of BC.

The plan was to drive from our home in Whistler to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, where we would walk our kayaks onto the North Coast ferry, disembarking at Bella Bella. From there we would spend a week exploring the Hakai Conservancy at the northern section, building up strength and confidence to tackle the much longer, and less aesthetic, second half of the journey back to Port Hardy where we were parked.

We gave ourselves 2 weeks to paddle the roughly 150 miles/240kms, which was quite leisurely, and accounted for around 4-5 rest and exploration days. After only a week, we were cruising back to our starting point, on a significantly faster boat provided by the Canadian Coast Guard and, most likely, your tax dollars. We had somehow managed to miss securing the boats properly, and a full moon king tide decided to change our trip plans significantly, dragging our boats out sea in the night.

I was absolutely devastated by this mistake, with months of trip planning out the window. I’m trying once again to finish up this post and move on much later, in the dark hours of the dark month of January 2023, after a number of false starts. So now, years later, I’m forcing myself to write this as an acknowledgement to myself that it’s okay to take risks and make mistakes.

Besides one notable exception, the trip was still absolutely incredible. Perfect, isolated paddling around a remote BC coastline of the Hakai offering up incredible narrow channels, pristine sandy beaches, and abundant wildlife. By far the best paddling I’ve ever experienced, and I’m so excited to return some day.

On top of that, when we bade adieu to the friendly Coast Guard in Bella Bella/Shearwater, our adventure had not yet come to its conclusion. While drinking away sorrows on the marine pub patio in Bella Bella/Shearwater, a friendly captain of a sizable yacht heard our story and took pity on us, offering us a ride back to Port Hardy in style, and much better equipped than our floating body coffins we decided to gift to the Pacific. We then spent four days cruising around the inside passage, enjoying great food, terrific company, and elite level salmon fishing in some incredible spots. Likely more than we deserved!

On returning to Port Hardy and checking our messages, we learned that somehow, local Bella Bella Canadian Iconic author, Ian Mcalister, had found our boats! This was particularly fortunate, considering they were rentals, and I’d spent a good chunk of the previous days considering how best to approach this conversation with the rental agency.

“Gone?”

“Yes, gone.”

“How?”

“Well, you didn’t explain to us properly that they float when we’re not in them as well”

The wonderful Coast Guard was even going to get help bring them on the ferry back to Port Hardy, and we simply needed to wait another 5 days until they would be delivered back to us.

Not bad.

Feeling a minor amount of consolation, we decided to head to the west coast of Vancouver island and spent a few days camping at San Josef Bay, and finished by treating our damp souls to a few nights at a BnB near Port Hardy where non other than the legend John Cleese has made regular visits to.

When I look back on it, it’s ridiculous to think about how difficult and dark this time was for me, as the weight of failure pressed down hard. Waves of self-doubt were difficult to push away. Fortunately, I had the ever cheerful and supportive Mary with me, who was absolutely incredible the entire time.

“Autobiography,” George Orwell once wrote, “is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful…since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

So with this in mind, I’ve kicked back up my Squarespace subscription, and will once again try to use this space to document my life in all it’s glory, as well as a few of its disgraceful defeats.

It’s time to lay some foundation under one castle that managed to drift away.

It has taken way too long to complete this, and I’ve definitely exhausted my ‘foundation’-related metaphors anyways, so I’m going to let the photos do the talking here for the trip. Looking back through these images, it really does elicit a deep feeling of gratitude; that I was able to experience this journey. To have looked back on this as a “failure” for so long seems misguided in hindsight, and in the subsequent years, my mental health has taken significant strides in the areas self-worth and gratitude, which felt like a downward spiral in many ways for a significant part of my adult years.

Maybe that can be a benefit of pushing things out beyond your limit, shaking you to your core, and triggering a period of growth.

Saying that, I still think 'I’ll aim to keep things safe and simple, and always tie up the damn boats…

We had a wonderful day of paddling on the journey out to the coast. A full day of 18km of class calm channels like these.

Moving on to faster boats…

It was a treat to spend a few days with the crew of Son Seeker. Captain Shawn was a recovering alcoholic and gambler turned born again Christian, who was returning from a trip to Haida Gwaii. His elderly father, pushing 90, was on board, and was quite hung over on our first day, as he was still a drinker, and had gotten deep into the wine on shore serenading the waitress when we last saw him. Jim was the father’s childhood friend, and was a born wild BC industry man, with endless stories and great cheer.

They all were incredibly kind and I’m extremely grateful for their hospitality, as it was exactly what we needed as a distraction for a few days.

One brief incident occurred when we motored over to check out a famous fishing spot, the Wall, at the mouth of Rivers Inlet. As Shawn was trying to get the tender ready for fishing, he left me in charge of manning the helm, which left me quite nervous. I watched the depth sounder as we drifted in the bay start to dip down… and down.

“10 metres…”

…

“7 metres Shawn…”

…

“5 metres Shawn!”

….

“3 METRES!!!!”

Shawn: “That can’t be right! We’re miles from shore!”

At that moment, the ship stopped its forward momentum and listed to the side slightly… I knew we we had run aground. Shawn didn’t believe me at first, but went into panic mode as soon as he noticed the list.

My first thought of course was that it would be the same kind folk from the Canadian coast guard that would come rescue us, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it when they learned who was at the helm…

Fortunately, Shawn, was able to back off, and the boat didn’t sink, so I assume no significant damage was done…

San Josef Bay on Cape Scott

And finally, reunited with our boats in Port Hardy.

Bryan Jones 7/26/21 Bryan Jones 7/26/21

Sullying Gullies

Mike, Giles, Mary, and I were lining up a mid-week powder harvesting mission in March to coincide with the tail end of a storm. Double up on the sleds into a backcountry cabin or camp out, based on what was available and… acceptable, during this socially awkward period of human history. I’m not the most enamoured person with winter camping, and so my eyes were set on getting into a backcountry hut somewhere, but COVID-era rules made the logistics of planning such an endeavour rather difficult…

I had purchased a wood stove for my canvas tent that would serve as a nice base camp option, so I loaded that up in the truck, along with a loose plan to investigate the parking area of a known spot with a few hut options, and, if things looked promising, we would try to get a proper roof over our head, knowing that if it was locked or busy we had an alternative option.

We received some last minute info on a suitable spot that was open to respectful visitors, so we set our sights there, and would see how it goes.

Luck would have it that the parking lot was emptying out as we arrived, and so based on the info we received from the returning group, we left the tent gear at the truck, and ventured out to find a home for the week.

No mission of this kind is complete without unexpected delays and nighttime snowmobile stucks

We managed to take a wrong turn which lead to some impassable snowmobile terrain, which we struggled through until nightfall. Giles and I continued to try to explore on the sleds, while Mike and Mary started skinning. We quickly realized our obvious mistake at a slide path about a KM back down the FSR, righted our course, and arrived at the hut shortly after for beverages, an incredible new moon starry sky, and the rising excitement of exploring a new zone.

The next morning, we awoke to sunny skies and endless skiable terrain in ideal conditions, and so the stoke was high as we ventured out for our first morning explore.

Steep skinning in sun baked south slopes made for an exciting ascent up to our first lap

Hut life with good buds always delivers the highest of quality - food, tunes, and LOLs

Day 2 - Heading up into the alpine after a confidence inspiring warm-up day for avy conditions. Our destination ridge up top

Mountain chic look from the local Whistler gal

Mike looking like a proper skier these days!

Traversed up and over for the “cabin lap gully” to end the day

Puffy pants and some light reading equates to a happy dork

Squad looking good dropping into the final day of sullying. Thanks Dr. Pines for the snap!

We cruised out without any hassle, stopping to let Mike get a taste at the surprisingly difficult task of operating a 600 pound snowmobile in deep powder, which was a wonderful source of entertainment for the spectators. Surprisingly, it did nothing to quell his desire to have one sitting in his garage for the 2022 season (or more likely, parked on the side of my house).

All in all another solid trip, with the only blemish being the fact that on returning to the truck, someone had broken into the back and stolen my barely used wood stove and nice canvas hunting tent! After a trip like this, it’s hard to get upset about such things. “C’est La Vie” as the French would say.

With what we felt were an acceptable number of gullies thoroughly sullied, we returned back to reality, to start dreaming about the next trip.

Bryan Jones 5/28/21 Bryan Jones 5/28/21

Risky Business

“The two great risks are risking too much but also risking too little. That's for each person to decide. For me, not risking anything is worse than death.”

Legendary climber, photographer, and filmmaker, Jimmy Chin

I can safely state that appropriate and calculated risk taking has been one of the major catalyst for success and happiness in my lifetime. Many great experiences and professional achievements all come weighted heavily with a fear of the unknown, and the potential for failure. In countless cases over the years, through bad decisions or bad luck, those fears are realized and lead to failure. But even in many of these cases, learning and growth from these mistakes lead to a positive net change that help facilitate better decisions in the future.

I agree with Jimmy, that one of the scariest risks is not taking chances and opportunities now that lead to regret in the future. Opportunities that could have been taken were passed up, and since we only get one shot at life, those chances are forever lost.

My professional career path started with a giant risk undertaken at the incredibly naive young age of 17, when I made the decision to travel to Vancouver from Michigan to attend university at Simon Fraser University. Travelling that far away from home, from a sheltered suburban existence to a major city, considering how bad my decision making was at the time, was quite the gamble, and one I’m honestly somewhat surprised I survived.

Circa 2002: In 2021 I still haven’t figured out how to drink out of a wide mouth Nalgene without spilling all over myself

19 subsequent years of existence have seen many intense crossroads pass by. Good decisions were made, and many terrible ones too. But fortunately, the big risks have paid off, and I’m pretty stoked on the results.

One recent major risk was taking on a massive house renovation during a global pandemic, and putting all of my life in a storage container in the driveway, and moving Winston up to the Whistler RV park for the winter as my primary living space. I guess I never really like taking the simple road…

Fortunately, it was a gamble that came with a pretty decent view from thenew digs.

Existence was a bit wee lonely at times, cooped up in 80 square feet of living, but I had good company, a healthy stream of Rusty Nails to stay warm on cold nights, and plenty to keep entertained.

At the same time, the entire planet was undergoing an unprecedented experiment in risk management strategy. Governments across the globe were attempting to find an appropriate balance of health and safety focused restrictions, while maintaining economic standards. “COVID fatigue” had set in hard by this stage, though with vaccines on the way, there seemed to be a faint light at the end of the tunnel. In harsh contrast to this hope and anticipation, moving through the Fall and into Winter brought with it the anticipated “2nd wave” of cases, and forced a corresponding wave of additional lockdowns.

Individuals and families were forced to constantly analyze their own risk tolerances, and determine what activities and movements constituted “essential”. Political messaging on this topic, especially in British Columbia, was extremely vague and wrought with holes and mixed signals. It was a “say one thing, but mean another” tactic, putting the ball in the hands of the general public to follow these loose guidelines. Strict 14-day quarantine tracking for returning international travel was mandatory and “enforced”, though of course it was clear many were violating these rules. And “essential travel” domestically was an extremely vague concept, open to the individual’s interpretation.

This was especially clear here in Whistler, which received an intense amount of scrutiny throughout the pandemic, where the guidance on winter recreation was to “stay local”, and explicitly provided examples for lower mainland residences to keep to the North Shore mountains. Yet based on the regular traffic jams on 99 North heading into North America’s largest ski resort, it was clear that many felt this statement was open to interpretation.

I found myself regularly in that position, trying to determine a fair and reasonable balance of lifestyle and mental sanity, while reducing my own exposure.

Fortunately, in a dark and lonely November, habituated in my Whistler RV park residence, optimism was elevated, resting on the accumulations of delicate white snowflakes arriving with the changing season to blanket our beautiful surroundings. Signifying a fresh start, moving forward, and, more importantly, splitboarding.

It’s the most wonderful tiiiiiime, of the year: November 25th, 2020

The season kicked off with an obligatory sled-splitboard up Brandywine Meadows, testing out some new gear. I had finally made the move to a splitboard hardboot setup, which is essentially snowboarding in modified ski boots, a rather embarrassing concept, to be told. Maybe a more pragmatic man would have switched to skiing ages ago, but in a rare contrast to my typically over-analytic brain, clinical rationalism has been overwhelmed by the soul elevating ecstatic joy that is powder snowboarding.

And so I carry on the endless journey in search of gram-saving efficiencies in single plank backcountry winter travel.

Big props to Mike Holmes for upping his post-shred truck hosting game, during a unique season of limited capacity apres venues

With the Rossland Renegade back in town, plenty of opportunities for outdoor shenanigans presented themselves throughout the winter season. We managed to have an absolute banger of an early season day up Metal Dome, complete with a morning two-stroke meadow roop, and an afternoon of quality splitboarding. A full value day; one that reminds oneself why the snowmobile really is a useful money pit, albeit noisy/smelly/sensitive/expensive machine.

Unfortunately, reckless snowmobiling in early season conditions pours on a heavy dose of risk, of which I hit head on, literally, as shown in the video above. Thin coverage over rocks and trees lead to some surprises lurking under perfect fields of white magic, lulling into a false state of confidence. I found one of those lurkers which lead to a magnificent front flip with a stomped landing, coming away unscathed. Sadly, my humble steed was not so lucky, and it would take 6 weeks and a hefty repair bill before my snow machine was back in action.

Trailer Park views don’t get much better than this… Whistler-Blackcomb with Wedge Mountain standing tall behind, catching the early morning light.

Christmas was approaching, and so I gathered myself, Nootka, and a case of wine, descending from “Sky” to “Sea” in the Southern Gulf Islands to visit my parents, who had remained steadfast in their seaside retreat waiting out the storm of COVID-19. Leslie held to her tight restrictions on visitations throughout the winter months following the rise of the second wave, and so it was just the three of us enjoying some relaxing cabin time around the holidays.

Winter followed me down from the mountains, which provided unique photo opportunities on the typically temperate Mayne Island

An acceptable reward for an early morning start returning to the mainland

Part 2 of Christmas holidays were to be spent back in the Sea to Sky, where Mike and Audrey had graciously opened up their bubble and their fancy new Squamish townhome to take me in for a healthy mix of great food, chill hangs, and some quality shredding. To kick things off, Mike and I had a banger day touring over to Cowboy Ridge in the Whistler slackcountry, checking out the gorgeous new Kees and Claire Hut at Russet Lake on the way.

Mike takes ski touring extremely seriously

Pretty sweet place for a “hut”! Built to near-passive standards, this is the first of the new Spearhead huts, eventually one of three in a circuit of the definitive South Coast Mountain haute route, The Spearhead Traverse.

Mike experiencing pure bliss following a quality Cowboy lap with a celebratory blue cheese charcuterie. i.e. “Mike’s happy place”

Back down in Squamish, we spent a lovely few days nomming delicious food, playing lots of board games, and romped up the Chief. Mike and Audrey were wonderful hosts, even offering up their Christmas ham on Boxing Day to Nootka, who graciously seized an opportunity of human complacence to pull it off the counter in the kitchen, sampling its delicious glaze hidden from view behind the kitchen island, before Mike’s ears perked up and decided to reclaim it for a pea soup instead. Needless to say, Nootka was extremely grateful for the holiday offering, but Mike ‘Scrooge’ Martinsen took more of a “humbug” stance on this particular event.

In Nootka’s defence, it was a risky move, leaving a giant hunk of glaze-soaked pork resting on the edge of the kitchen counter to discuss stylistic interior design components of the living room. Nootka capitalized on a delicious opportunity to drive home the point: such critical decisions should not be made lightly, and without proper consideration for potential catastrophic consequences.

It was time to put Nootka’s sage lesson on appropriate risk assessment to practice back in the mountains. This round: a Blackcomb slackcountry mission with some new/old faces. “Definitely local Whistler residents” Ryan and Blaze came along for some self-inflicted mountain torture, on their first day out dragging a heavy snowboard around the mountains for very minimal actual snowboarding in quite some time. Former Smash Mountain resident, Dan “The Man” Okeefe joined up for the mission, our first shred together in quite some time (him and his partner, Lu, were my first tenants at the Squamish house). And the one and only Doctor Mary Pines, now a true Whistler local, rounded out the crew; the start of rekindling a close friendship many years and what feels like several lifetimes ago.

Inaugural splitboard day with the lovely Ms. Pines

The aesthetics of ski touring and the marks it leaves on the land provides a beauty of its own

The aesthetics of ski touring and the marks it leaves on the land provide a beauty of its own. The Whistler-Blackcomb backcountry sees a lot of traffic, but still facilitates rugged exploration in an incredible setting.

It was great to reconnect with new Father Dan, who I’ve been absolutely abysmal at staying in touch with over the years. He was dutifully patient during a relatively slow paced day filled with gear problems and the like. We managed to get some solid turns in, bailed on our primary objective, and was treated to an incredible sunset on our decent out back into the ski hill. Blaze was new to skinning, and as such lead to a rather comical situation on a downward sidehill traverse where he didn’t quite make the turn. His body position and Ryan’s dismayed look made for pretty excellent “caption this” photo.

On New Years Eve, Mike and I decided to check out a local classic area that neither of us had been to in the winter: Black Tusk and Garibaldi Lake. Generally disenchanted by the relatively long approach up the Rubble Creek switchback slog, it had never made it to the top of my list, but I had always wanted to explore the area and capture majestic Garibaldi Lake in the winter. It turned out that the slog up the switchbacks was not nearly as bad as anticipated, and we had a quality day heading up towards the Tusk until rapidly descending cloud cover forced us into a quick transition and a sub-optimal line choice down the slopes below.

After a long flat exit across the meadows, and a heinous ski down the Rubble Creek trail, we were back at the truck. It was a beautiful, long tour, that put my new hardboot splitboard setup to the test, which performed admirably.

10/10 would maybe sorta consider that tour again!

Is it frozen? Observing the South Coast Touring fb group meme in person as the clouds rapidly descend

I had purchased a “hot tent” setup for the winter, which involves a canvas wall tent combined with a portable wood stove, which ended up being a terrific example of poor judgement of risk (more on that later. Don’t worry, it didn’t involve fire), and so I was keen to explore some potential future winter camping sites. I convinced Mary to join me on the snow pony for an investigation of upper Hope Creek up the Hurley, and managed to get some rather steep and real deep turns after skinning up the Backcountry Snowcats terrain. The weather was gorgeous, the setting remote, and the company grand.

Riding roughly 40km each way to the start of the tour, it truly is amazing what a snowmobile can provide for accessing an infinite expanse of winter playgrounds in southwest BC.

Gearing up for the splitboarding besides a potential campsite

Heading up the Backcountry Snowcats access road saved us from trailbreaking up the 70cms of fresh coastal pow deposited over the previous week

A few days later, lifetime MEC staffer and Trophy Hut steward Stephen Paul and I coordinated on a sled-accessed trip up the Duffey Lake to a line I had skied previously up Caspar Creek. Snow quality was beyond excellent, though the lower sections were far from filled in, leading to a lot of classic “alder bashing” that provided a taste of rising insanity during the tour.

Random Lillouett locals demonstrating an interesting technique for full family adventures

Breaking through the alder towards Mt. Duke

Some tasty lines on “The Dutchess” across the valley

Things were plodding along at the homestead, with mostly just destruction and chaos to this point. The price of lumber had skyrocketed during COVID due to a reduction in supply due to disrupted shipping, and increased demand due to everyone being bored out of their fucking minds and re-building their already perfectly adequate houses. So it turned out to be an awful time to take this on, but it was a risk I knew I was taking at the time, and I had built in a lot of contingency into the budget.

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By late January, winter was truly upon us, and the enjoyment of a snow covered existence continued. Giles was getting restless waiting for a major storm to settle and lower the avalanche danger, so we used the snowmobiles to drag in some firewood and firearms to a beautiful spot along the Soo River for a fire, food, and reggae music jam.

The following day, we braved the mega deep for a roop around the flat meadows of Brandywine, taking advantage of the sled-in sled-out accommodations of the Whistler RV park. It was definitely deep, leading to plenty of face shots, very little visibility, and one absolute mega stuck when I managed to stick my snowmobile into a wall of snow leading to a 45 minute exhausting struggle moving a 600 pound snow machine six feet…

By Wednesday, the powder universe aligned in the holy trinity of sun, powder, and stable avalanche conditions. Life doesn’t get any better in my opinion, so it was an obvious choice to take a mid-week mission up my favourite zone in Squamish Valley, for a superb day of unbridled stoke and good times with a very solid and capable crew.

It’s days like this where snowmobiling as a sport in and of itself really shines, and although my love for the calm tranquility and slow pace of splitboarding can’t be topped, I have to admit that untapped sledneckery is a freakishly good time.

Mike Holmes always maintains a level of ultimate class in a backcountry setting

You’re probably having a good day with the south face of Mount Cayley as your backdrop

Turning south towards Squamish, Nch'Kay looms above

A rare true Squamish local legend, Spenny, demonstrating his own style of risk assessment through blatant disregard of a proper board carry protocol on a random booter — A rare true Squamish local legend, Spenny, demonstrating his own style of risk assessment through blatant disregard of proper board carrying protocol on a random booter

Dylan contemplating the meaning of life at the end of an all time day, taking in a Cloudburst Mountain bathed in alpenglow

When the going gets good, it’s good to keep going.

I’ve never been a “60 days at the resort” kinda guy; more akin to the nerdy stoner from Dazed And Confused sitting in the backseat of Matthew McConaughey’s car mumbling about “quality over quantity, maaaaan”. And when things are quality, I’m quick to completely shift my life to optimize these rare moments of powder sports alignment.

“There are no friends (or clients) on a powder day” as the saying goes.

Friday presented an opportunity to charge for a Duffey Lake classic: the “Million Dollar Couloir” on the North side of Cayoosh Mountain. Mary and I had been given the shake by Mike Holmes as he was pushing for a tough objective of his own, and wanted to keep his numbers small. I should have taken the hint, as we were to get a taste of group dynamics that is emblematic of the issues of larger untested groups of backcountry travellers.

Don’t get me wrong, this was an absolutely incredible tour, with stunning views, good turns, awesome new connections, and perfect weather, but it presented an interesting challenge in decision making and risk management.

Heading through the lower clearcuts up to Cayoosh. Our objective was up and over the rocky pointy peak on lookers right

Doctor Pines leading the charge, demonstrating her supplement-fuelled superhuman powers

Up into the alpine, heading for the snowy notch between rocks to the upper right of the photo, including a rather exposed traverse above a cliff band below

Beautiful view back down towards Mount Matier and Slalok across the valley

Decision making was difficult with an unknown group, as the access to the North side of Cayoosh necessitated some exposed travel on south-facing terrain that was getting hammered by the sun, with significant wet snow avalanche activity observed. Heavy doses of hesitation and clear signs of unpreparedness for the level of technicality of the tour was clearly expressed from a few in the party, which can be a very difficult thing to properly manage. We dug a snow pit on a NE facing slope to determine whether Million Dollar, on a similar aspect, would feel safe to ski. The results provided a bit of confidence for North slopes, with the sun baked South-facing aspects providing the most concern.

Fortunately, by the time we had reached the cruxy exposed south-facing traverse above cliff band, the sun had dropped behind the veil of Cayoosh peak, and closer assessment of the slope provided the confidence needed to safely proceed, and cut a path across the exposed slope above rocky cliffs.

When we approached the final stretch of access to the couloir which necessitated a “skis off” ridgeline scramble traverse of about 100 feet above high consequence cliffs on either side to access the line, it was clear that the party had divided views about the safety of the path ahead. The access was non-technical and straightforward, without avalanche hazard, but it is understandable that someone that was not prepared for such an exposed route would be unnerved. Watching a rather uncomfortable situation unfold with the uncertain parties in an obviously uncomfortable position being pushed to do something outside their comfort zone, Mary and I decided to lead an alternate party down the North glacier to provide a more comfortable exit alternative.

It was an extremely difficult decision, as when you set an objective for the day, it is very easy to set expectations and visualize the emotions and sense of achievement that comes with living through these types of “peak experiences”. Though there was still the unknown of the conditions within the couloir itself, and being late in the day, with a larger group lacking confidence in the terrain, it felt like the right thing to do to pivot to a less committing line, and provide an option for the less confident members of the group to safely descend.

The upper North glacier ended up providing some perfectly acceptable turns, and allowed us to access Million Dollar Couloir from lower down, which we suitably dubbed $500,000 Couloir. The first of our party to drop in set off a non-consequential-though-not-insignificant avalanche , and the second proceeded to immediately loose a ski and tomahawk down the rest of the 300 foot line… Ouch.

If that sort of scene happened at the true start of the line, this tale would have likely had a very different ending.

Luck would have it that everyone was okay, two of our party managed to successfully ski the full line with style and skill, and the descent back out to the highway was a fun romp with Mary “silly skiing” on our split boards through mature forest, joking about the ridiculous scene we had just witnessed. Tricky group dynamics aside, it was a phenomenal tour, and I was really loving the connection with Mary as a splitboard partner, which at this point had progressed to a romantic relationship as well.

(“Dating Friends”: Another bit of risky business that was apparently within my tolerances")

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Back at the homestead, things were plodding along. Framing was taking a seemingly infinite amount of time, and significant additional budget, as the engineering requirements, alongside insane increases in lumber costs, drove the time and money required to rebuild the structure of the house significantly.

Powder addiction in full swing, I was back out on Sunday to check out the Snowspider area with a solid crew including Giles, Sterling, Andrew Campbell, and a good buddy I had skied with before at Caspar, JS. It is quite the long journey to get out there, so we had a rather brief tour following a long snowmobile into the area, and were met with some very dicey avalanche conditions, but it was an enjoyable exploratory day regardless. Kudos to JS for carrying a whopping total of six tall cans of beer in his backpack to share with the crew to earn himself the undisputed MVP of the trip!

As the icing on the cake for this quality AND quantity week of winter mountain bliss, on Tuesday I went out for a tour of the Blackcomb backcountry with Whistler local bud Sam Munro, and climbing hardwoman Jurga, who I had met in the parking lot after the New Years Eve Black Tusk tour, and subsequently connected with on Facebook and had been indoor bouldering with over the winter.

Sam putting down some soul turns down the Trorey Glacier

Beautiful late day lighting on the tour out, Black Tusk hiding in the clouds behind

Mount Fissile not letting anyone forget about her incredible steep skiing lines

Feeling quite fulfilled after a top quality 4/6 days plundering the goods of the previous storm, I was ready to take a break and hide as a major arctic inflow event was descending from the North. After testing Winston’s insulation for a few nights in -25, I was thankful to take residence in the gracious hosts of Andrew and Giles for a few nights to thaw out in slightly balmier sea level Squamish.

Giles was keen to get back out for a mission, and Loretta wanted to come up from the city for a proper Sea to Sky adventure, so we tried to come up with a suitable mission. With Sterling and Mary joining, we proceeded to put together a plan that involved a comical ratio of snowmobiles:humans, with a much more spacious and comfortable end goal of the Meagre Creek hot springs, which does not see much for traffic these days following a major rock slide down Mount Meagre back in 2010.

We had the beta that the ride in was manageable, and so Sterling and Giles hopped on Harv, I squeezed Mary and Loretta on my overburdened steed, and we bumped and smashed up 40kms of variable condition forest service road, to find ourselves in paradise. It was truly an incredible set and setting to have to ourselves, enjoying the day dipping between the hot pools and the ice cold waters of Meagre Creek, laughing and enjoying quality food and drink.

Following the tranquil bliss of Meagre Hot Springs, I returned to the noisy chaos of Vancouver to catch up on work. I did get to meet up with Meta for Iggy’s birthday, and brought along some party hats and a treat-filled piñata to celebrate at the park. Always such a treat to see Meta for some silliness.

Too bad our dogs don’t particularly get along, but Iggy is decent at tolerating Nootka these days, who still just runs around like a complete idiot constantly.

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Back on the skin track, Mary and I lined up a mid-week Whistler slackcountry slog to Cowboy Ridge. After an initial scare with a non-working avy beacon which managed to resolve itself with fresh batteries and a quick clean of the terminals, we marched onwards and upwards in search of fresh turns. Cowboy Ridge has yet to do anything but deliver every time I’ve been out there, and today was no exception. It’s far enough away from the resort that you get a sense of remoteness, and fresh lines tend to stick around for days after a storm. But still a totally reasonable day trip on skins from the resort, even if you skip the singing pass trail exit and return to the resort for your ski out.

To celebrate everyone’s favourite Kootenay-raised armchair philosopher/shred master extraordinaire, Giles Crisfield, and the day of his birth, we planned a group tour up the Duffey to check out one of my earlier introductions to Duffey Lake skiing up on Vantage Ridge. Almost exactly 10 years ago, in my earlier years on a splitboard exploring the Coast Mountains, I made the pilgrimage to the now oft overrun “Keith’s Hut”, and skied the classic Cheques in the Mail run. It was pretty hilarious watching an early Youtube edit I had posted, as a comparison to how things look a decade later.

Sketchy bridge crossing to start the day

I was flailing a lot of sunglasses at this point in time, so I was down to a more ‘exotic’ pair for this tour

Full squad feeling the good vibrations up on Vantage Ridge

Birthday boy and Mike showing some love before dropping into Cheques in the Mail. Matier and Joffre supervising behind.

Looking back to Joffre back on the ski out.

The twists and turns of the house renovation were starting to take its toll, and the stress and chaos of it all was become a serious burden. I’m generally fairly accustomed to a rather chaotic nomad life, but the lack of a grounded space to maintain my crap, seemingly endless driving, and the constant flux of quick decision making required to execute a project of this scale, not to mention maintaining client work, was feeling like risky business indeed.

COVID continued to exacerbate things as well, with a constant fear of an unknown future and difficulties in planning, and staying connected with one-on-one social check-ins when needed was extremely tough.

Fortune would have it that, after listing my Vancouver townhouse for sale in the Fall with no bites, the market went absolutely bananas in the Winter/Spring, and I received an off-market offer for more than my previous asking price, which I gladly accepted. With the market starting to froth, it was definitely a risk, accepting this offer instead of waiting until my tenants were out in the Spring and listing on the open market, and in hindsight, I probably walked away from a good chunk of change there.

But psychologically, it was absolutely the right thing to do, alleviating stress, and removing another big item from an already savage to-do list moving into the Spring.

As in another “big business” moment this winter, standing 200 meters from the entrance to the Million Dollar Couloir, sometimes the best choice is to play it safe and do what feels right emotionally, not always pushing it to the limit. Risk taking always comes with a chance for failure, and serious consideration is extremely important: in our careers, our adventures, and our attentiveness to holiday leftovers.

And a $500,000 couloir is still an awful lot of couloir.

Bryan Jones 3/1/21 Bryan Jones 3/1/21

I Know What You Did(n’t Do) Last Summer

Oh, 2020... You’ve been a strange one.

We’ve witnessed the world writhe in a confused response to a global pandemic that has shaken our geopolitics and economies, and upended many aspects of societal life. We watched in horror as the global crisis of the modern era was tossed on the doormat of, without question, the worst politician one could ever imagine, leading the free world as the President of the United States.

It’s actually completely insane how much stuff happened this crazy year, with so much simply “lost in the noise” as our daily lives were inundated with the latest COVID case numbers and Trump’s fucking Twitter feed. For posterity, a few key crazy moments representative of this insane trip around the sun:

Pretty much all of Australia was on fire
Iran “accidentally” shoots down a full passenger flight, killing all 176 on board
Trump impeached in the Democratic controlled House. Acquited in the Republican senate
Kobe Bryant dies in a helicopter crash, along with his family
The UK officially withdrew from the EU
Whatever the hell Tiger King was (I never watched it)
The Tokyo Summer Olympics were cancelled
Pretty much everything else cool was cancelled (festivals, etc.)
Murder Hornets?
George Floyd killed by police, inciting mass protests and a major catalyst for the subsequent rising Black Lives Matter movement
Sports starts up without audiences. We watched playoff hockey in August
Massive warehouse explosion of ammonium nitrate in Beirut, killing 190+
Biden chosen as Democtratic nominee, Kamala Harris as VP
Wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington, leading to extremely smokey skies in Vancouver.
Ruth-Bader Ginsberg dies, leaving a second Supreme Court vacancy to be filled by a conservative
Days after the first presidential debate, where Trump mocked Biden for “wearing a mask all the time”, contracts COVID-19 along with all his internal circle
Trump defeated after days of waiting for election to be called, but refuses to concede, claiming widespread voter fraud

Things remained pretty bleak, and with most of the usual outlets removed or restricted, like festivals, live music, arts and culture, social gatherings, and a constantly wavering definition of what activities were deemed “essential”, life sure was confusing and stressful.

I believe there was also a lot of positive growth this year. A global crisis and lockdown forced many to rethink the way they live their lives, diving inward, and better appreciating many of the aspects of life that are commonly taken for granted. Businesses were forced to look at how they employ people, and a dramatic shift to “work-from-home” took place. It expedited many technologies that have been slow to adopt, like widespread use (for better or worse) of videoconferencing, digital performances, online workshops and workouts, and a more nimble and progressive medical system, including the incredibly fast movement of R+D that has supposedly brought us a variety of COVID-19 vaccines distributed for global use as I write this. Small businesses have been tested and strained, but many have pushed hard to adapt to the current landscape with better online presence, mobile restaurant orders, and new forms of arts and culture.

It will be interesting to see how many of these trends remain once things move back to normal. Generally speaking, it is mostly just a drag, and a social extrovert’s hellscape, and so personally I absolutely cannot wait for this all to be over.

Living full time in Squamish since I returned from Ecuador, I settled into a routine of home life, walks, and biking, and following my initial 14-day full quarantine on my return, the occasional “social” weekend adhering to the rules and acceptable practices of the day, dictated by our endearing health minister, Dr. Bonnie Henry.

I honestly don’t have much “insight” into the world fumbling through a global pandemic. To me, it is a part of living in an extremely fragile ecosystem that truly is a miracle to exist in the first place. Much more could have been done to prepare, and I really hope this is a strong warning shot for the world, and its divided political landscape. My favourite political cartoon (I can’t find the original author…) on the topic came early in the Spring.

Even now, as the US reports this week that COVID-19 surpassed heart disease as its leading cause of death, it is likely that the global impact of COVID-19 may be relatively minor compared to some of the great problems we as a species will face over the coming century. I’m generally an optimist, especially when it comes to technology and our ability to solve difficult problems. But the process towards progress is a painfully slow one, obstructed by pointless hurdles of useless bureaucracy, political misguidance through powerful lobbying, and an incredible amount of misinformation provided to, and digested by, the often extremely gullible public.

The stock market has powered up and onwards through this latest pandemic-caused recession, but that does not come close to telling the whole tale, and is completely dominated by the new world order of the large tech companies. Small businesses have been devastated. All levels of government have dove deep into their pockets in a flood of bailouts and social assistance. The ramifications of such a spend will likely be felt for many years. Currently (October) the Liberals have just announced an additional $100billion spend in business and social assistance, on top of the already record high $381 billion for this years debt. The debt-to-GDP ratios has jumped from around 30% to over 50% this year.

This is the cost of letting preventable, or at the very least, reducible, crises run unanticipated in a reactive manner. Proactive steps need to be taken to reduce the impact of these catastrophes, and climate change looms above all else as our greatest challenge.

I only hope that science starts to take the front stage in our nation’s policy decision making. Without this, we’re destined to repeat the major global shutdowns and financial burdens that such events incur repeatedly over the coming decades.

I had only this past year made the long term decision to make Squamish my home base, and the Spring and Summer of 2020 was a perfect time to explore new reaches of this incredible town and get comfortable. Fortune would have it that, due to a shifting work landscape, a number of old friends would make the move to Squamish over the summer, and things have really shaped up for an incredible community of great people here.

All in all, I managed to have a pretty terrific summer. Besides a week kayaking in Desolation Sound, and a few trips to Mayne and Tofino, local Squamish life kept me well entertained. I even tried a bit of pandemic dating, to mixed success, with a couple of amazing women (at separate times), but for reasons that are sometimes difficult to understand, the connection just wasn’t enough for me to feel enough of a spark to continue. It’s frustrating, and comes with a ton of guilt, but the only thing I can do is keep trusting myself and learn from my experiences. I’m not sure I’ve really been ready to find someone, as I continue to grow and develop. Making the decision to call Squamish my long term home, re-building the house, and settling down into more of a grounded state will be a major step forward, as for the last decade since my relationship with Kailey ended, around when I purchased the Squamish house with Ryan, my life has been a chaotic flux of nomad-ish lifestyles, coupled with a heavy dose of uncertainty about my long term plan.

Important Pandemic Supplies. - April 3rd, 2020

April 4th - Pandemic buddies don’t get much better than this guy

After collecting Winston from his winter home at a storage facility in Pemberton, I snuck in a camping trip at the Squamish Valley Campground with Jessica, who I met pre-Ecuador on a fun date in the city. At the time, there was a very strong “just stay home” sentiment, but felt justified being a Squamish local, and it was “just camping”. A chat with the proprietor on the way in confirmed that he was just very keen to keep business going, but passing a row of aggressive “GO HOME” and “VISITORS NOT WELCOME” signs through the Squamish Nation Territory en route was rather unsettling.

“Zoom” had become the new world’s social everything, and a previously unheard of “digital meeting place” company became the centre for all family and friend interactions. With the level of isolation in place at the time, it did serve a purpose, and initially felt good to “scratch that itch”, but it quickly became tedious and fizzled out as a regular social occurrence.

April 18th - The Derper Crew attempts to party digitally

My parents had made the move to hole up on Mayne Island for the pandemic, with my Dad making an escape from the US in late March to meet my Mum who had come out earlier to help support Leslie. We chatted about visitations, and it seemed like both sides were confident in me coming over to stay with them for an extended visit in late April.

There is truly something in the air in BC’s Gulf Islands, and it’s not just the clouds of dope smoke billowing off Salt Spring, though they do have a similar effect. Time slows as soon as you step off the ferry, and a calm state takes hold. It’s a very easy place to forget about the outside world. I had a lovely week there before coming back to the mainland to plan a surprise 4th birthday for Eliot, including Mum and Dad organizing a “fishing adventure” out of the back of my truck in their driveway that the recipient seemed to enjoy the least out of everyone involved.

Nootka-Nephew relationship building took place throughout the summer, with a few successes and many more failures.

While never outright banned, ski touring, rock climbing, and other high risk activities were generally frowned upon, though mountain biking generally got a pass with a slight scaling back of the typical gnar level to reduce the chance of a trip to the hospital. The anticipated strain on the hospital systems from COVID, and the risk to SAR during incident response, promoted a reduction in these higher risk activities. I never took the splitboard back out after I returned from Ecuador, as it seemed like the right thing to do was just call the season and not stress about decision making.

As the nature of transmission of the virus was better understood, rock climbing started to open up again, as evidence showed that surface transmission was difficult with proper sanitization precautions. Rufio and I got out to an obscure crag, the Longhouse, in early May, which was a humbling experience in burly crack climbing, in a beautiful isolated setting.

Much of the rest of the summer was filled up with local biking with my trusty trail companion, who was also benefiting from the pandemic in a wave of pet adoptions sweeping the transitioning work-from-home masses. Joe and Beth adopted Louis, who has some trouble meeting other dogs, but Nootka and him managed to patch things up fairly quickly and created a fairly equal force of relentless energy for playtime.

Another couple to eventually join the pandemic pet adoption wave, Ryan and Blaze, remained my core “bubble” throughout these strange socially restricted times, and came up to Squamish for a weekend visit to SUP, rent mountain bikes, and party to the digital Lightning in a Bottle festival event taking place that weekend. These visits were critical in keeping my extroverted hyper-social ass sane and distracted.

A lot of new route development has been taking place on the Apron on the Chief, and Rufio and I got on the shiny new white streak “Born Again" 10b, which included a tricky 5.9 corner I lead that I found to have tricky gear placement, and a delicate 10b friction slab traverse to intersect with the adjacent uber-classic, “Diedre”.

Oh the Sea to Sky Gondola… Every time I go up, I have a blast and think to myself that I should head up more often. And it seems like shortly after each time some bastard disgruntled local cuts the cable and brings it all crashing down.

Will be very curious to see if they take it out a third time….

I first tried mountain biking with Kailey on the North Shore’s Mt. Fromme area circa 2009-2010. I was on a hardtail with V-Brakes attempting to get down arguably the most difficult trail system in the world. Needless to say, I got my ass kicked…

Fortunately I have an unhealthy addiction to trying new things, even if I completely suck at them initially. When we bought the Squamish house in 2011, I picked up my first full suspension bike, a very much cross country early-2000s Rocky Mountaineer ETSX, with 130mm travel front and back, and a 70 degree head tube angle. For those unfamiliar with mountain bikes and their relevant geometry specs, this was a bike better suited for long days on gradual climbs and descents in the Rockies, and not the ultra-technical steeps of Southwest BC.

Mountain biking was, and still is, absolutely terrifying! But, like many adrenaline soaked pursuits, also incredibly addicting, with a slow but constant progression where riding the same trails repeatedly only gets more fun and playful as you progress. It provides an incredible cardio workout of whatever length of time you and your legs have available, mixed in with wild heart pumping moments on the descents. The incredible network of trails from North Vancouver to Pemberton, and beyond, provide a lifetime’s worth of local entertainment, and there are also tons of opportunities for further travel as biking explodes in popularity around the world.

This summer, I was finally starting to feel my skills and confidence getting to the level where I felt reasonably solid on all but the gnarliest gnar of the corridor, helped along by my new trusty steed: A suitably aggressive 160/150cm 64 degree HT angle 2020 Norco Sight, my third Sight in the last 5 years.

I checked out some classics on Cypress in West Vancouver, including the wild and massive “Sagar”, descending all the way from the ski hill, down to the Upper Levels highway.

I returned to Mayne for some more downtime with the ‘rents, enjoyed some stiff disc golf competition, and had some great paddling weather.

I had started my relationship with Caroline at this point, who was in Tofino for a spearfishing/freediving course where I joined her, and enjoyed some quality beach time at Mackenzie’s, surfing and chilling with a freshly groomed Nootka. When she returned to the mainland I drove to Sombrio Beach to meet up with the Lyster bros for an extremely wet Canada Day campout. We managed to have a grand time despite the rain, and enjoyed a trippy Sombrio exploration when the weather broke on the final day.

Nootka was an absolute legend in Tofino, befriending everyone on the beach, and then was an absolute nightmare at Sombrio, where a constant stream of Juan de Fuca trail hikers passed by, keeping him on edge. And for whatever reason, he absolutely hated “Night Dave”… (That’s Dave, at night)

When the conditions are right, Pemberton is hard to beat when it comes to mountain biking. The views from the Mackenzie area across to Mt. Currie are just incredible, and the trails are long and incredibly fun. We braved a mid-July mission in peak bug season and stinking heat, but managed to have a great time ripping quality dirt with a stoked crew.

Probably my favourite climbing achievement of the summer was getting on “The Reacharound 5.9”, which is an incredible corner climb I had been really wanting to lead for some time. It’s a fantastic route, looking hard and steep, but having the right holds in all the right places, and the 5.9 range of “traditional” lead free climbing (placing your own gear in cracks as protection as you climb) is more than challenging enough for me to feel at my limit, and, as the cool kids say, “get gripped”. I’m really hoping that next summer I’m able to focus on finding more. climbing partners and work up my trad skills and confidence, which has been a long, slow, and at times, terrifying progression.

Our big planned adventure for the summer was a week of kayaking in Desolation Sound. This is one of the very popular classics of the West Coast, and deservedly so. The protected waters of the Sound provide pleasantly warm conditions for swimming, and rocky headlands and islets, along with towering snowcapped mountains of the Coast Range, provide a beautiful backdrop for paddling and relaxing. It is busy, it is a bit crowded with sail and motorboats, and I would say I prefer the rugged and wild west coast of Vancouver Island, but it was an awesome trip with a few of my favourite humans: The Lyster bros. and their partner’s, Blaze and Maria.

After a days journey on two ferries up to Powell River, Dave, Maria, and I squeezed into a small motel room, and took care of our final packing. Ryan and Blaze were in Qualicum at their folk’s place, and taking the Comox-Powell River ferry in the morning to meet us early the following day. Loaded up on coffee and baked goods at Base Camp Coffee, we headed up to Okeover Arm to collect our boats and stage for the trip.

After looking at a variety of possible itineraries, based on the popularity of the area and one specific camp standing out as the jewel of the Sound, the Curme Islands, we made the call to prioritize setting up basecamp on Curme and day tripping from there. We set out late, as one usually does when trying to fit x a large amount of food, camping gear, and beer into the awkward sized hatches of the boat, leaving Okeover Inlet around 11:30. We were racing to beat the strong tides that were turning only an hour later, which when rising would send a torrent of water rushing back up the inlet, driving us back to our starting point.

Despite trying to move quick, we ended up on the wrong side of slack tide well within the inlet, and had to fight some serious currents to break out of Okeover and out into Desolation Sound. This made for some exciting paddling, whipping in and out of the wild and churning waters, flying along with the tide in some spots, and other moments of paddling at full tilt just to make progress at a crawling pace through the narrows. After reaching the Sound, we now had a long crossing to Mink Island, which we would skirt around to reach the Curme Islands on the opposite side. Consisting on not much more than that mornings breakfast, beer, and bagged Rose that Blaze had decided was a suitable kayaking beverage, we probably could have used a proper stop for lunch, but we were concerned about the finite number of campsites at Curme, and decided to push on.

Always helpful, Dave-O offers Maria an assist for the crossing to Mink — Always helpful, Dave-O offers Maria an asset for the crossing to Mink

We arrived at the Curme Islands late in the day, and things were looking bleak for available sites, which are restricted to a set number of wooden pads scattered around the rocky islets. We split up and I wandered around South Curme to find all spots taken, and I was beginning to get concerned that we were going to have to add another 3kms and another open crossing to our day to get to the less aesthetic overflow sites across on the mainland…

Fortunately, luck was on our side, and we managed to secure three of the last remaining pads on the main central island all together, which provided a beautiful setting for base camp, easy access to our boats, and directly above the central protected channel that made for the most idyllic swimming spot I’ve ever seen in the Pacific Ocean’s Northwest coast.

Now, I’m not one to shy away from a punishing adventure filled with a barrage of “Type 2” or even “Type 3” moments. I enjoy pushing myself, moving far and fast in an effort to get off the beaten path and explore the unknown. But I will say, I absolutely love a good chill. Maxing and relaxing with a tasty beverage in hand, a gorgeous mountain backdrop, and very little in the realm of schedules, objectives, or stress? Sign me the fuck up! That falls in line with what I consider to be a great time, and in 2020, the year of a global pandemic and associated lockdown, and Donald Trump’s final year of presidency, I was very much into making this trip a time for prioritizing keeping things nice and slow. I managed to get through the entire 2nd book of Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem SciFi series in the six days of this trip, and if that doesn’t constitute a major objective, I don’t know what does!

After talking to the rangers who came through our camp, and getting the local beta on the area, it really seemed like just parking at Curme for the week and day tripping was the way to go, and that is precisely what we did for the next 5 nights, planning a final night at the mouth of Okeover Inlet for the final night.

So break out the Rose again and let’s celebrate, as we had found our home, and it was paradise!

The problem with this approach is that it does not lend itself well to storytelling, as it’s difficult to turn a lazy existence of reading and day drinking on a beautiful island into too grand of a tale. But usually the great stories in outdoor adventure are always when things go horrifically wrong, which does provide a tale to be told, but are typically pretty miserable to experience at the time.

So I was quite happy to avoid misadventure and focus on relaxation, along with some awesome day trips and activities exploring the Curme Islands and the Sound.

Unwin Lake took the prize for the most improperly named geographic feature of the trip. It was great, and provided a perfect opportunity to wash off the salt water that had accumulated into a thick layer on our skin. — Unwin Lake took the prize for the most misguidedly named geographic feature of the trip. It was great, and provided a perfect opportunity to wash off the salt water that had accumulated into a layer on our skin.

I even spent the better part of a whole day watching this idiot try to take down (unsuccessfully) an entire starfish. I bet he’s still there right now trying to choke one of these things down…

In the dark and isolated year of 2020, where personal connections were very much a rarity, this trip was exactly what the doctor ordered. I thrive on these types of deep experiences with terrific humans, from outdoor adventures to festivals, and to have much of that put on hold was extremely difficult. Experiencing soaring high peaks and crushing deep valleys when it comes to mental health, this year those swings were significantly amplified, with a lack of experiential medicine to pull out of a rut. Relationship stress, loneliness, existential questions, and the general unknown of the future really weighed down hard on me this summer.

One amazing thing about a trip like this is when you’re with a group that is so cohesive and solid, it is a wonderful experience to simply be together in an outstanding location. Focus is shifted entirely on the beauty that exists in the world, and not darkened by a barrage of news headlines, mask requirements, or economic shutdowns. When good spirits are lifted high, this makes for great company, and great company we had on this trip. We ate like kings, laughed over old stories through the 18 years I’ve known the Lyster brothers, played games, got silly, and just generally had a solid time with precisely zero conflict.

Paddling doesn’t get much better than this, saving the best for last on our final easy day back to the trucks

Sea worn travellers at a much needed pub lunch in Powell River

August in Squamish is a pretty fantastic time and place. Even in the peak of summer, the temps are usually reasonable, recreation abounds, and the alpine is clear for some dry ground higher elevation activities. Caroline and I took Nootka up to Brandywine Meadows, which was my first time up there in the summer, after spending many days up there in the midst of the gong show that is the epicentre of Sea to Sky snowmobile culture in the winter months.

Throughout the pandemic it was really nice to regularly connect with Meta, who had to experience the fast deterioration of her mother Helen’s health following a diagnosis of ALS. Just months after diagnosis, she was unable to function in a way that felt like “living”, and eventually chose the path of euthanasia, passing in the summer. With the travel restrictions from the pandemic, this represented an unbelievably hard time, as family could not easily visit and share experiences as you would hope take place. I love Meta dearly, as well as her incredible father, Rodney, and her brothers, and so it meant so much to be able to meet up for dog walks and dive into a bit of silliness together, and stay connected through this extremely difficult time.

As mentioned, the pandemic new world order allowed for a migration of workers out of the city as work transitioned more to remote based. Sterling and Caroline made the move to Squamish, along with their beautiful girl, Wynn. We connected briefly when I was over in Uke for some surfing, and had an awesome beach day at Flo.

Audrey biking outside Penticton on a trip in late September — Late September biking outside Penticton

Dog-Child relationship counselling session

The first act of the 2020/21 reno: taking out the rhodo where the new front entrance is to reside

Thanksgiving was spent back at Mayne Island with the fam jam

I should probably dedicate an entire post to music creation, and my love for the process. It’s incredible how healing of an experience it can be, pouring out emotion into making music that resonates with life at that moment in time. I had ended my relationship with Caroline at this point, and the blues were coursing through my veins. I was really struggling to understand myself and my thought patterns, and what I looking for in a relationship at the time. So I was playing with blues riffs and feeling the moody words from Kerouac’s Dharma Bums that I had jotted down years ago as lyric inspiration:

“Mind is the Maker, for no reason at all. For all this creation, created to fall”

Mike White’s 40th birthday was coming up, and it was time for him to live out what was apparently a long standing dream of his: to make a giant “fuck” sign out of fireworks and light it on fire. Go figure, but if you know Whitey, it actually makes a ton of sense. I dragged the backcountry hot tub out for this one as it was forecasted to be pretty cold, and we had a great Elaho valley shindig with great friends in a pandemic-safe fashion.

As mentioned earlier, Ryan and Blaze took their Mexican el doge, Dobby, home in the Fall, and Nootka instantly had a new friend to engage in epic sessions of “bite face”.

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The renegade from Rossland himself, the fabulous Giles, had decided to move back to Squamish, which was another terrific addition to the local roster. Lots of good times to be had blending the highest of rhythm and culture with good old fashioned Kootenay-branded red neckery.

It’s getting close to winter, so time to start hemorrhaging time and money into the snow ponys!

With the big house reno underway, it was time to move Winston up to the Whistler RV park for the winter, which I planned to make my main basecamp for the season. It’s definitely a gamble this year with the pandemic complicating social interactions… Through the Fall, the case numbers increased significantly and the restrictions were raised to restrict social interactions with only your direct household.

As a household-less person, this was going to prove difficult, though strict allowances were made for solo living people.

I’m always craving an adventure, and a separation from the ordinary, and living in a snowmobile in/out RV park in the middle of winter with my dog seemed like it would be a memorable experience to break up the chaos of watching my house get rebuilt, and the world shift and spin through the churning tides. And the powder addict in me was getting pretty stoked on a winter season closer to the goods.

With Biden/Harris moving into the White House in January, alongside the incredible development and manufacturing of a varied of COVID-19 vaccines, things were looking up heading into 2021. Who knows what the future brings, but for now I’m just thankful that a certain tiny hand orange-faced douchebag will soon drift into insignificance in the world. I’m hopefully that the many promising trends in science and technology will drive forward our species and planet into a sustainable existence.

Thinking forward to next summer, with widespread vaccination rollouts and a return to normalcy, along with moving back into a fresh new home in Squamish with an incredible local community, things feel very optimistic currently. This winter will be a lonely, cold, and difficult one, but as long as I get enough pow shots to the face, I think I’ll manage to get through it just fine.

Splitboarding is the answer, after all.

Bye-bye 2020, you were one fucked up wild ride! You got this 2021, the bar is set pretty damn low!

Bryan Jones 11/27/20 Bryan Jones 11/27/20

Pandemic in Paradise: Galapagos Edition

The Galapagos Islands are absolutely insane.

I can't stress this enough: absolutely put it very high up on your bucket list.

There are two common considerations about travel to the Galapagos that can unnecessarily put you off:

Getting there is very difficult/expensive
Once there, you have very limited options with flexible budgets for tours and activities

These were both initial considerations of my own, and #2 really had me on the fence, when I started to read about how the cruises worked as a scuba diver, and how expensive the day tours and dive trips are.

Firstly, flights from Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, to either San Cristobal or Baltra Island, the two main points of entry, can be as low as $200 CAD round trip. Flights to Ecuador are reasonably priced from North America as well. For a trip like this, I would definitely recommend spending some time on the mainland first, and then a week at least in the Galapagos. If you pick your flights well, you can get to the Galapagos from North America under $1000 CAD round trip.

As for tours, they are definitely expensive, and there is no way around that. A three tank scuba day trip will be $160-200 USD range. Snorkelling and wildlife tours are $100-130 USD. Cruises can represent good ‘value', because you are packing a lot in, and include food and accommodation, but they are definitely not cheap. Where I was pleasantly surprised was in how much there was to see and do without paying for a tour. I did one day of diving, and one wildlife/snorkelling tour during my 7 days, and would have gone for one more at the end in search of penguins if the park hadn’t shut down, along with all tours, although that wasn’t really necessary.

Accommodation was totally reasonable: decent AC rooms with ensuite for $30. Food was excellent, and varied significantly in price based on quality, and there was always the “menu del dia” (Menu of the Day), served both at lunch and dinner, that included soup, rice, meat, dessert, and juice for $4-6. Not dirtbag backpacker cheap, but held up well for value considering the locale.

There was plenty to do walking or by bicycle from the three main tourist hubs of San Cristobal, Puerto Villamil, and Puerto Ayora, and the wildlife really is so abundant that simply wandering around between nearly empty beaches lead to plenty of cool experiences with giant tortoises, marine iguana, or native birds. The town’s waterfronts are covered with giant Sea Lions flopping and belching their way around to a constant crowd of entertained spectators.

Anyways, like I said, the Galapagos are insane, and I highly recommend a visit to anyone and everyone. And invite me, as I would go back in an instant and stay for longer, and actually bringing my surfboard next time, which I had left in Guayaquil (and happens to still be there…).

Beautiful pathways connect the various sites adjacent to San Cristobal town

I hopped off the plane in San Cristobal to one of the cleanest, well organized towns you will find in any country, let alone a place like Ecuador. You can tell how much financial support goes into maintenance, as the entire area is essentially a national park. I quickly found a hotel and set off to explore the area on one of the main trails starting from the townsite.

Along the trail just outside San Cristobal town

The above video sums up the Galapagos experience. Roughly 2 hours after I landed, following a 30 minute hike outside of town, I found myself on a deserted beach; a sea lion playing in the waves, as a marine iguana casually strolls by. It’s hard to put into words, but it was a completely surreal experience.

I booked my first tour for the following day to travel by boat to a small island off San Cristobal that has a large colony of local legends, the Blue-Footed Boobies, Great Frigatebirds, along with some snorkelling. The wildlife truly is unperturbed by human presence, and makes for some ridiculously effortless wildlife photography.

San Cristobal town itself had many great restaurants and a beautiful waterfront promenade filled with a ridiculous number of sea lions. After dinner, grab a few Club beers, or a bottle of cheap rum and some coke, and hang out by the water and watch the insanity of hundreds of belching giant sea mammals grunt, flop, and roll around the boardwalk. I met another Canadian in town and we managed to entertain ourselves thoroughly with this practice every night.

The next day I had booked a scuba dive to the legendary Kicker Rock. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but was told this was a common place to see Bull Sharks, turtles, and even Hammerheads.

Boy was I not disappointed…

Here is a video that includes footage from this dive, along with other snorkelling shots during my Galapagos adventures.

It was time to head off and explore the other islands, and my plan was to spend most, if not all, of the rest of my stay on Isabella Island, which has the smallest of the three main tourist hubs, while being on the largest island. I was able to land a discounted flight between islands to avoid the full day of bumpy boat travel that was the alternative, and so by breakfast the following day, I was walking down the beach of Puerto Villamil, typically just called “Isabella”.

This place was absolute paradise. Essentially just a few dirt roads with one main strip along a kilometres-long pristine sandy beach, the area was again filled with tame and fascinating wildlife, set on the backdrop of what often felt like a nearly deserted volcanic island.

I was in love.

Unfortunately, as is quite often the case, the relationship was “complicated”, as the world was falling apart around me. Things were starting to be noticeably different in Ecuador. The entire country shut down all bars, though restaurants remained open. Messages from friends and family back home were starting to sound a lot more concerned about my current situation. On my second day on Isabella, March 15th, I received a message from Air Canada to say that my flight home on the 19th had been cancelled. From what I was reading, that was likely one in a larger wave of cancellations that would very quickly include all Air Canada flights out of Ecuador back home.

I was officially stranded.

Posting on Facebook about my dilemma, I was made aware of a very similar account, albeit fictional, described in a book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle). The book tells the story of a small group on a Galapagos cruise who is shipwrecked during a global financial crisis and subsequent global pandemic.

From Wikipedia:

Galápagos is the story of a small band of mismatched humans who are shipwrecked on the fictional island of Santa Rosalia in the Galápagos Islands after a global financial crisis cripples the world's economy. Shortly thereafter, a disease renders all humans on Earth infertile, with the exception of the people on Santa Rosalia, making them the last specimens of humankind. Over the next million years, their descendants, the only fertile humans left on the planet, eventually evolve into a furry species resembling sea lions: though possibly still able to walk upright (it is not explicitly mentioned, but it is stated that they occasionally catch land animals), they have a snout with teeth adapted for catching fish, a streamlined skull and flipper-like hands with rudimentaryfingers (described as "nubbins").

Needless to say, I was intrigued to see how things played out, and whether I was the child of some Vonnegut prophecy for which the future of mankind depended.

The deranged look of a man preparing himself to repopulate the Earth

My flight off the Galapagos on the 18th was still available, and so my plan was to catch that flight back to Guayaquil, and hope for the best there. In the many hours spent on my phone sorting through alternative flights home, I was not seeing many options. So I did my best to enjoy myself while I was there.

Lookout view back to the town of Puerto Villamil

The tours had shut down, and the National Park was slowly closing their sites, but there was still some amazing walks and bike rides, great snorkelling right in town, and the beach was a place you could just sit and do a pretty good job of completely ignoring the problems of the outside world, at least for a while.

Initially, it felt like if I were to get stuck somewhere in the world, this was the place to be.

Each day, more services were closed, to the point where restaurants were starting to do pre-ordered take-out meals only. The grocery stores were starting to run out of supplies, all tourist sites were now closed, and so options for activities was now significantly limited.

It was time to try to leave.

Unfortunately, travel to the closest airport started off with a two hour boat ride to the town of Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz. From Puerto Ayora, a one hour bus or taxi takes you to the North end of the island, where a 20 minute water taxi ran across to ANOTHER island where the airport actually resided. A final 20 minute bus ride dropped you off at Baltra Island Airport. Not exactly an easy spot to pop by to see if you can catch a flight on standby.

The first step was the two hour chaotic rollercoaster of a water taxi to Santa Cruz Island, so I booked my ticket and set off for the dock. I met a Belgian guy, Joris, on the boat, who was staying at a good hostel in town, so I followed him back and we discussed an exit strategy, as he was in a similar situation. Further attempts to call the airline and visit their office in Puerto Ayora were unsuccessful, so I was ready to abandon the early exit and wait an extra day for my scheduled flight on the 18th. We grabbed dinner and had a traditional Galapagos post-dinner “drink rum and watch sea lions belch at each other” with a Canadian guy Joris had met previously. Fairly stressed we called it early and went back to our rooms to crash and try not to look at the same list of useless cancelled flights repeatedly.

Just as I was drifting off, Joris came and banged on my hostel room door. He had just received a message from a local guide he had met previously that said the local government had decided to shut down the airport at the end of the following day for a 14-30 day quarantine period, and so the last flights off the island would be on March 17th. Joris had just booked one of the last flights available, and when I checked, the Avianca website showed a single seat left for $400 USD, which I resentfully purchased.

It ended up being the right move, as we were able to successfully depart the Galapagos back to the mainland, as more shutdowns occurred for more services. Most flights were cancelled on the 18th, and our Canadian friend ended up stuck for over a week, including multiple long failed trips to the airport to catch standby flights.

When we arrived, Joris and I managed to find a decent hostel in Guayaquil which would be our new home for the next five days, as we watched the departure list out of Guayaquil International show a depressing wall of red “cancelado”. The mayor of Guayaquil was apparently a bit of a renegade, and although the national government and flight control were giving the go ahead for inbound and outbound international flights, the locals apparently felt otherwise. The mayor even went so far as to fill the airport runway with the local police department’s fleet to keep an inbound Spanish flight from landing.

Photo from the cockpit of the inbound Spanish flight

Of course, everyone else in the hostel was in the same boat, which lead to quite an interesting dynamic. There was drama, there was binge drinking, and there was chess. Moments of fun and relaxation in between mostly stress. Guayaquil was on a curfew outside of 10am-2pm, which was a pretty tight window. Our neighbourhood was pretty rough, with most businesses boarded up, and a high crime rate, so to minimize outside contact, we collected shopping lists and teamed up to cook together in groups.

It’s interesting to see how a group of completely unrelated humans can bond together in these types of situations. In all, everyone handled things super well, and it ended up being a great experience in and of itself. We scheduled group activities, workshops, music jams, etc., and generally kept ourselves entertained.

In the end, my constant monitoring of the airport’s departures list paid off. The only flight to successfully leave Guayaquil International that week was a relief flight sent down empty from Miami. They were running another the following day, and so I jumped on grabbing a seat, under the assumption that I could likely find a flight from Miami to Vancouver fairly easily. This ended up being the right call, as the only Canadian repatriation flights that ended up flying from Ecuador departed from Quito, which would have been very difficult to travel to, based on the lockdown and travel restrictions domestically.

So I hopped in an Uber and made my way to the airport, where I followed a heavily armed personal escort to my gate.

Miami was making international news at the time, as it was the hub for many young idiot spring breakers unabashedly flaunting COVID restrictions. The contrast between the military lockdown and control in Ecuador, to the “business as usual” attitude in Florida was extremely apparent as soon as I departed the plane. There were few, if any, signs that a global crisis was underway. No interrogation of symptoms at US Customs or elsewhere. No masks, no sanitizing stations or signage. Just plenty of ignorant revellers, content in their belief that this “flu” was just like any other, and no cause for alarm or unnecessary precautions.

The remainder of the trip home was wonderfully uneventful. There were no long processing lines, Canadian customs was a breeze, though they did at least have some COVID-related symptom questions, and instructions on the mandatory 14-day quarantine I was about to settle into.

Mike Martinsen, who had borrowed my truck and helped out with Nootka while I was away, was extremely helpful throughout this process. His concern about the deteriorating global state was apparent, and aligned with what was to come relatively early on. He met me at the airport with my truck, partner Audrey behind in their vehicle, and tossed me the keys and gave me a wave as we went our separate ways. Nootka expressed his extreme excitement on my return from the backseat of the truck, which my gracious Mother had filled with plenty of provisions to last well into my subsequent home staycation.

I had made it home, but it was definitely a strange homecoming. Instead of hugs and catching up over beers with friends and family, I was to settle down at home for 14 days of isolation, with a persistent stream of Zoom video calls as my only social outlet.

Relieved to have made it home, and that the world wasn’t dependant on me to mate with various Galapagos fauna in an effort to repopulate the Earth, I ordered a couple batches of beer brewing ingredients, busted out the Xbox, and settled into a simple life at home, watching the world spiral through a TP-deprived crisis state. Canada had reported 1,400 cases and 20 deaths on March 22nd, 2020. The US had 26,000 cases and 300 deaths, and was well on its way to prove itself as the “World Leader” in stupidity and inaction, lead by the stupidest and most inactive person in existence.

It was a bad time to have not much else to do than read the news…

Bryan Jones 10/23/20 Bryan Jones 10/23/20

Pandemic in Paradise

With tea in hand, gear drying on haphazard lines strung above the sleeping quarter’s wood stove, and my shaken body starting to thaw, I immediately felt immense relaxation and comfort within the cozy hacienda walls of the Secret Garden Cotopaxi. I was unsurprised to hear many stories from the mixed volunteer staff and travellers that this was a place to get stuck well beyond your planned stay, and return to repeatedly. The hacienda-turned-hostel still felt very much like a family home, if your family was a 30-strong cultural smorgasbord entirely focused on hiking, drinking, and smoking joints. Unlike a typical hostel, there was no shared kitchen, instead collecting all guests and staff together for shared “family style” meals. High Andean mountain trekking of varying levels of difficulty was the main attraction of the area, and so the common meals facilitated opportunities for sharing experiences and advice about the many options available for guided explorations of the region.

The owner/proprietor was a spiritual Ecuadorian man offering traditional needle tattooing to guests in the evenings, accompanied by the perpetual passing of fine South American ganja. Crackling fires in each of the buildings, a river-fed wood fire hot tub, and a giant hammock deck provided plenty of relaxation for weary bodies after a long and often wet day hiking and climbing. Llamas wandered the grounds outside, and dogs curled up next to travellers enjoying a constant stream of belly scratches.

I didn’t have an interest in spending the time or resources on any sort of significant mountaineering objectives, which is common in this area. I have my personal thoughts about guided mountaineering, which cascade down from the objectively broken system of high altitude tourism (read: Everest). Admittedly, there is a deep level of hypocrisy to my line of thinking, as I have absolutely no idea where the line should be drawn on this topic. Regardless, I believe the highest points of our beautiful planet are special places, and I would love to see them remain that way. With the totality of technology that blankets the Earth today, romantically I dream of places that are thin of air, yet thick of old world adventure, mystique, and challenge. Where the skill of the adventurer should match the obstacles of accessibility.

And I’ll be sure to ponder this further while I’m ecstatically riding my snowmobile across a kilometres-wide ice cap glacier, gleefully hopping out of a helicopter to access a remote backcountry skiing lodge, or aiding up a bolt ladder to climb a rock face well beyond my skill. But for some completely arbitrary reason, a high mountain summit represents something different to me, and I hold it in a different regard.

Hey, we all need to define our own realities, right?

Back to the topic at hand of Ecuadorian mountaineering, I possessed no judgement towards anyone that had the objective to summit Cotopaxi, or the even bigger objective of the other Ecuadorian classic, Chimborazo. I’m fortunate to spend a significant amount of my life in the mountains at home, and the drive just isn’t there to spend my vacation on a 12 hour midnight slog on a guided summit push through altitude sickness. I was just stoked to be in the presence of such a majestic monument of our planet.

I did have my own objective that definitively highlights the hypocrisy of my preceding words: to get higher than I have ever been.

An alternative to summiting is to join a tour to travel by pickup truck from the hostel at 3500m to mid-mountain on Cotopaxi at 4500m, and hike up to the toe of a glacier on the mountaineer’s route at 5000m. A true “adventure” it was not, but it was a superb day in a surreal landscape, and an opportunity to meet some friends that I would connect with again later on my trip.

The driver of the second truck carrying guests on the tour got rowdy and made a failed attempt to pass us…

Amazing to think this landscape is roughly 50km off the equator

Looking up at the summit and the “Refugio”

The squad posing at the 5000m top-out of the trail

Returning back to the hostel, the weather was uncharacteristically clear and dry, which lead to a super fun afternoon into evening of incredible views, good food, mediocre yet plentiful wine, equally plentiful ganja, lots of laughs and typical hostel games and shenanigans, all wrapped up with a late night spring-fed hot tub soak. By the time I was ready to call it for the night, the sky across the valley was illuminated with an incredible star scape, and I was able to muster the energy to get the camera out to capture some Milky Way shots, and an overnight timelapse that captured the Cotopaxi climbers snaking their way up to what would have been an absolutely incredible sunrise at the peak.

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The date was Feb. 29th, 2020, the day of the first recorded death from the novel Coronavirus in the US.

The next morning, I woke to more clear skies, which was apparently a rarity this time of year, and fortunate as I was about to hop back on two wheels and venture off with only a very rough idea of the path ahead. I wanted to get to the “Quilotoa Loop” as my next destination, but I was unsure about the best path to get there, which roads were suitable, the weather, and how far I could reasonably travel in a day. All things that would be very helpful to have confidence in when embarking on a solo motorcycle trip in a place like the remote high Andes, but fortunately, the world does still have room for certain levels of adventure, even today. There was no wifi or cell service at the hostel, so I didn’t have the ability to do much planning before my next leg, but I knew roughly where I wanted to end up, and felt ready for a trip into the unknown.

I had decided to try for the more rugged entrance to Quilotoa, and a highly recommended hostel in Inislivi, “LuluLlama Mountain Lodge”. Unfortunately, the weather and the surprisingly terrible road conditions decided otherwise. After an hour heading south on the pan-American Highway and a warm lunch of rice and chicken soup, I headed back off the pavement into a familiar scene of progressively terrible weather. The road was significantly worse than anything previously encountered, with deep 2-3 foot tire ruts and significant erosion permeating the steep and winding mountain “road”. The rain had started to fall as well, and besides the odd person walking their herd of sheep, I didn’t see much in the way of outside help if things went sideways.

So it was time to turn around and come up with a different plan.

Feeling like a little more Internet-aided organization was in order, I decided to head to the nearest city, Latacunga, which had a pleasant historical district and some good value restored hotels in which to regroup.

A beautiful restored colonial villa made for nice accommodations at $30/night including breakfast.

Tiramisu gelato soothes all wounds after getting shut down on your day’s primary objective

Rejuvenated through ice cream and pizza, the next day I felt ready to tackle the more straightforward (read: paved) road to Quilotoa. What it may have lacked in sketchy adventure, it more than made up for in terms of quality motorcycle riding: nearly empty, beautiful winding pavement through some of the best scenery you could ask for.

And barely any rain!

I stopped for lunch at the “crown jewel” and namesake of the region, Lake Quilotoa, and quickly decided that, although it was a beautiful spot, the town itself and local accommodation left something to be desired, and so I decided to keep moving to the idyllic-sounding peaceful mountain town of Chugchilan.

I had read about a nice ecolodge in the town of Chugchilan, just another 45 minutes down more beautiful winding mountain road, called the Black Sheep Inn, so I pushed on to check the place out. It exceeded all expectations.

It turned out to be fortuitous timing to arrive at Ecuadorian ‘Rivendell’, as I could feel my health deteriorating as the day went on. I arrived with a light fever, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. At first I assumed it was the altitude, but it seemed to persist for quite some time even though I should have acclimatized by then. By the time I walked back to my room after dinner, I was extremely dizzy, and spent all night with a brutal fever and very intense stomach pains. I have no idea what caused this stomach virus, as I had been extremely careful on that trip about what I was consuming, but in these places, it’s not that hard to come down with something.

What I did know at the time was that my plan to complete the Quilotoa Circuit and head to the party/adventure town of Banos was put on hold. I was very accepting of this new reality, as the surrounding area looked absolutely sublime, and the hosts at the Black Sheep lodge were amazing. The volunteer hosts were a French family of three, travelling up the America's in an old Westfalia with their three year old daughter. They had been on the road for over a year already, and had no plans to stop. Communal breakfasts and dinners were shared with the other guests, which was only one other couple one of the nights, and as much as seven another night.

I ended up spending the rest of my moto week, three nights total, at the Black Sheep, venturing out for day trips from there exploring the surrounding countryside when I was feeling solid. There were some beautiful hikes, and some great riding exploring off-the-beaten path mountain roads. The nighttime fever, dizziness, and intense stomach pain continued through my stay, but besides feeling like absolute death at times, it was a great place and experience.

I ended my Ecuadorian Andes adventure with one final long, windy, and soggy ride back to Quito, which proved to be fairly tame and uneventful, besides the fact that my phone’s camera decided that it had had enough of being rattled around mounted to a motorcycle on questionable roads, and, I assume, ran off with a local alpaca to start a life together in the Quilotoa hills, as I never saw it (function) again after that.

I dropped off my bike, collected my surfboard, and sat down to try to figure out my next move to get myself to the coast. My good buddy and surf travel extraordinaire from Vancouver, Pete Raab, had recommended a town called Ayampe on the coast as a more chill variation to the extremely popular party surf destination of Montanita, just an hour north along the coastal highway. I found a seat on a flight to the nearest major city of Manta for later that day, as otherwise I was looking at a very long and convoluted series of bus travel, and a few hours later, I was stepping off the plane and shoving a rather large surfboard into a very small Uber, in search of a place to stay for the night, catching a bus to Ayampe the following morning.

Ayampe lived up to the hype as an idyllic surf town, and it would have been easy to stay there for an extended time, as long as nightly partying wasn’t your thing. An endless clean sandy beach, constant hammering surf swell, and just enough small cafes and restaurants to keep you fed, hydrated, and on occasion, entertained.

As I walked up to my jungle-enveloped hotel, Finca Punta, far above the beach at the edge of town, it was immediately clear that an ayahuasca ceremony was taking place in the beautiful gardens. As an outsider, it was definitely very interesting to observe this scene walking up after a long few days of travel. It took a moment to comprehend what was going on through the haze of incense, as spiritual travellers explored their inner minds through the stillness of meditation, or more erratic interpretive dance and movement. I didn’t linger to observe, and continued on to check in to the hostel, which turned out to be a similar test of mental strength and perseverance, due to an awkward and significant language barrier with the sporadically available staff.

This experience was definitely something I considered for this trip to, along with Peru, the cultural epicentre of the sacred medicine of ayahuasca, as someone who holds a lot of significance in the exploration of ones own mind through psychedelics. I have experienced countless deep, profound experiences through LSD and psilocybin, and have had numerous incredible breakthrough journeys with DMT, which is the main psychedelic found in ayahuasca. For a few reasons, the idea of “psychedelic tourism” can sometimes leave a bad taste in my mouth when I consider it, and so it hasn’t been something I’ve been actively looking to pursue in the past. Just like high altitude mountaineering, I 100% support the practice when done safely and respectfully, and harbour no judgement towards any person who has taken this experience. But the concept just hasn’t resonated with me to the point where I have wanted to actively seek it out.

Truth be told, I was not in a mental state to take on such an intense experience, regardless of my opinion on the matter. By that point, the stress and loneliness of solo travelling, coupled with my body still feeling pretty wrecked from night after night of sleepless fever dreams, had put me in a bit of a dark place. It had been a pretty intense winter, collecting the pieces after my relationship with Faith ended, working through some pretty deep soul searching to understand myself better, and where I wanted to be. The livelier Montanita may have been a better spot for me at the time, as the distractions and easy social connections would have kept my mind preoccupied, but sometimes it is best to meet these things head on, and work towards a better understanding of your state through mindfulness practice, and the simple beauty that is surfing.

Also, I had been keeping in touch with my French friends I met at Secret Garden Cotopaxi, who happened to be arriving in Ayampe the next day, so I was stoked on having some friendly faces around. This lead to some solid good times, as the town did happen to have a bit of a sporadic scene, and we got to see some great live music, including an insane house party where the entire town showed up, including a massive fire, live funk band, and terrible trance DJ playing through until sunrise. Was definitely pissed off at my phone’s camera running off with that damn alpaca that night, as I wasn’t about to carry my nice Fuji around with me, and the party was quite the spectacle.

Always good to be back on the West Coast

One key final decision about my trip itinerary remained: The Galapagos.

Although it was one of the main deciding factors in choosing Ecuador as a destination, confusingly I had been on the fence about it ever since, based on various reports I had heard before my trip. But everyone that I met travelling enthusiastically told me that I would be a complete idiot to miss it if I could make it happen. So after a few days of deliberating on various options, I came to my senses, yelled “YOLO!!”, and booked a flight from Guayaquil International Airport to the capital of Galapagos Province, San Cristobal.

The date was March 9th, 2020, the day of the first reported COVID-19 death in Canada. On that day, Bonnie Henry’s message to BC was to avoid travel on cruise ships, and that there was a good chance that cruise ship season would be impacted that year. Italy was at the peak of their crisis in handling the caseload and extremely high mortality rate, and the stock market was in the midst of its massive slide. In hindsight, the signs were there that things were going to get ugly. But the WHO had not declared a pandemic at this point, and the general consensus from many experts was that the spread could be contained through minimizing travel from hotspots.

So off I went to one of the more isolated island chains on Earth, to frolic with the tortoises, iguanas, blue-footed boobies, and hammerhead sharks, as the entire world plunged deeper into a global crisis.

On March 11th, the day of my flight, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic.