Weeknight Skiing

We've been pretty lucky with the spring so far this year; there's been a bunch of nice snow, and some great sunny days. Last years spring was damp and dreary, with continuous rain apparently designed to keep the trees happy and humans sad. I've got very strong memories of several after work dirt jumping sessions in the rain last year, which is not something that happens if there's riding time available that doesn't feature rain. (If you're not familiar with the downsides of jumping in the rain, it comes down to mud. Bikes don't roll through it well, it doesn't do much for the old eyeballs, and it tends to flick up and jam there when you're moving fastest and need it least)


Anyway, with daylight saving, we can now get up to Cypress after work and knock out a couple of hours of skiing before the sun goes down. The snow quality on Cypress can be pretty average sometimes, but it's been holding together well enough I've been exploring the ungroomed runs. These runs are generally steeper, or have other features not compatible with a dirty great snow groomer (like trees, big rocks, or the occasional cliff). Depending on snow conditions, they can range from a bit harder than the groomed, to pretty much impossible, but skiing them is a lot more rewarding (I'm not sure why a recreation tends to be more attractive when it's harder, but there you go). Over the last couple of weeks the snow varied from piles of heavy powder, to corn snow and ice patches, to large lumps of heavy slush, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. For the record, I seem to be best at riding the heavy slush, but mostly waste the precious powder conditions doing a fair bit of skiing up-side down. I think I'll be waiting a bit before I spring the money for a heliskiing trip.


Top Gun's feature is the number and range of trees that you can run into; there are loads of them, ranging from some furry little guys that will get out of the way, or maybe give you a hug, to others that are somewhat less forgiving. It's not been managed yet, but the aim for this season to at least once bounce through the trees linking up a bunch of turns, rather than aiming for plain survival

vancouver in the (alleged) spring

Well, the arm is (mostly) healed, the back feels like it has been reclaimed from the irresponsible longshoreman who's been borrowing it for the last couple of years, and Vitamin D levels are climbing out of the grave. It's spring time on the North Shore, and it's time for adventures! (There have even been periods of less heavy rain, though I haven't seen any ducks queuing up to leave).

To the left is a typical North Vancouver view, including Ro, water, a boat, more water, some clouds, and a seaplane (and more water). (There really is a seaplane there, but it's a bit small, and white, and in front of some white clouds, but not behind a curtain of rain, which is unusual)

With the arrival of spring, I had a go at 'two (strenuous) activities in one day' thing that everyone says is such a feature of the lifestyle here (if you're part commando, or possibly cyborg). The spring snow has been much better than last year, so Ro and I got up for a bit of a ski both mornings. I was a bit worried that the snow would revert to the usual slush, or a sloped skating rink (the other local specialty) but some heavy cloud cover kept the snow ski-able. The emotional effects of said snow preserving cloud on the non-skiing population won't be mentioned here.

Once the skiing had got my legs nicely annihilated, I decided to finish them off by a nice little lap of Fromme. For those of you unfamiliar with what a 'lap of Fromme' means, the easiest option involves 600m of climbing, with a particularly soul destroying initial burst of 120m up a straight asphalt road. Due to the rigours of the descent, it is necessary to lug up a bike that could serve double duty as a boat anchor, meaning that you end up working pretty hard to move faster than the local pedestrians. It's a place where cycling egos come to die.

Once that particular pleasure has been dispensed with, you've only got another 300m or so to gain on a gravel road of more reasonable grade, which is pretty doable when it's not covered with snow. However, if there's enough snow to let you stand your bike up, you'll find yourself walking a bit.

Though I was a bit worried, most of the descent was pretty good; however, the first couple of hundred metres were a bit of a worry. I remember first arriving in the North Shore and being intimidated by the roots and rocks in the dry, then going through the same adaption process in the wet. If I had enough sense to think about what a crusting of ice might do, I'd still have my shiny new helmet; however I was too busy showing up a couple of boys behaving a bit more sensibly on their big bikes.