DIY Art

[carpathian]

Lillooet Canoe Trip


The summers in Pemberton Valley are long and hot. I eventually became accustomed to the heat but I really helps to have some nice cold water nearby to take the edge off.

As we got out of the trucks at the Meager Creek Bridge, I could here the roar of the river. According to the Backcountry Map Book, this section should be 8 hours of fast, deep water. It should carry our two canoes 32 kilometers southeast, to the Upper Lillooet Bridge.

We were hoping that the majority of the volume of water would be split up into smaller, braided channels that we could cleanly navigate in open canoes. From the bridge, however, all of the river was one, as we could see several taller standing waves interspersed with consistent smaller waves. We figured that we could just steer around the taller waves and make it around a few corners to where it would hopefully calm down.

Around 11am we launched. Sam, Calita and their dog Cody were in the first canoe. Jamie, my self and my dog Po were in the second canoe. About 10 seconds into our float I had to start bailing. At 20 seconds I had to paddle furiously then at 30 seconds I had to bail again, now at a frenzied pace. At 40 seconds the gunnels started to go under as I watched Po start to swim in my lap. From 45 to 60 seconds I was swimming with one arm, with all of my might as my other hand is gripped around Po’s collar and scruff. We crashed and swam together through a train of standing waves as the whole river made an obvious drop. I could see Sam and Calita already on shore as I struggled the last 10 ft, dog in hand.

At first I was stunned at how quickly things turned sour. Canoe #1 pitch poled off to the horizon as Jamie was still in the water struggling with freeing his dry bag from the submerged cross bar. In the meanwhile Cody the dog was on the other side of the river as we watched him jump back in to join us. I raced 200meters down the boulder-strewn sandbar at pace with the current as I yelled to Jamie “The dog! The dog!” as Cody made it to shore.

Luckily we were only 1 kilometer from the trucks so we sprinted upstream, then drove 5k downstream, parked, ran through the woods and then huge, open sandbar. I could see the tops of waves in the hazy distance. We hit the river and ran downstream another kilometer. There was our boat, pinned upside down on the bottom, on the other side of three deep, fast, cold channels.

I was responsible for the borrowed boat so I had to navigate, claw and swim my way across the river. I got to the boat after some real Navy Seal maneuvering! As I began prying her loose from the suction and weight of the water, I realized that the river had beaten her badly. No seats, no gunnels, no throw-bag, no paddles, just a floppy fiberglass hull. I hiked upstream and pushed into the torrent and free-styled through a wave train that carried me across to the other shore as Jamie tossed me a line made of tie-downs tied together and a stick for weight. The line came up just short as I speed crawled from the intact stern to the fractured bow and into the water with bow in one hand and now the rope in the other as I swung like a pendulum to shore.

For Sammy’s boat we decided to search upstream to where the first shallow braids might catch a canoe. We found it about 2 kilometers upstream from our boat. It was stuck in a similar scenario except with deeper and faster currents.

Jamie took to the lead and committed to powerful forward strokes to get across the main channel. This boat was equally as mangled with gunnels and seats hanging limp and broken. This canoe was constructed out of plastic and it began to ‘taco’ because the gunnels were part of the structure apparently. Because of this ‘taco’ effect and its accompanying extreme instability, Jamie decided to swim across with a line in his hand connected to the canoe trailing downstream from him.

He came whizzing by me and my out reached stick. Sammy again had to use our jimmy rigged safety line and hauled Jamie to the shore. But the boat slipped from his grasp and began running down stream again as I had to sprint along the shore another 100meters and wade out into waist deep water to finally salvage our lost vessel. The time was 4pm.

We made our way to the trucks to sit in the sun, drink a couple of warm beers and reflect on potential lessons learned.

[carpathian]

Birkenhead Packraft Trip


My knee was still sore from our botched Lilloet River expedition. I had banged it pretty good as I crab crawled across the current trying to save the canoe. Not to be beaten though, I decided to try the Birkenhead River with Bougie. Our mode of transportation would be the pack raft.

Imagine a little kiddie raft built for one person. Now imagine that basic design constructed out of reinforced Kevlar with a spray skirt and a carbon fiber paddle. They are pretty nimble and light. I have never really done any kayaking or rafting. I had done mellow canoeing, Lilloet trip aside.

Bougie was optimistic in my abilities and our route. The Birkenhead flowed right past our house just outside Pemberton. He pickled me up in the afternoon and figured that the trip would only take a couple of hours. The lower bit is smooth Class I and the middle section is up to Class III. Bougie had a little guidebook in his lap as we negotiated under the power lines right of ways looking for our access point.

He wanted to catch the very last section of Class IV and was confident that I could do it. I was nervous. The river seemed to be more rock then water. It had about one tenth the volume of the Lilloet River, but from what I could see, this was way steeper. Bougie had two of these little boats and we both squeezed in and pushed from shore. It was actually more of a pulling motion as I gripped on the rocks with my hands and scooted my butt through the super tight channels. I did not even have a chance to practice paddling before the first five foot drop. It was exhilarating! I paddled and dashed from channel to channel barely in control.

Bougie dropped over another cliff and I followed close on his stern. We hit drop after drop as we came around a bend and saw a stairway feature of drops spiraling away to the distance. I was right on Bougie’s tail as we plunged over 1, 2, 3, 4 cliffs in a row. On the fifth drop there was a he log across the river about 2 feet off the surface. Bougie pulled off a smooth ducking motion and cleanly avoided hitting his head. I struggled to do the same maneuver but ended up over leaning and flipped backwards right in the crux of the waterfall. The bottom of the boat hit the log as I dove out and came to the surface,

I attempted in vain to hang onto the one paddle and the boat and swim at the same time. My coat pockets filled with water and I clawed at the cliffs along the waters edge and had to let the boat and paddle go. I climbed up on the boulder like a near drowned rat. As Bougie power stroked downstream to catch my ride I was left barefoot and alone on the wrong side of the river.

I first tried to walk through the woods but that did not work on my soft feet. The boulders along the stream were large and slippery. My only option was to jump back in and swim across to the other side where the road was so I could walk on pavement.
After about 20 minutes we were reunited. I got back in my boat and Bougie reassured me that we had come through the worst of it and it turns out he was right.

The rest of the trip was awesome as we rode over wave after wave for 2 hours straight. Nothing was too scary but it was still challenging.

Right at the last 50 meters of the river before our pull out, there were three young 1st nation guys sitting on the beach. One of them jumped up and ran into the water and dove right in front of Bougie. He stood there drunk and cross-eyed and grabbed Bougie’s boat and told us “No white people here.”

He made a fist menacingly. I thought “yeah right these drunk guys are going to stop us after the challenges we already surpassed.” He came to me and I shook his hand and told him that I knew it was his river and I asked permission to go through. He said yes only if I bought him some beer. I agreed and he let us go. We loaded in the car and drove away.

[carpathian]

North to Alaska

I started driving at 4am on the morning of February 6, 2008. I drove for 18 hours straight from Pemberton, BC to Prince Rupert, BC. The last 3 hours from Terrace to Rupert were the worse. It was snowing harder then I had seen it snow in a while. With my dog Po as my co-pilot, I was road buzzed from driving solo for so long but was still keeping a good time, though I did almost go off the road in the slush just out side of Rupert. My flat deck truck was loaded to the gills with my snowmobile and my entire ski-building factory. I was going to get on the ferry and ride north to Haines, AK. From there I planned on driving to Anchorage where I would stay at my parents house for three months so I could build and sell Carpathian Skis. Carpathian Peak is the biggest peak in the area so I named my ski company after it. I also was planning on competing in three world championship events on my own gear at Alyeska Resort. It was an epic homecoming and I was excited.

With the first stage of my journey complete, I could relax for a couple of days on the ferry. It is a scenic voyage and I enjoyed the spirit of adventure. It seemed ironic that I was this Alaskan native with so much experience actually in Alaska but here I was no feeling like a green horn, rolling into new territory.

It was cold outside Juneau. Normally on the ocean the temperature is somewhat moderated, even in the winter it never will get too cold. This was different though as it was –25C and blowing hard as we chugged north to Haines. From Haines I would be stepping into the most hazardous stage of the journey. Outside of Haines, Alaska you cross the border back into BC and climb up to Haines Pass. As you descend the other side of the pass you cross another border into the Yukon. You are also going into the interior side of the Coast Range where the temperature drops precipitously. I was nervous as I departed Haines around 7am. I knew I was ‘going deep’ so to speak, but I was up to the challenge.

My main concern was my diesel truck. I had bad experiences in northern Saskatchewan with my work truck gelling up once it hit –40 Celsius. Right now it was –35 in Haines Junction, Yukon. I still had summer fuel in my truck and I knew that in Haines Junction they would sell cold weather diesel. As I descended the pass the temp dropped and my truck started to act up. It sneaks up on you. The gas pedal feels a little sluggish and she kind of stalls out a bit. Soon it stalls more and more then picks up again like there is no problem. I can feel the fear rising in my gut because I am in the middle of nowhere. There are not even people to hitch with on this spur highway and if I don’t get to town before the border closes at the end of the day, I am stuck.

I limped into Haines Junction and found a gas station. Apparently the temperature was dropping and no one was outside as I fiddled with the fuel pump. I could not get it to work. The gas attendant person told me that I was the first customer to use it for the day and that I would have to hold it in front of my idling exhaust pipe to thaw the pump mechanism.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of choking on exhaust, the pump would flow and I thought I was saved. I topped her up and started for the Alaska border some 300 miles north. This stretch is bleak with the mountains on your left and the cold interior plains on your right. It was deceiving though. The sun was out and it looked nice out from the heated confines of my truck cab. But when I stopped to take breaks of the side of the road, it quickly became clear that it was very fucking cold. I sensed that it might be colder then –40 but I was not sure. The truck was driving all right and I was going to make it home that night. Five minutes later the truck starts acting up. She feels sluggish in forth gear so I downshift and keep driving. Soon she is sluggish and stalling in 3rd so I drop to 2nd, then 1st. I am crawling on the side of the empty highway at walking speed and I am still 200 miles from the town of Beaver Creek, located right at the border.

Po is looking at me like he knows we are in trouble and he cowers next to me, slightly shaking. The truck dies. I don’t get out of the truck so as to preserve what tiny amount of heat I have trapped in the cab. I feel like crying at this point. A minute later I start the truck and resume walking speed. The fuel lines run past the engine and they will thaw if giving enough time near the engine heat. She stalls again. I wait five minutes and start crawling again. I know it is futile but like a good captain I do not want to abandon ship.

She stalls again and this time will not start. I have to hitch hike. It was about noon and there is usually a car or truck going by every half an hour. I stick my thumb out and get picked up by the first car. Everyone knows that if anyone needs help out here you had better offer assistance.

We left my truck and drove for two hours to the tiny border town of Beaver Creek. Not really a town but more like a motel, and gas station. I get dropped off near a couple of abandoned looking garages after the gas station person told me this is where the tow truck is. The place is sketchy and looks like it was last renovated in the fifties. I call the number and an old lady answered. She told me that her husband was out on a job but would be back in a couple of hours.

I go back to the gas station/motel and ask for a room. The guy starts lecturing me on why I am driving out there. “Don’t you know it is –55C out there? Not even the locals are driving! Blah, blah, blah.”

I got comfortable with the TV in the weird room I was in and waited for the call.
The next day was Sunday and the guy “would not go out until 10am to get my truck,” he told me. I waited all the next day and walked over to the garage around 4pm. They had my truck but she did not want to start. I guess it got down to –70C the last night, ushering in the coldest spell of the winter. I remember using the old pull start method back in Saskatchewan and sure enough she roared to life, like being resurrected from the dead.
Problem was that the heater did not work because it was frozen or something but I had to go anyway. The guy charged me $500 for the tow truck and bid me farewell. It was the warmest part of the day and oddly enough it felt balmy at –40C.

[carpathian]

After taking 6 days to get to Anchorage, everything else felt easy. The Telepalooza 1st Annual World Extreme Telemark Championships almost caught me off guard. It was all right though, because with telemark boots these days and these super fat skis I was rocking, I figured that I would just ski the terrain that you could not telemark turn in anyway. I got away with it for the first day. I aimed for the heart of the ‘no fall zone’ as a confident alpine skier.

My first run was a super gnarly first descent and my second run I went bigger then ever before in my life with a 20-80ft double. I ended up in 5th place, as unfortunately the judges did not count Run 2 because some guy hurt himself and the last 10 guys did not get to ski so my score did not count.

In Day 2 of the Tele comp I was confident that I had a secret weapon. Everyone was poking around ‘the Prow’ area as I figured on going over into the ‘Postal Pocket’ area for better snow and longer steep sections. Right at the top of the run I piled into a chest deep fresh snow drift and front flipped right back to my feet and sent the slab rolling down ‘Christmas Chute’. The judges totally saw me roll as I made alpine turns down the lower, mellow terrain. I fell from 5th place to 25th.

Two days later the North Face sponsored Big Mountain Snowboard Masters comp began. It was fun because I could get on the lift and not have to talk to the telemark skiers anymore. Up until this point in my building season, I had constructed 19 pairs of skis. The day before the snowboard comp started I finished my first snowboard. This thing was as stiff as a 2x6 but she had clean lines. I am barely managing to turn this thing and end up in 11th overall at the end of it. Either says something about my riding or something of the state of snowboarding…

By now, according to my plan, I would be so immersed in competition mode that by the time the IFSA event came along I would have a mental advantage over the other guys. At first I was struck by the cult like qualities of the IFSA in general. Or more specifically if felt like a positive ‘spiritual group for athletes’. Compared to the two previous competitions I had just participated in, the IFSA definitely has a longer history, which leads to more ‘unity’, and an over all family feel. In the introduction meeting we were reminded to celebrate life and remember the people who had died doing what we all loved to do, which is rip big mountain lines. Tomorrow would be the one-year anniversary of Neal Valiton’s death in the Tignes World Championship event, so we all wanted to ski safe.

The next day the clouds were in and out but the skies remained mostly sunny. I was 5th from the end of a strong field of 75 male competitors. I had several hours to hike around on the venue to scope lines and watch other skiers. I could also hear the announcers at the bottom so I knew which skiers scored well on which lines. All I can say is that dudes were charging. I cringed a couple of times as there were several close calls coupling speed with exposure. There were a lot of tomahawks and you could tell that that some skiers were probably skiing faster then they ever had before on the long, steep, smooth run-out.

I eventually hiked up to the start right when John Nicoletta was charging into his line. I did not know who he was at the time. A moment later I noticed the group of ski patrollers nearby perking up to their radios in unison. A couple of them skied into the venue quickly then a minute later the rescue sled was dispatched from the top. Word was that they were performing CPR. A helicopter appeared soon thereafter and landed briefly then took off again without loading anyone. That is not good sign, I thought to myself. A few minutes later the organizers called off the event for the day.

John Nicoletta had died soon after sustaining severe head and chest injuries after rag-dolling right in the same spot I had watched those close calls earlier in the day. In the evening we were informed officially of his death. We were also told that the event would continue the next day following an early morning memorial at the top of the venue. I still felt kind of numb. I was not sure how the emotions would set in. I was not sure what to think.

We all hiked slowly and silently up the steep head wall boot-pack. At the top we were greeted by a stunning clear vista of all of the surrounding mountains of the mighty Chugach and the lesser-known Kenai Range to the south. These are my favorite mountains in the world. I grew up hiking from peak to peak trying to forever expand my vision of the area. The views compelled me to do so. As I stood there I realized that I had climbed every single peak that you could see at one time or another over the previous 12 years.

It was not the loving memories of John’s friends that piqued my emotions. It was standing there in the familiar trance that the stunning view evokes. I suddenly felt extreme sadness for John’s family and friends but I felt more sadness for John who would never get to look across these mountains again.

After the memorial everyone who had skied the day before the accident got a free run down to the bottom while the remaining competitors, myself included, had to get back into competition mode. It all seemed silly. The only reason I skied was because I said I was doing all three comps come hell or high water, so I felt I had to.

The snow had changed but I stuck with my line. After an air I skidded a turn, flipped backwards but then managed to regain control in mid flip. I slashed two turns into a nice, long, low air into fresh powder and sunlight. I ended up in 54th place. I retired from 10 years competitive big-mountain skiing at the end of that run.

The week before the competitions started there was fund-raiser for my old friend Fred Bull. As it turns out he had been battling a rare form of brain cancer for several years and was in need of money to complete his third operation. The doctors had been removing chunks of his brain in hopes of stopping its spread. Fred was there and I had not seen him in several years. He was as jovial as ever and about 300 people from the ski community showed up to support one of their own.

He was the one who literally instilled a sense of awe and respect for the Chugach Mountains in general and specifically, Carpathian Peak, the namesake of my company. It struck me as crazy that here I was trying to sell these skis while trying kill myself by skiing huge cliffs and showing off for the judges and here is my old friend dying of cancer. I really believed the surgery was going to work and I was taken in by his contagious lust for life, as it was 10 years ago when I first met him. Fred was so happy to see that I was building skis but he refused the pair I had brought as a gift for him. He preferred that I auctioned them off with the other stuff being auctioned to raise money.

After two weeks of being in ‘competition mode’ I was burnt out. My lovely and supportive wife, Vesna, and I went on a nice sailing trip into Prince William Sound then we made our way over to Valdez for a few snow mobile runs and then eventually back to Haines, where the ferry awaited to take us south to Prince Rupert and Whistler.

Fred and I never did ski Carpathian Peak and I have not to this day. It is kind of like the carrot on the stick but is also a place for gods and men turned to the heavens. Fred’s last goal of his life was to finish building a house for his wife and unborn daughter. They were living in Seattle where Fred was getting treatment and Fred knew he had to finish the house sooner then later. He did finish the house and his daughter was born a month later. Fred died one week after that.

[carpathian]

The Power of Perception.

I like trying to capture various aspects of quantum theory on canvas.



https://www.quora.com/Is-the-moon-th...-like-the-moon

[carpathian]

Franti Concert

It was time to go, the party was over, the people were leaving. How did we get there? It does not matter because the way out is completely different.

Four hours earlier… The warm evening sun dappled through the tall majestic trees of Stanley Park. It was a beautiful day in late August. We arranged our blanket on the grassy hillside with all of the other eager concert goers. We were here to see Michael Franti and it was going to rock!

The outdoor venue filled up fast with an assorted crowd and good vibes were in the air. The sky turned to purple dusk and the stage lights now shined bright.

The concert started. We moved forward into the crowd. Everyone was happy and friendly and mostly Canadian as the beats started thumping.

“That guy is tall,” I would think as Franti rapped and rocked about this and that. The music rumbled and the crowd loved it. By about the 4th song the sky was dark and the air was thick and muggy with patchouli and THC smoke. The first set was awesome! We took a break and sooner then later the band was back out on stage and then they cut the lights. Soon there was 1, 2, 10 then 1000’s of lighters shining in the warm night air. The song was languid and guttural and drawn out like good sex.

I watched the crowd transfixed by the sea of light and it looked like a rolling sea of flesh blending with the music and aroma. The tempo began to build. A rain drop hit my nose. Then another. Within 10 seconds the sky unleashed a downpour of rain water as the band ratcheted things up about 1000 times. I was impressed. This show could not have been choreographed any better assuming full cooperation from the heavens.

The stage lights blazed with Franti in stark silhouette getting drenched. I felt like I was immersed in a bad ass rock video as the people danced around like they were literally insane. We probably all were. The rain kept up hard for 3-4 songs and the band never missed a beat. I recall the guitar guys moving back under cover while Franti stayed out front and the energy intensified.

The rain slowed down. The mud squished in between our toes and the legs grew tired from 3 hours of ‘hippy shuffling’ as I call it. Last song, time to go.

We were in deep. Downtown Vancouver on LSD and we had to get out of the city and safely back home to Pemberton, an hour and half north. When you leave Stanley park it can be a rude adjustment. One loop through the forest leads to another and the hapless concert goers are thrust back into the general population. Pender, Cambie, Georgia… all streets I don’t like.

We were driving on the periphery of downtown into the heart of downtown as we needed to loop into the city to make a turn around to get back on the Lions Gate Bridge. There is an intersection at Pender and Cordova maybe, where the road branches off on long angles like the peace signs we were waving about just 20 minutes earlier. We had to go left through the intersection but the stop lights were sooo far away. And the street signals…!

They alternate lanes based on traffic flow one way or the other depending on the time of day. Red X’s and Green Arrows blinking and shimmering in the cacophony bright lights. I made the intersection cleanly, turn left, turn left, turn left again then turn right… we were heading out of the city! We passed the concert venue on our right and passed through the tall trees of Stanley Park proper.

A few minutes later we emerged from the canopy of forest and began to climb the mighty architecture of the Lions Gate Bridge. We had one lane of Green Arrows going our way with about 2” of clearance between oncoming traffic on the left and the guard rail on the right. So badly I wanted to look out over the city lights and watch them dance and shout but Vesna would shout, “Eyes on the road!”

The bridge was coming to an end and I was heading due east. There was a key off ramp that we could not afford to miss and as we spiraled around a full 270 deg I completely lost all internal reference markers as to which direction we were traveling until I saw a sign that indicated we were Whistler bound.

I was tired and wanted to get home fast and was pushing maybe 10% over the speed limit of 100kph. I was soon passed by a FedEx van that was going way faster, like in the 140kph range. I was determined to keep pace with this guy as he was our pace car and our decoy and our savior. As we blasted up the highway my favorite part was how the speed trap signs would top out at 150 kph and just start blinking. We arrived home in Pemberton in record time.

[carpathian]

Mount Currie Traverse

Spring is long upon us here in Smithers, BC. Vesna is approximately 8 and half months along and we half expect the baby any day. I have been busy for the last month building on our soon to be home. Each day seems to be warmer and warmer as we are also becoming more excited to have this baby and get on with a new chapter in this adventure called life.

Smithers always seems to be a place of reflection for me. A back eddy from the mainstream current pulsing in more high traffic regions. It stands in contrast to the amped up atmosphere of Whistler and the Lower Mainland in general and even though the area is pumped up from huge cash flow and extreme sport, there is still some room for the remnants of the spirit world as told through the stories of the local first nation people.

From our lawn, JJ would point up to the bulk of Mt Currie and the connecting horizon line that circles Gravell Creek and connects around to the Bastion, the mountain I had earlier climbed and skied solo. Apparently Mt Currie is a spiritual power place, as it should be, towering 7000feet about Pemberton, Valley. The local tribes would send young men up into the drainage to go on their spirit quest because it is a nexus, or intersection between this world and the world of unseen shadows you only half glimpse ducking behind a tree when you turn to look.

Every time I looked around in appreciation of the Pemberton and Whistler area, I was reminded of the helicopter crash and how we immediately moving south to run away. I remember one of the first hot days of the following summer when we went swimming at Lost Lake. I was out a ways from shore and all of the sudden a helicopter flew over the area and I felt a panic start to rise in my gut. I didn’t want to seize up and drown here in this lake that would be silly.

Later when Pete’s wife called and blamed me for his death and relinquished his spirit name from me I did not know what to think. All I knew is that it was ironic that his spirit name was ‘Great Swimming Wolf.’ Was my spirit jarred from my body, leaving me hollow and void of emotion? Or was I finally looking at the world through my own spirit eyes, free of subjective interpretation?

Ryan Bougie and I were up at 5am. We had to get an early start in order to beat the heat as we power climbed straight up the broad treed shoulder of Mt Currie’s NE flank. At 7:30am we were 4000ft up above the scenic Pemberton Valley. The Lilloet River stretched west and the Birkenhead curved away to the north from our vantage. At tree line we took to dodging the sun in the very last scraps of shade we would see for the day. As it turns out, this would be the hottest day of the year with temperatures breaking 40C in the valley. It seemed like the higher we climbed, the heat followed, licking at our heels as we managed to stay one step ahead.

We ascended the glacier that spills off Mt Curries North Bowl. There were a couple of crevasse crossings that made me nervous. We were able to divert on to the adjacent mossy cliffs around the gaping blue holes. We sat and took a breather and I remembered hearing a story from my friend Ryan back in Alaska.

He had gone out on a day trip with the objective of climbing Byron Peak, just south of Girdwood in Portage Valley. The easiest way to get up the mountain is to climb straight up Byron Glacier 2000ft to a obvious col. From there you have another 1500 feet of exposed ridge up to the summit. I had only climbed the peak once but clearly remember a couple of technical moves where you could not fall.

It did not matter because they never made it that far. Ryan and his friend, Ben from Maine, were cruising up the glacier with no ropes but using crampons. In the summer you can see all the crevasses so you can at least see where not to go. They were climbing up the last steep pitch when Ben’s crampon got caught up in his pant leg and he started tumbling and he rolled about 100 feet before smacking into a gaping crevasse in which he slid down into some 30 feet. Ryan hurried back down the pitch to see his friend wedged in tightly. He even went so far as to down climb with one foot on each side of the crack and stem his way down to his friend.

Ben was conscious and hurt and he knew it. His head was cracked open and he told Ryan that he knew he was going to die. Ryan tried with all of his might to dislodge Ben but to no avail. He told Ryan to go and run to the parking lot for help and they said their goodbyes. By time the rescue party made it to the scene, he was dead.

Bougie and I had to continue. The day was young and we had a long way to go. We ended up hitting the summit after five and a half hours of speed hiking. It was a spectacular view but we could not dawdle. By my calculations we still had another 10 hours of technical ridge climbing ahead of us to complete the circuit.

The descent off of the peak of Currie was crazy. The ridge narrowed to maybe 2 feet wide with 3000ft sheer drop under our left side and only 1500 feet on the right. After a few scary moves we were into the heart of the journey. There is point along any treacherous path referred to as ‘the point of no return.’ It is place in space or time where you can only go forward and you can’t deviate, even if you wanted to. 3000ft below us was the sacred headwaters of local lore and here we were climbing above the place of spirits into the realm of the gods.

The ridge broadened into a rolling plateau. It was a desert like landscape with no water, no wind. Only silence and endless vistas as our feet kept moving from stone to stone. Occasionally the ridge would narrow and jumble into huge blocky steps as we negotiated each crux with a deep breath or maybe a nervous joke about our escape options, because we knew that we had none. We would have to take what the mountain threw at us.

The thing about technical ridge travel is that there are always more ups and downs then you might expect. After Currie we negotiated ten more sub peaks, each a mountain in its own right. The 7th or 8th peak looked daunting. It rose in a sharp fang with three sides falling away vertical. Luckily there was an odd geomorphic feature that appeared as a chalky colored diagonal slash across one of the near vertical faces. It was our only option and proved barely manageable. Like always we were traveling without ropes so small technical moves can have huge consequences. We nimbly maneuvered across the loose minefield of boulders that were perched, ready to let loose for 2000ft to the valley below.

Every step is life or death and you have to be in a state of relaxed concentration. We made it across the face to only come across another crux. The hard summer snow had held tight to the ridge as we squeezed between it and the wet bedrock. At one point we had to come out of the safety behind the ice to negotiate across precarious placed rocks over full exposure. Or rather 150 feet of super steep summer snow that I could imagine my finger claw marks skidding down and into oblivion.

There was a two-foot section of ice leading to a boulder with a small depression that had melted at its base. The move was this: Stretch with all commitment and lean first hand across to solid boulder then step right foot across and into depression leaving body in full down hill facing position. We then had to step the left foot and hop at the same time to slide into mini depression while clinging to the boulder at same time. Finally there was a three-foot boulder move to climb the rock and scramble back on to the ridge. Not pretty but it worked.

We crested the ridge and promptly saw that we could have easily avoided the death-defying move if we had gone through a previously unseen notch. Such is life! We ran down the summer snow with reckless abandon, careening and cart wheeling all the way. We had three more peaks to go but they were all technically easy considering what we had come through.

By the end of it I was tired. The sole of my shoe was coming unglued as we slipped and skidded through the forest trying to find the cut block and our salvation. As the last rays of the hottest day of the year shined horizontally through the trees in our face we ran the last kilometer to the waiting truck.

[carpathian]

Pemberton Music Festival

There was much anticipation leading up to the 1st annual Pemberton Music Festival. Pemberton is a sleepy farming community of about 2500 people located 20 km north of Whistler, BC. While Whistler gets all of the hype Pemberton residents enjoy cheaper real estate and small town vibe with hardly a trickle of the tourism numbers that Whistler sees.

As the long weekend approached in late July over 40,000 people from near and far would be clearing their calendars and descending upon a small town that was not altogether confident that they could handle the sheer numbers.

While the event itself was to be held on 300 acre sprawling acres of fertile farm land with stunning views of Mt. Currie, visitors were going to have to park several mile away and school buses would be used to shuttle the people to and from the festivities. It was almost guaranteed to be a cluster fuck while Vesna and I were stoked be living just 5 km north, within easy striking distance on bike.

99% of the estimated 40,000 people that were going to arrive would do so from the south, from Vancouver and beyond. Sure enough, on the Friday morning things were going to kick off, we rode our bikes and slid in the back entrance only to hear that the traffic was backed up to the south over 20 km, all the way through Whistler! We were in a ready to party!

The line up included The Flaming Lips, Cold Play, Tom Petty, Jay Z, Tragically Hip, Crystal Method, MSTRKRFT, DeadMaus, Nine Inch Nails, Matisyahu and Wolf Mother among others. I had always been a fan of Nine Inch Nails since high school and Vesna really wanted to see The Hip. We both agreed we wanted to see Tom Petty. Besides that we were just going to roll with the flow and see where the action took us.

Jay Z gave a weird performance with him rap yelling while holding a guitar and not really playing it. Matisyahu gave a surprise quality show as we had never heard of him before. We danced away into the late evening sun as long cool shadows cut across the valley. It had been hot and dusty during the day and the dropping temperature was appreciated.

Wolf Mother was cool and The Flaming Lips were like some kind of circus act with bubble machines and robots and huge beach balls bouncing around the audience.

Tom Petty was due to play at 9pm on the Saturday night main stage. We knew from the night before that after the main stage shut down at 11pm every single person was going to try and get into the ‘Rave Tent’. It was by the far the largest portable tent structure I have ever seen. It was tucked towards the back of the main fair grounds and the party would roll on until 2 or 3 in the morning.

We had to make a decision; stay outside and watch Tom Petty, a true rock legend live and in concert! Or go to the Rave Tent early and lose our minds to some heavy electric dance beats… Last dance with mary jane or stay up all night with Molly?!

We opted for the EDM and the guaranteed good time. We arrived to the tent early, like awkwardly early. The only people in the secure rave compound were security guards and serious tweekers… and us lol. The tent was maybe 300ft long and 98% empty. There was some generic techno playing but no real DJ. We checked out the huge rows of porta potties and then found a weird little food court. It was more like a sad collection of street vendors huddled in the confines of a chainlink fence.

There were maybe 8 or 10 picnic tables and 20-30 people hanging around on various drugs. It was kind of a gross scene but I eventually yielded to temptation and bought a pulled pork sandwich that I was convinced would give me Ebola or some shit.

While eating the pork I noticed a couple of people had moved a picnic table over near the 8ft tall wooden fence. They were standing on the table and watching Tom Petty! Sure he was a ways off but with the Jumbotron and huge speakers we could clearly see and hear everything. How awesome!

The Rave Tent was not supposed to get going until 11pm when MSTRKRFT would start the show followed by The Crystal Method at 1am. It was now about 10pm and we had a good way to kill and hour. Soon there were more people in the food court and we were all lined up along the fence enjoying the show.

We could see clearly over the heads of the people who were quickly stacking up to get inside the Tent. It was one of those huge line ups where the people stand 10 abreast and it ran down the whole length of fence we were looking over. It was separated by a 20 foot buffer space. Some of the people in the line started yelling at us to leave so that they could come in. There was some dance music going on while Petty had only 10 minutes left. The Rave Tent had filled quickly in the last hour.

They would have to understand… they did not understand! Soon the people surged and the 1st fence fell to the under trampling feet. Security pushed us back off the table and took our position so they could defend the castle. I managed into a good spot where I could watch the chaos of people trying to scale the fence down the line.

Just when things were getting crazy we scampered inside in time to see a guy scale the fence right behind the porta-potties. He sprinted into the tent so happy because he thought he made it then from out of no where a huge security guard cloths-lined the guy and took him away.

The Tent was pumping now! Of course everyone wanted to get in there, it was the heartbeat of the whole event. Through the previous 2 days you could always hear the ubiquitous ‘thump, thump, thump’ of the heavy beats being pumped into the fertile soil of Pemberton Valley. And now we were in it!

30ft tall speakers lined the stage and clusters of 20ft tall speakers hanged form the ceiling adorned with flashing light arrays. Everything was covered in lights. Fluorescent pinks and blues and yellows and reds bumped and pulsated with the rhythm and beat.

Early on we pushed to the front to be nearest the music, though the room was over flowing. There were various joints and bottles of booze being passed around as you could see the music vibrate through the smoke. MSTRKRFT was a pretty fun act. It is made of a duo with one guy acting all serious and keeping the music going while the other guy was all sweaty and shiny and chugging from a bottle og whiskey and throwing his hair around. It was obviously rehearsed but effective, the party was raging now!

But my ears were ringing. I felt like we were missing the forest for the trees. We moved back through the crowd. Towards the back of the room there was a set of stairs that led up to a mezzanine level. Crystal Method had just taken the stage. We emerged into the light and could now gaze across the top of every ones heads. All of the individuals were now a unified mass that was writhing under the lights. We had been part of the crowd now we were above it, on another plane so to speak.

Now, I am finally writing this story down for the first time though I may have verbally told it over 20 times. I’ll never forget the scene. Vesna laughs because I act like we witnessed some historical music experience of our generation. The bass had stopped and the snare tempo was accelerating. As it accelerated the choreographed light show also accelerated. “Where is the bass?!! This is crazy!” The strobe lights were now going so fast that it appeared that the crowd was frozen as the music had transcended time and space.

We were so in it that it was no longer there. And then a distant memory began to take form and I wondered, “How could the bass even drop now? We are too high! It can’t reach us… But drop it did.

I imagined a giant with enormous wooden mallets deciding to rain hellfire down upon all of us and smash our feeble minds to oblivion. And I knew that was the climax of the entire weekend. We were in it. We saw it. It would be all downhill from here I thought as we mounted our bikes and pedaled home in the wee hours.

The next day we were slow moving to go anywhere. We made it down to the festival ground by about 2pm. The crowds were thinning, the mood had shifted. There were no security guards at the gates any more. The sky was grey, the wind blew dust in billowing clouds. We wandered around catching a few mellow acts here and there. All acts from this day forth would seem mellow compared to last night.

I looked over to the Rave Tent. It was silent now, its story had been told.

All of the people who camped in the fair grounds were leaving. By the late afternoon the only thing left was a sea of abandoned tents and coolers and trash. It was the most depressing apocalyptic hangover I have witnessed. Vesna was keen to salvage some stuff but was reluctant. So many lawn chairs to choose from.

It was sickening to see such waste. I didn’t know people would buy so much stuff and just leave it?

The electric beats ran through my head all day everyday for the following two weeks. We would drive to work past the festival grounds and watch as it was slowly cleaned and soon there was no sign that it ever was.

[carpathian]

Whistler Film Festival

As the 2007 Whistler Film festival draws to a close, I sit and reflect on the events of the weekend and watch the snow pile high…

I knew there might be trouble around 9am on Saturday morning en route to Base 2 from our house out on Reid Road, 3km past Mt. Currie. We were just passing Green Lake when my wife’s cell phone went off three consecutive times from random ‘long lost friends in town who wanted to party’. I became concerned when I then realized that I did not bring a change of clothes for an evening in Whistler. That is a bummer because as it was, we already had plans to go to an outdoor bonfire sort of thing down at the RV park.

We live far enough out of town such that when you go to town, you bring everything you might need. I was prepared for the mountains not the bar, but I would have to make due.

The skiing was all right. It was clear and cold and I was testing a new pair of skis I had recently constructed myself. I made a few laps on Jersey Cream while diagnosing and critiquing the performance of my new rides. To tell the truth, they kind of sucked. They were too stiff, slight railing in one ski, slight asymmetry in the other etc, etc. They sure looked nice though and I was stoked. It was a beautiful day so I spent a couple of hours hiking around chasing powder.

After skiing we went to Meadow Park Rec Center to ‘clean up’ and kill time until our first social engagement of the evening. I tell ya, there is nothing better at killing the post-sauna buzz then coming back to your locker and opening the door to be greeted by a rush of damp sickly air poring out. I think it literally fell to the locker room floor and oozed out into the pool only to dye it red like they tell little kids if they pee in the pool. OK, maybe not that bad, but either way the socks were the worse, offering no relief to my thoroughly water logged feet. So I went sockless in wet shoes.

I was complaining loudly now and would have been happy to rush home to warm slippers. I also wanted to avoid any awkward situations that seemed inevitable. But alas, I am but a social recluse for the most part and my wife, who is a growing Whistler socialite, was all too suspicious that I was looking for an easy out. She then pulled out a nice warm pair of socks from deep in the car trunk. So now I had socks and if anything I could stay outside at the bonfire while she partied on to more intimate and enclosed venues.

5 minutes later we are at the RV Park and as it turns out the bonfire thing is cancelled and there goes my last chance to at least borrow a clean shirt when the phone rings and we are off to the GLC! Okay, if I can just keep this beast of a poly pro under a couple of layers everything will be all right. All along I was all too aware of the unspoken social rules followed by the apres ski crowd and people in general.

#1) Wearing ski boots and perhaps aromatic ski gear is accepted if and only if you skied to the bars doorstep. If you have to drive, take your boots off at least. If the bar scene looks like it is going to carry on into the night, don’t stay. Go home, shower, change clothes and then go back. I would say that you can get away with the après ski thing until 6pm at the latest. We were pushing 10pm. The GLC was cool though, no close contact with strangers and some independent short films to watch. I was basically drunk by 11:30pm when the crew decided to hop next door to some ‘lounge/photographer shin dig’ sort of thing. Although this event was the most specific of events I wanted avoid for the evening, it seemed it was my fate, nay, My destiny to really see what the night had in store for me as I pushed the limits of proper social behavior.

We slipped in the back patio door right as an auctioneer was calling out numbers on many several beautiful still photos blown up to poster size. Each one was going for a couple of hundred dollars and all proceeds were going to charity. See this is great! The people are stoked, good vibes in the air. I actually felt like we had inadvertently tapped into a vein of this elusive Whistler community only long time locals talk about.

The auction is over, the DJ is pumping out beats and I am feeling good. My wife comes over and introduces me to some guy in along fur coat. I can’t hear is name as he kicks my feet and I realize that he is Feet Banks. Feet is perhaps one of Whistlers most famous (self named?) celebrities. He is well spoken, creative, witty and observant. From what I gather he could be the coolest guy in town and as we talk some drunken politics for less then 1minute he seems to be quite friendly. I was taking mental notes that this might be the closest I would even get to meeting ole HS Thompson himself.

Feet gets sucked back into the crowd and I am left with the glow of his presence—no! The presence of Whistler embodied or maybe it was just the Christmas spirit. So we danced. The music was awesome and as I shed inhibitions I also shed some layers. I absorbed the funk and my funk was absorbed into the crowd. I didn’t care though, I figured if I just moved around strategically I could make it seem like it was some other guy. You know, look around in disgust just when you think someone is on to you.

Moments later Feet comes back and he is holding a drink in my direction and yelling into my wife’s ear. I can’t hear anything and as I take the apparent gin and tonic, Feet yells something in my direction and then disappears as I take a swig. It is ice water and it tastes delicious as I yell/ask “What did he say?” My wife, who loves me no matter what, yells back, “He says, YOUSTINK!”

I finish the water quickly in a vain attempt to sober up if not assess the situation. I felt like one of the victim’s of one of Paris Hiltons scathing cut downs in her recent National Lampoon debut. I have to go outside. I get my coat and wish that I had heard what the little bugger had said when he said it. I should have thrown the water in his face and then smashed the glass on his beanie and start one of those bar room brawls you always wish you could be in. I knew I was outnumbered. I figured I could take Feet and Chili together but I knew the crowd was on his side.

And besides, what he says is true. I pushed the limits and got spanked. As I sat outside looking at the clear night sky I thought about getting a haircut, maybe shaving more then once a week. What do they say? Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I was the dirty dude sitting outside watching the party through the window and even though I wanted to shed a tear I had to laugh! I could not be hurt or confused. I could only marvel at the symmetry by which the universe operates. I guess my stink was to such a frequency that the higher echelons of the social structure had to respond. A call from on high, if you will.

Anyway, I drove home drunk and fast, so as to minimize my time on the roads while I blamed my wife, then the universe, then eventually myself, for allowing the events to transpire thus far. Honestly I never did find myself being mad at Feet. He was just doing his job as a social observer if not a person with a nose. And besides, I got to live through a valuable life lesson and for better or worse Feet Banks knows who I am.

[carpathian]

Back to Smithers

The Mt Currie trip proved to be one of the best outings I had while living down south. After I had that under my belt I felt like I had achieved what I had come to do, though I was still not sure what that was. By the end of the summer Vesna and I knew that we had to move back north to Smithers and hopefully Alaska. Smithers was a step in the right direction. Vesna figured out that she was pregnant sometime in September and we knew the clock was ticking. Picking up and moving can be tricky but we had done it in the past and we would do it again.

The plan was to be out of JJ’s house by the end of November. I worked up until the day before we were to move and we were ready to go. A month prior Vesna’s brother Alec and I drove up to Smithers in a blitzkrieg mission to start building our cabin. We purchased a cabin kit from some guy out in Mission Ridge and managed to fit the entire stack of lumber on my truck. We drove 15 hours to Smithers, built nonstop for a week and then power drove back. We ended up finishing the outer shell of the cabin but there was still tons of work to be done.

The next step was for Vesna and I to drive over to our piece of property near Revelstoke and pick up the camper that was sitting on the land. Of course the truck broke down again and to make a long story short, her parents came through in a pinch and I finally diagnosed the issue with truck…

In the meanwhile we negotiated a deal with a coworker of mine who sorely wanted to purchase the Revelstoke land from us and we sealed the deal with a bag of cash on the day before we were to leave town. Good thing because we were short on cash otherwise and it would have been tricky with no gas money.

When Vesna and I were finally ready to make the move we had my truck with a huge camper and trailer loaded to the gills. Vesna was in here car and she was towing a trailer too. It was smooth sailing all the way through the Frazier Canyon and up to Quesnel, where we stayed in a motel for the night. The next morning we woke up to a foot on new snow and the highways were a mess. It was the first snowstorm of the year and everyone was caught off guard.

For whatever reason we pulled out of the safety of the motel parking lot and ventured into the blizzard. We made it about two hours before Vesna’s car started fishtailing. The road was real bumpy from the way the snow compacted and my truck vibrated loudly. We had little radios to communicate along the way. As we pulled through Hixon, we had to slow way down and then right out of town there was a long hill that already had several big rigs and couple of RVs stopped on the side. Vesna was going for it and I could see her back tires skidding out. I radioed for her to stop because I could see that she was not going to make.

We pulled over in the blizzard and hopped to out assess the situation. I turned my truck off and walked back to Vesna. When I got to her car I saw that my truck was sliding backward and I had to run back and get the parking block out.

In the meanwhile a highway patrol person came by and offered to help. We unhooked Vesna’s trailer and attached it to his truck. He started going down the hill and I was going to follow in the car when all of the sudden the trailer became unattached and started running down the hill by itself. I recall actually seeing the kitchen sink tap sticking out of the load as the trailer careened to a stop in the snow bank just as a big rig crawled by with chains in low gear. I had to laugh at this point as I reattached the trailer and followed the guy back to Hixon, about 1km.

I left the car and trailer and returned to Vesna at the truck. The new plan was to drive to Prince George about 50 km up the road to get some chains for the car and then return to retrieve the car. About half way to P.G. we realized that we did not want to drive the car at all in this weather. The problem now was that we had left our important documents in the car. If we were to go to Smithers without the car we would at least not want to leave passports and such in a random parking lot for who knows how long.

My truck still needed to be fueled up so we had to go to P.G. anyway. At the gas station I unhooked the trailer and we ventured back through the eye of the storm to grab the passports. Two hours later we had passports in hand and we were back in P.G. I wanted to reattach my trailer but sometime during the long drive, the heavy contents had shifted backwards and for the life of me, I could not get the trailer tongue back down on the hitch. I had to ask a random guy to help with his body weight and in the process I was pushing somewhere and my hand slipped and I gashed my finger.

Holysmokes! We were back on the road with plans to retrieve the car and trailer at a later date. We just had to get the camper to the property. We made it to Burns Lake and stayed the night. The next morning we rolled into Smithers no worse for wear. Over the following week we got the camper off the truck and started to prepare the mini cabin we would be living in until the real house was complete. Another week later, under the only sunny skies in weeks, we made the 500km one way drive back to Hixon to get the car and trailer and drive back all in one day.

[carpathian]

Bird Point Trip

One day Ryan and I decided to go for a bike ride. It was a beautiful crisp day in late August or early September. We were looking for a nice bike ride out to Bird Point to enjoy the last remnants of summer before the dark and rain of winter. We cruised out along the new bike path that used to be the old highway and dawdled at the over-looks as Ryan drilled some golf balls out into the ocean.

We made our way to the parking lot and left the bikes in the bushes and followed the trail that leads towards the waters edge. We cut off the trail and made our way to the beach and started combing along through the debris and logs piled high. The tide was beginning to make it ways out to sea and the lower rocks were coming into view. As Ryan was now throwing rocks I climbed over a crest of logs to peer into the next collection of debris.

I saw something that caught my eye. It looked human at first glance. I thought I saw long hair of a girl but could not be sure. I called Ryan and we were both petrified. Whatever it was, it was obviously dead. It was bloated and distended so it made identification tricky coupled with the fact that we did not want to go near it.

It was tangled in the logs and had various body parts that could be from different animals. Besides a person, it looked most a pig because it was all pink flesh. We slowly ventured closer actually afraid that whatever it was might leap up and get us. The head bent over on it self and I had to get to about 10 feet away. I then thought it was a huge dead dog, maybe a rottweiler.

We were stuck looking at this creature afraid that it might be human but feeling more confident that it was not. We had to go on and maybe we would come investigate on the way back through. As soon as we climbed out of the little grotto of death the air lifted on our thoughts and the day became beautiful again.

The shore along Bird Point is riddled with many miniature inlets that are surrounded by rock with mud revealed in the middle as the tide retreats. Our goal was to make it to the furthest point of rock possible as the tide continued to fall. We went out to the present moment furthest point and waited.

It was easy waiting with a splendid view of Alpenglow Mountain across the arm and all the stunning Chugach to our east and north. From this vantage we could see all the way out towards Anchorage and the tail end of the Alaska Range in the far west across Cook Inlet. The day seemed overtly crisp. The shapes of the mountains down to the tiny rivulets of water trickling across the mud back to the ocean. The sky was an impenetrable blue and we soaked up the sun as the tide fell. Every half hour or so we could move out another 20 or 30 feet to the most freshly exposed rock. It was exhilarating as far as slow motion patience games go.

I remember we had decided that the tide was low enough and we should go back to see what was up with the dead animal. Just as we stood to go I was over come by a great confusion that was subtle at first then became more startling by the second. At first I could not tell what was wrong. I looked at my self and at Ryan and it appeared that we had become black and white. I thought I might be having some sort of head rush until I looked up into the sky towards the east and it appeared as if a great slash or schism had opened up across the sky and earth and it was angled at about a 45 degrees. I turned behind me and the slash continued to the west as far as I could see and I felt a panic. Did we somehow inadvertently slip through a rip in the fabric of space-time? Ryan and I looked at each other in disbelief, each confirming what we were experiencing. Just then I looked straight up and could see a long thin cloud cutting across the sky.

Holy Smokes! It was a contrail from a passing jet liner up in the sky. We were in the shadow of the contrail as the sun was perfectly lined up behind the thin line of what was actually a brief cloud cover for the day! I was flabbergasted. A moment later the cloud drifted and the sun came back in full force and our world was one piece again.

Now back on track. We had to really see what was all twisted up in the logs on route back to the bikes. We approached cautiously but more confident considering the earth shattering experience ten minutes prior. I got close. I could see a hoof. It was a mountain sheep. We were elated! The poor thing must have got ripped off a nearby peak by an avalanche and thrown into the ocean where it half decomposed only to be washed up on shore here.

With that mystery solved we made our way back to the bikes and home to Girdwood.

I was living in my truck these days so I guess home could be anywhere. That night I was hanging out with a girl. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend though there was an obvious, weird connection. This night was particular because we had a crazy communication breakthrough. I guess you could describe it as a brother/sister psychic thing, where we were basically reading each others thoughts and seeing the world through one mind. I know, I know, hippy ju-ju bullshit, but I know what I experienced.

So if the day was not weird enough, it was going to get weirder. I remember pacing around the living room all worked up as we tried to figure out what to do with ‘this.’ You know ‘this’ right here? She was sitting on the couch peaking behind a blanket. She assured me that she was not cowering from me, though I did feel crazy. We were stuck in the moment and it would pass.

I had to go to sleep. I went to my truck out in the condo parking lot. There were banks of condos on three sides of me effectively making for a man made canyon of sorts. The gravel was dry and firm as I crawled into the back of truck. I was exhausted but my head was spinning from the day’s events. My conversation with the girl was crazy. We had come to the conclusion that the world is as you see it. You expect XYZ and you get XYZ. If you talk about and expect ABC then you get ABC. It depends on what you want, I guess.

I had a thought as I lay in the back of my truck. What if you somehow manifested something that you did not want? You know, get stuck thinking about something you don’t want to think about and it happens. Maybe as result or maybe you have a case of premonition, either way it would be enough to make you go crazy. Just then, as if on cue, I heard some faint footsteps off in the far end of the parking lot. It seemed as if the crunch was amplified by the acoustics of the condo canyon shape I was parked in. I had a brief flash in my mind of

“Oh shit, what if that is the Devil down at the other end of the parking lot and he is only coming for me because I tapped into the whole fucking point of all of this?!”

[carpathian]

As I thought that, the steps did not go into a nearby building. They were getting louder and heading in my direction. As I could clearly hear the steps getting louder I was thinking

“This is it, this is the devil coming right now because I think it is the devil coming for me right now!” If felt as if the more I panicked at the idea that I was manifesting my supernatural demise I had the notion of mentally fighting the devil off before he got to me. If I could bring him to me I could ward him off. He could read my thoughts and he knew his power was controlling my thoughts towards him.

I could envision the hoofed feet inside heavy boots as the crunch became louder and more menacing. I repeatedly pinched myself to make sure I was awake. It was an act of sheer will to steer my mind around to a request of protection from on high. Whoever god is, I was struggling to make my thought clear as the steps were now approaching my truck. Just as they were within 5-10 feet of me I managed to burst out and declare in my head a personal exorcism--…

Just as I was doing a spell check on that last word, Vesna jumped up in bed behind me and started asking if Rosie was okay.

“What do you mean is she okay?” I was startled out of my reverie from the past. I turned and looked and little Rosie was all silent and ‘stopped up’ looking. We could hear labored, tiny squeaks of air trying to move in and out. She has a little spittle on her chin and she was kind of hanging like a rag doll.

I jumped up as Vesna was holding her face down patting her vigorously on the back trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in her throat. Five seconds, ten seconds we gently shook Rosie around trying to get her to start breathing. I took her and listened carefully and I could hear breath barely getting through what sounded like a barrier of mucus or something.

She did just feed an hour before so she could have spit something up and then start choking on it. Her face was becoming more pink in complexion and she was just staring like how you would imagine a choking baby to stare.

I ran to start the car and ran back in to help Vesna get dressed. For a moment I looked at the computer screen on which I had been talking about manifesting and fighting off the Devil and here he was, coming after my baby. I could sense his grip around her little body and I drove as fast a possible the three minutes to the local hospital. We were lucky we were so close. The whole drive Vesna was holding Rosie and trying to get her to breath, or to do anything. She was just limp and staring. We whipped into the ER and made our way into the doctor immediately.

“Our baby is not breathing!” I cried as he took her from Vesna and said,
“Yes she is.”

Rosie seemed perplexed at all the commotion as she now seemed to be breathing on her own. She was not crying but sitting there very, very gently as the doctor looked at her while Vesna and I kind of paced around.

In the end Vesna and Rosie stayed the night at the hospital where they will stay today and tonight as well. Apparently there is a little trigger in a babies throat that can shut off when it senses potential choke hazard, like when you dunk them under water as an infant swimmer.

I did not tell Vesna what I was writing about and how I had not felt that rush of super natural anticipation since the night long ago that I was writing about. I drove home to get some things for Vesna for the night and I felt spooked walking to the house, like a child afraid of the dark. Or more like a child who is afraid of what is lurking in the dark waiting to pounce.

I guess I should finish the story:

In my head I literally cried out with conviction, “Fuck you Devil, you’re not taking me!”

Right at that instant the heavy boot steps came up along aside the out side of my truck and a deep voice cursed from not two feet away, “God Damn it!” The sound sent chills through my body as the steps kept walking on by and I listened somewhat petrified but relieved as the heavy steps crunched across the gravel and carried the voice away through the deep parking lot corridor and around the corner into the night.

[carpathian]

Part 4… my 30’s

There is a cave nearby. When you go into this cave you go back and it curves and on the left is a map of the universe all lined out in the quartz crystals in the rock. And behind the mural is a woman positioned facing to the right. You go back past her and there is a spring coming up that you drink from and when you do it aligns your frequency with that of the universe, the cave.

And you go back to the map and the woman behind it is now facing to the left and a portal opens up and you go into it and there is the Old Man, the man from Orion. And he shows you the prism and he aligns it and the beam of light shines out of the mountain and points right to the middle star in Orion's belt.

And outside, white wolves with black eyes and black wolves with white eyes circle the entrance to the cave. I have never been there but I know someone who knows someone who has.

[carpathian]

Back to Alaska. June, 2010


Remembering back to that crazy night 10 years ago in Smithers when we rushed Rosie to the hospital…

It had been heck of an adventure getting back to Smithers. We had been living in Pemberton, BC which about 12 hours drive to the south of Smithers and 30 minutes north of Whistler. Pemberton is located on the northern periphery of the ‘Lower Mainland’ which is Canadian parlance for the greater Vancouver area. We had moved south from Smithers three years earlier for the DH biking and skiing and ‘extreme lifestyle’ that Whistler was known for.

But as soon as Vesna became pregnant with Rosie we knew we had to escape back northward to Smithers in the fall of 2008. Rosie was born May 2009. In previous chapters I told the story of how I aspired to become a certified tree faller. To become a chain saw operator if not a logger and maybe after years of experience, a woodsman…

I had always considered myself a mountain man. Someone familiar with white snow, black rocks, blue sky and vertical danger. The trees are green and the earth is brown. The trees stretch distance and mesh outcomes. Vesna and I still loved DH biking and fortunately Smithers was already home to some amazing trails built by a committed bike community. Like Whistler and many places, the ski and bike community morphed and shared common participants throughout the seasons.

I had originally moved south to Smithers from Alaska with Vesna in May 2004. Up until that point I had a pretty skewed perception of what I thought DH biking was. I was used to pushing up steep and technical hiking trails around south central Alaska. Often the trails were located in state parks and were off limits to biking of any sort. My friends and I did not care as we happily skidded down 2000 ft of slick muddy trail.

We would push up to the alpine and cruise the high ridge tops. It was sublime. It was euphoric. It was… not a very good way to improve as an actual biker. As it turns out, I knew nothing of technical, I knew nothing of speed and I knew nothing of jumps. Getting air and going big on a bike. That all became apparent in that hot summer of 2004 in Smithers.

I was new to town and did not know anyone outside Vesna’s circle of hippy tree hugger friends. I only had one bike, my Santa Cruz Super 8 with 3” Gazzalotti tires mounted on double wide Sun Rims. It was bright yellow and her name was Sluggo. With 8” of travel the frame design was cutting edge circa 1998 with a big box beam single pivot swing arm. Sluggo was my DH bike and unfortunately my commuter. I rolled all over town on that bike because I was too poor (ie illegal alien not allowed to work) to buy a nice commuter. Our only automobile was my 1984 F250 that sat stationary with mounted camper at the Lake House 5 miles out of town.

I would bike to town in 90 deg heat and on vague directions find my way to the trail head that led to the network known as ‘the Bluff’. I remember huffing down Railway Ave and could see the heat rising off of the pavement. I had to pedal the 2 mile straight away just to circumnavigate the ubiquitous CN rail yard.

Once in the relative cool shade of the forest I would dismount Sluggo and start pushing the 25 minute climb to the top of the trails. I can remember walking out for the first time into the clearing that overlooks the town of Smithers and the Babine Range to the north and thinking “This is home now...” like I was trying to convince myself.

From this high point I took to task of getting my bike skills up to par. These trails were gnarly. It was the first time I had specifically rode trails that were designed for bikers by bikers. Every turn was the fastest, every drop was the biggest, every jump was the longest I had ever done! And this was all on the beginner trail known as Smoothy.

It was frightening going by myself to learn each move. I would get off of the bike and do speed checks on foot running up to the lip of each apparatus which was usually a couple of planks just angled into space over a log with another plank for a landing giving the rider maybe 10’ of air time. To me it felt like blasting to the moon!

The next trail that I had to master was called ‘The Four Horsemen’. It was next level technical as far as I was concerned. The first move was a built up log ride that put you 8’ up in the air on a 10” ripped log. It stepped down and then launched you into the run! Steep trees, turn, steep trees then all of the sudden the trail cut hard left across the steep slope and now you are going slow…

Creeping, creeping then you had to drop into the fall line, launch off of a 6’ boulder straight into a wood built ramp that gapped you out 10’to a steep transition that immediately rolled over into a near vertical rock face that aired off the end right into a tall right hand berm and into the forest beyond.

One time I was riding in the rain and I came through that section hot and then all of the sudden there at the end of the berm was 5-6 guys with shovels and pick ax working on the trail. These were the guys who had grown up in Smithers and had been working these trails for over 10 years. I screeched to a stop in the mud. Someone said something about riding in the mud and I mumbled an apology and kind of gestured to Sluggo and her malfunctioning parts as excuse…?

Several weeks later in the summer I was just starting the push up from the rail yard when a whole pack of local riders came rolling down the jeep road in formation, 2 abreast and 5-6 deep. They were all padded up and looking bad ass and there was little ol’ me again. These were the ‘Children of the Bluff’ the actual DH biker gang that built all the trails on the Bluff above town. I remember it was such a perfect display of ape pack hierarchy: the two guys in front were the buff alpha leaders, then there were several pairs of beta males followed by some hanger on’s and then 2 girls in the rear.

But I knew as a roaming alpha male in a strange land that I would have to impress the leaders before I was allowed in the group… the hardest trail to ride on the Bluff is called ‘Schitzo’. It is a trail that less then 5 guys had ridden ever since it was built 6-7 years prior. It was old and decrepit. It did not see the wife and child daily traffic like Smoothy and therefore did not see the maintenance that it needed. It was the bastard punk rock stepson living in the basement of the Bluff trail family.

At the top of the hike you had to push past ‘The Four Horsemen’ and then onto a single track that led across the hillside 150 yards to the north. ‘Schitzo’ is painted in red paint at the trailhead on a huge 20” circular saw blade that someone might procure from the lumber mill. The day I decided to go ride Schitzo I went by myself because I always went by myself.

I tentatively began the decent with the plan to stop and look at each god awful feature and figure out how to ride them. The first move was not so bad… well it was pretty bad. It was an ancient ladder structure up in the trees made out of 1” alder sticks all stitched together and laced atop an improbable skinny lattice of thin alder strips. I walked on to the structure and shook the trees while being careful not to step on any single slat by itself, lest my foot punch through.

[carpathian]

I made the move onto the structure on Sluggo and successfully stomped the 6’ drop off the end. “This won’t be so hard,” I told myself as I cruised the next section of trail…

And there it was, ‘The Tree of Bones’ the next stunt I had to figure out. The trail kind of ran across the slope at a low pitch where it ramped on to the wide wood platform. Adjacent to the ramp was a tree with an old rotted carcass of some unfortunate creature that had been tied up in the tree. The ramp was over 4’ wide as it ran out long for 20’. I stood at the end and peered into the abyss. The drop to the ground was a good 12-15’ down and the transition was laughable. It was seriously as if someone dumped one wheel barrow worth of dirt on the spot and walked away.

I could see tire tracks in the dirt showing me evidence that the stunt worked for someone. I really had to gauge my speed carefully. I would run on foot at different speeds and try to predict my trajectory. Maybe throw a twig or wet my finger to test the wind…

After less then 10 minutes I felt ready. I coasted in on the ramp with substantial speed. The landing divot was a ways out so you had to clear some distance. It felt like launching off the end of an air craft carrier and I hit the landing perfectly! I was surprised as I was now rocketing down the rapidly steepening trail uncomfortably fast. I specifically remember my eyeballs shaking and uncontrollable slobber on my face when I finally came to a stop at the next structure.

This drop was different. It was a very short ramp that jutted out of the steep hillside and the landing was straight down 22’ to be exact. The landing was basically a wooden pallet tipped up at 45 deg angle. I stopped and pondered trajectories again. Idle thoughts of pain and dismemberment floated in and out of these tense calculations.

I would have to go way slow for this to work, like basically walking speed. I did feel better about my chances with this structure compared to the previous launch. I mounted Sluggo maybe 30’ up the trail. I rolled to the edge and fell into space. This was by far the biggest drop I had even done on a bike. My eyes found the landing and I could immediately see that I was going to come up short. It is one thing to come up short on a rolled over dirt landing but this landing had a definitive edge.

I pushed Sluggo forward in the air with all of my might and the apex of the curve of my rear wheel made the transition down to the centimeter. The rear travel bottomed out as my ass hit the back wheel and my nether regions were smashed between the tire and the rear of the saddle… but I stomped the landing!

I rolled quickly to a stop on a little grass knoll adjacent to the trail that happened to have a nice view of town. There I waited the 5 seconds before my nuts realized they did not really appreciate what had just happened. Alone, I writhed in pain for a bit and decided that I could continue.

“This is ridiculous!” I thought, “Why do I do this to myself?” I knew that there was one more feature near the bottom of the trail. The trail hops onto an innocent looking wood ramp that is 16” wide. It slowly comes off the ground as the trail bend to the right and then you can see the drop from the side. It was a road gap where the ramp would put you out into space about 15’ off the ground while you had to clear about 40’ to hit the transition.

Aye, the landing was the crux of the puzzle. It was the downhill ditch side of the old gravel road that was being jumped over. The ever resourceful trail builders remedied this problem by placing one of those 4 x 4’ orange road construction signs across the ditch spitting the rider out into a little clearing barely big enough for a truck to turn around in.

I pondered this move for almost 30 minutes. I’m not usually one to over think things like this. It is either obviously doable or not doable or deemed too dangerous or otherwise. I had been rapidly improving as a DH bike rider and I was not always sure what the next definition of doable might be. I must have run speed checks on foot to the end of the ramp over 25 times. I climbed down to the road and looked back up. I looked for advice in the Farmer’s Alamanac…

Usually if you ride a trail with someone who has done it before they can at least describe the proper speed or maybe even demonstrate for you. All I had was dead reckoning. Oh and one other variable was this wire that was strung in the air out over the road and it seriously looked like you would decapitate yourself if you went too big. It was eye level when you stood at the take off. I decided the time was now. I pushed back up the trail a ways. I wanted to be flowing with the trail, so to speak, before taking flight.

I rounded the turn on the ramp and felt good about it, I had done my due diligence. I was in the air with Sluggo flying straight and true. I think I instinctually ducked the cable, hit the landing fast and launched across the ditch sign like greased lightning. I think it was a combo of the sign springing back force and Sluggos antique frame coupled with failing rebound seals… but I was jacked headfirst along the ground. At one point I was levitating upside down as my bike tumbled across the ground and then the ground was gone as I shot off into space and wrapped around a cottonwood tree, 20ft up. I had carried momentum across the clearing and became airborne off the other side.

I slid down the tree doing my best Wily E Coyote impression. I gathered my wits and my bike and made my way home none the worse for wear.

The Summer of 2009 we moved into the main cabin on the property. It was huge and awesome by our standards at the time. 24’ x 24’ one story built on a pier block foundation. It had a little porch and surprisingly sophisticated french doors adjacent to the rough timber framed front steps.

We loved that house. It sat at the foot of Hudson Bay Mountain out the north end of town. The tiny
10’ x 13’ tree house that we lived in when Rosie was born became my work shop. I took to building one shed after another along with an out house and 5 pairs of skis over the next year and Rosie grew healthy.

I was becoming more enamored with Smithers and British Colombia at large. It had been a hard sell and it took over 6 years but I was feeling more settled then ever. It was a great town with great people but I still could feel the tug of Alaska at my heart. Vesna knew it was still there and she was resigned to accept it even as we were plugged into an idyllic existence.

During the first summer of Rosie’s life I was employed as a trail builder. I really saw this job as a dream come true. I was hired on as part of a Government of Canada ‘make work project’ to employ out of work forestry workers. As I had been seasonally laid off from my previous tree planting and fall and burn gig, I qualified.

The Government funded the Smithers Bike Association $400,000 to build professional grade trails in order to attract adventure tourism to the area. Burns Lake to the east, was also awarded funding to build trails. At the same time there was a group of back country skiers who had organized funding to cut ski trails on Hankin Mountain with same objective in mind to increase tourism. In general Smithers felt prosperous.

My job was to shovel and rake piles of dirt into a high speed jump track for downhill biking. It was pretty awesome as I was being paid $28/hr to literally build jumps as big as I could and then test them for perfection. I did this for 4 months and in the end the trail was 5k long with over 80 jumps and many many amazing berms. I was a trail builder now and we felt like we had built the perfect trail.

With this experience I was able to land myself a job back at Alyeska Resort as the new Trails Supervisor. The job would start on June 1, 2010.

I remember getting off of the ferry in Whittier, Ak after the 3 day voyage north form Prince Rupert, BC. I had gone solo ahead of Vesna and 1 year old Rosie to get going on our raw property in Girdwood. We also had to wait for Vesna’s immigration paper work to come through. We were told that she and Rosie would be cleared around July 1. It was very hard getting on the ferry and saying goodby with the hopes of our little family hinging on the piece of paper from the U.S. government. I could remember all too clearly how 7 years earlier we had fled America in a paranoid fit.

7 years out of Alaska! It was so surreal to be picked up by my mom in Whittier and shuttled to Girdwood and a new life.

[carpathian]

House Building


Once we were back in Alaska I entered a serious workaholic phase that lasted a good 5 years. The first order of operation was to build a new house in Girdwood. We had sold our first house in Smithers back in 2007 and used the money to buy raw land in Girdwood. It was the cheapest lot in town and was literally knee deep swamp water that needed to be filled in with good dirt.

Then of all miracles, I saw a little house for sale on Craigslist for $3000 that needed to be moved and it was located just up the road from us. We hired pile drivers who drove foundation piles 24 feet down into the earth. We then hired a house moving company to relocate our property. They jacked it up in the air 12 ft and I build walls under turning it into a nice little 2-story house with 1200 sq ft living space.

But then the real work started with finishing out the downstairs and the decks and stairs. A few years later I would eventually get around to rebuilding the roof and adding some nice south facing windows and nice oak panel window trim.

But in the beginning it was was pretty rough going. We were living in my parents borrowed mini RV with a 1 year old Rosie while I rushed to make our house livable.

One day I got some lunch at the small local grocery store. I think it was a deep fried burrito or chimichanga or something. What ever it was, it destroyed my stomach for a good 24 hours. It was such a nice day too! So sunny. First real nice sunny day of the summer as I recall. I had to stay in the RV and slowly fill the septic system with results of said burrito.

Towards mid morning I realized something horrible, the septic tank was full. The toilet would no longer drain contents. So bad. I think Vesna had taken Rosie to town to go shopping.

“Ok, I can do this.” I had to pull out and drive the 2 blocks to the Tesoro gas station RV dump ASAP because I knew I would need to use the toilet again sooner then later.

Another detail of interest: We had just got a new kitten. We had only had it about a week and this was the first time it was outside frolicking in the sunshine, literally chasing butterflies. I spent a good 5 minutes searching around the house and driveway looking for the kitten. I think its name was
Meow-meow.

I could not wait any longer. I got into the rig and backed into the street. And then I saw the pancake flat kitten in the driveway. It must’ve been hiding up in the wheel well sitting on top of the wheel. I can only imagine it clinging to the tread as the wheel rolled backwards…

Oh my god! Good thing Vesna and Rosie are not around! I jumped out and dug a little grave in the back yard real quick and buried the little cat. Then I had to really hurry to dump the septic. This is where the story takes a turn for the worse.

I pulled into the RV dump station and hooked up the drain hose to the drain valve on the RV. I don’t know exactly what happened but somewhere along the way the hose disconnected from the valve and a good portion of the contents of the septic tank oozed across the parking lot.

I was dumbstruck, “Get it together!” I scolded my self. I knew there was a water hose near the propane tank. I looked and to my horror it was not there. I didn’t know what to do. I did know that I had to get home again as soon as possible and get back on the toilet. Thank god there were was no one around. No one at the pump, no one in line behind me. No cameras, so I drove away. It was a bad day.

My first 5 years back in Alaska was not all smooth sailing. I was faced with the grim reality of having to start a new career from scratch. The main problem being that I was not sure what that career was going to be.

I was in charge of the new downhill bike park at Alyeska Resort, which in itself was a dream job come true. I got paid to think of logistics and access and how to work on the mountain to maximize trail building productivity. And in the end I got paid to ride my bike as I literally introduced lift access riding to Alaska.

The problem was that the job was seasonal and only lasted for 4-5 months of the year. Come September I had to start scrambling to find work for the winter. For a couple years I stayed on at Alyeska and worked on SnowMaking crew followed by Events Crew, all for $12/hr.

One day, when I was feeling burned out kind of desperate, I went to the Dimond Center Mall to talk to military recruiters. I had this vision of getting on with the 210th Mountain Division and getting in a Blackhawk helicopter and doing some rad shit.

First stop was the Air Force and they told me they did not take any one over age 29 and I was 32 at the time. Then I went to the Marines and they told me no one over 26. They both kind of hiked their thumbs over their shoulder and gestured to the Army outpost down the hall, “They take anybody.”

It wasn’t like I was just going to sign up for the military. I was just there to collect information. I imagined the sense of security knowing that I had a set plan for the future. I was burned out on the free style scheming I had been up to for the last 15 years. Skiing sick lines does not pay the bills.

I was tired of working two or three jobs at once and only getting $20/hr. I was tired of the cold and pouring rain. I sat down in front of the Army recruitment officer. There was another young guy there who I will call Jimmy. He was actually a veteran on crutches who looked kind of beat down and he was probably 10 years younger then me.

He and the Officer had been talking when I was called in. The officer gestured to Jimmy and said he was a hero and he asked if I wanted to be a hero. Jimmy would not make eye contact.

The officer, I’ll call Bill, had me fill out some paper work asking general questions.

Any felonies? No.
Prison time? No.
Drug use… LSD and mushrooms, I lied and said no.
Marijuana? I think I was actually baked at the time…

It asked yes or no. I wrote yes and then asked Bill, “This weed question here, if I say yes…?”

Bill said, “Yes you have to tell the truth because if you lie we can make you take a lie detector test and if you fail you will be in big trouble.”

I said, “Ok.”

Bill continued, “There is a number of times you can say you have smoked marijuana. I can’t tell you the number but you have to be lower then that.”

I knew the jig was up. I quickly calculated over the last 12 years or so… conservatively at 3 times a day times 300 days a year times 10 years is… 9000 times.

“Shoot, that is way too much,” I reasoned to myself. So I cut the number in half and then half a couple more times. I wrote 1,537. I don’t know why I choose that number, so specific.

I slid the paper back over to Bill like I was some inept hostage negotiator who knew the hostages were now gonna die. Bill was in the middle of assuring me that the Army understood that young people make mistakes. He looked at the number.

His little mustache twitched and I swear a cowlick popped up out of his slicked down hairdo.

“What’s this?” he asked.

I answered, “About the number of times I’ve smoked weed.”

He placed the paper on the desk and slid it to the side and said, “We can’t take you.”

I asked, “Why not?”

He said, “You have a track record of not following the rules and you are unredeemable.”

I protested, “I think I would make a real good sniper, I’m really trainable! What was the number?”

“The number was three! Three times. We can’t take you, have a nice day,” Bill was disgusted.

“Really?!” I was actually kind of shocked, seeing as how I had dodged an imaginary military draft eight years earlier and ran off to Canada. Now they don’t even want me?

“Well, thanks for your time.” I got up and skedaddled out of there, having dodged another bullet.

[carpathian]

20 Mile River Float


We started the day at 9am by driving 10 miles south from Girdwood to the mouth of 20 Mile River. That is where we left my truck and where we planned on emerging victorious from the vast Alaskan wilderness in about 12 hours.

I took note of the exceptionally high tide, the sea water pushing the river upstream and overflowed into the broad brackish swamps across the 20 Mile valley. That should have been enough information to call of the trip but we were excited. I had never done the trip and it did not compute.

We left Thom's house on foot at 10:30 am after splitting the beer rations and preparing our mini-pack rafts for the days adventure. We had to walk for about 6 hours to the put in at the westernmost headwaters of 20 Mile. After two hours we slowly gained elevation into Blueberry Pass. It was awesome, I had never been this far back the valley before. We could look back to the backside of Alyeska Mountain.

Finally reached Blueberry Pass

Thom says "that way". He has done this trip a few times and it is a first for Dearnly and I

Gotta get to the river!
Here we are, need more water. I feel like we are being watched. Deep in griz country

Had to get across this little side channel to main current. Dearnly's feet were already wet so he went for the wade. Thom and I had rubber boots on so we decide to juke upstream into the alder thicket to navigate across the alder strainers and keep dry feet. About 150 in, as we struggled for a clean line, Thom say's "Did you hear that?!" I say "No" then a second later I hear distinct WUUFFF! over the rushing river noise from very close proximity. Could be nothing other then giant brown bear, at least based on deep gut reaction the sound had on me.

We said fuck it and darted back to where Dearnly had crossed.
I got across the stream and on to the open sand bar and looked back upstream to where a large mama bear and THREE large juveniles were ambling our way.

So much for another beer as we very quickly filled our rafts up with air and nervously watched the family move our direction

Fuck you bears! we are out of here 4:20 on the dot.

We've had some major precipitation events with like 6-8 inches of rain in 48 hours in the last week. The river was low again but it was like the main channels had been blown out and we had a fair amount of shallows to deal with.

Is it just me or are we in the middle of nowhere and it is getting dark?

Why yes, it is getting dark. And no, no one has a headlamp

8pm, when is iPhone going to come out with an outboard app?

Remember that high tide way back 12 hours earlier? Well, we were hoping to have navigated the upper river faster then we did and hit the highway before the tide affected the current 2MILES upstream from ocean. It actually kind of fucking sucked.

The air temp was hovering around 40 and if you stopped you got cold and the tide was so high that it over flowed the banks into the alders anyway. No beaches, no light, no reprieve from incoming current except by staying right next to shore and use the tiny strip of dead water. By this time the river is about 50 feet deep and a couple hundred yards wide, littered with huge logs going this way and that. The last faint sliver of silver finally faded to pitch black as we JUST KEPT PADDLING.

I would stop on occasion and listen for Dearnly bringing up the rear. We were in no way able to respond to a capsize if we even knew it happened. I could here the highway in the distance so we knew were were close, but what is close if you are moving forward 1/4 mile and hour while paddling as hard as you could for the last 3 hours?

Anyway, we eventually saw the parking lot light and felt a burst of energy but it still took another half hour to the truck. At the pull out both Thom and I could not even get up out of our boats and I literally crawled up the bank and scared the shit out of a trucker having a smoke break.

Is it ski season yet?

[carpathian]

Jewel Mountain South Ridge


I’ve said it before and I will say it again: It is satisfying to retreat from an objective in the face of critical doubt. I had one of those days on Nov. 1, 2015, my first day on skis for the season. First day on skis since January 10 to be exact. After a winter of fun on the sun in Hawaii it was time to get serious and get back in the mountains.

It is funny too because for some reason, year after year, on day #1 I seem to go straight into the gnar as if I’m trying to pick up from some perceived high point of the previous season.

I had three hours of free time on the cold and clear Sunday morning after the big Lez Zeppelin concert. I was glad to have missed the show and not be hung over like the rest of the Girdwood population as I smuggly trundled out of the Crow Creek parking lot at 8am sharp.

My general plan was to climb and ski the north face of Jewel Mountain. It is a classic early season run as you can only get up there in the early season because the access up Crow Pass becomes too avalanche prone mid season.

It had snowed about 10” in the alpine on Friday but word on the street was that it had been blasted by wind on Saturday. As the sun began it’s slow rise in the east beyond Wizard I had an idea in my head to mix things up a bit and aim for the south ridge approach to the summit of Jewel. The plan specifically was to climb to the small col that leads up and over onto the Milk Glacier. At the pass, instead of immediately descending the adjacent moraine on to the Milk, I wold turn due north and climb the rocky and exposed ridge that leads right to the summit of Jewel.

I had butterfly in my stomach as I made my way from the parking lot. I had climbed the route two or three times before, the last time being about 2001. On that trip we left the parking lot about 4pm in late October. Hans, Ryan and I made it to the same col by about 5pm just in time to see the setting sun cast it’s last pink light on the flanks of Goat and Milk headwall.

We were prepared for the night and brought headlamps. Nearly 15 years later I recalled the ridge not being so bad, exposure wise. Though that memory was being filtered through the lens of ‘acceptable reckless endangerment’ of my early 20’s. And also with a headlamp you only had tunnel vision of headlamp beam, making it easy to ignore the 2000ft exposer near the top of the route.

2015, I rounded the bend in the trail and Jewel Mountain reared its ugly head. The mountain was pure black rock framed against a steely grey sky. The normal route circles to the north and access the more mellow terrain on the north face. My plan was to climb the more direct south route and ski down the north.

I could see three or four crux sections in the ridge profile. I knew that sometimes the terrain would appear more friendly the closer I approached. On the other hand I could just stay the course and wrap around to the mellow north side… The fork came in the trail. By committing to the more technical south side I was running risk of wasting precious time on a wild goose chase. I was awash in ill conceived optimism and turned up hill and began the trudge to the south ridge.

At this point I was carrying my skis on back pack and ski boots looped over my shoulders. This could be a problem. I did not want to put boots on for the technical conditions. I would have to put boots on at the summit and drop in north face blind.

“What are the crevasses doing? Where did the skiable snow end?” These are things that would easily be answered if I climbed the north route. I made my way to the pass. In the last 1.5 hours the clear skies had turned to hard flat grey and the view towards Goat was desolate and cold and it made me feel lonesome. I eyed my objective head on. I could see the ridge quickly narrow and step up in steeper and steeper succession. It did not look friendly.

I kept reminding myself that I had done the route before, in the dark no less. But I also knew it was going to be a very ugly down climb if I got sketched out up high. I hemmed and hawed and kind of paced in circled thinking of my next move. Milk Glacier looked horrible and crevassed and pure retreat was not apparent option just yet. I told my self to just start walking and I would negotiate the moves as they entered my self imposed tunnel vision.

Step, step… I felt like I was walking out onto a tight rope strung between two buildings. Within a few minutes I had gained 200ft. I picked left and right pulling to my knees over and around awkward frozen boulders. The skis and boots on my pack clanged around. I came to the first real crux, a little 30ft steep chimney feature.

This was the point of no return, I knew it. I skittered sideways and glanced through my feet to a certain broken death on the frozen talus slope below. An image of my beautiful 6 month old daughter literally flashed before my eyes and the spell was broken.

I turned and looked back down the ridge. The terrain instantly became 3x more treacherous in decent mode. I nimbly turned and maneuvered my pack and vertically mounted skis. Facing the slope picking holds and moving backwards. Awkward. Ignoring the potential for panic. I was stuck in a spot and had to actually hoist pack up and off my shoulders. Survival mode now. I leaned way down holding on to skis by just the tips and had to drop to a perch. I stole a glance down the 300ft to death.

“Holy shit!” I thought out loud as I was so soundly whipped by the first crux of the route. I looked back up the ridge at the way more gnarly sections and saw how much it would have sucked to retreat from up there. “What am I doing here?!”

I made it back to the relative safety of the pass and started making my way down the snow. The snow was hard and again, it was easier to climb on the way up compared to going down. I looked and could see where my body would rag doll through the boulder field if I slipped.

I opted to turn around and go back up to the pass and put ski boots on A) for safety and B) to actually make some turns. I crammed my feet into the frozen shells and clicked into my skis to make 20-30 horrible turns on horrible snow. Followed by 20 minutes of slow side stepping through frosty boulders and I found a spot to put hiking boots back on.

It had been three hours round trip and I was back at the truck happy to go home after day #1 of skiing for the year.

[carpathian]

Bike in Whistler

On the ferry ride to Alaska, I had plenty of time to think about my time spent in BC. I did a lot of growing up I think. I had left Alaska as a child and was excited to go back as an ‘adult’. I felt like I had done a lot of growing up in and out of the mountains.

As I started in new role as ‘Trail Building Manager’ at Alyeska Resort, I found my self telling one story after the other about DH biking in British Columbia. Sometimes the stories were from Smithers but mostly Whistler.

The progress in my DH bike skills I enjoyed when I moved to Smithers was made ten fold when we moved south to Whistler. The first week we were living in our place at the bottom of Reed Road I discovered some nice trails right behind the house. One of the trails is called Jim Jam and on that trail you can find the Jim Jam Jumps.

They are built out of 2 x 4’s and logs from the forest floor. They are shaped in a 3 pack series of perfectly sculpted take off and landing ramps. The first one is big. The second one is huge, like a 30’ gap to death if you come up short. And the third is actually undersized for the speed you carry off the 2nd jump.

I had upgraded my DH bike to a Karpiel Armageddon I got off Pink Bike. It was serious upgrade from Ol’ Sluggo and her single pivot swing arm design. The Karpiel had 12” of travel in the rear and 8” up front. I unpacked it from the bike box it arrived in and took it out on the trails. The Jim Jam Jumps would be it’s first ride.

I pushed the 54 lb beast up to the top of the jumps and then another 100 yards so I could get a feel for the bike before going air born. I walked past the top of the first jump and stopped to do several run ins on foot. After a couple of seasons of solo testing sketchy jumps I felt confident.

Go time! Rolling, rolling… Launch! Air time to nice tranny… open brake to the big one… air born for what felt like eternity. Long enough that I could get a good look at the substructure of the landing transition. I was glad my speed seemed adequate and I stuck the landing smooth but then had to decelerate aggressively to not over shoot the last jumps.

I skidded to a stop and cheered with my buddy Mark who was there to pick up my carcass if need be. Clank! I looked down and saw that the crank arm and pedal had fallen off! The bolt was not there. I never double checked it was tight and just went to the biggest jump possible. Ok Whistler, I see how this is gonna be…

Vesna and I had a lot of fun slowly learning the Whistler Bike park the first summer we were there. Every year the Park crew builds a bigger and gnarlier ‘Bone Yard’ then the previous season. It is the big jump, free ride Mecca of the world and we were in it!

One day early in our second season, I was riding the lift with a random biker dude. I was telling him I didn’t like the huge 40’ table top in the biker cross course because if you came up short you would get pitched forward in to pit on the high knuckled landing.

Right then as if on que we saw Ritchie Schley, local pro biker superstar responsible for designing the course, hit the jump at full speed. He laid out the longest, smoothest moto-whip I had ever seen and perfectly landed mid way down the long transition.

The guy on the lift turned to me and promised how easy it was, he had been hitting it all morning, this being the first day it had been open to the public. He offered to let me follow him but I declined, I was still not feeling it.

I went another route, probably Dirt Merchant because it is the best, and made my way back to the lift. Then what do I see down in the Bone Yard? A group of people surrounding a guy who had come up short on the same big mean jump. I could see the helmet and jersey and was shocked to see it was the same guy from the last lift ride! Holy shit, this place is rough. They ended up heli evacuated him out of there, season done, life ruined.

And that became the norm. A-line… jump, jump, jump, come around the corner and slam on brakes for 20 people in trail carrying another downed soldier off the battle field.

3 years later:

The last day in the bike park they opened all of the pro-sized jumps in the Bone Yard to the public. I had been riding hard for a while now. Every lift ride we would look down at the pro jumps and try to visualize take off trajectories and landings etc.

I ran into my friend Tyler who had been hitting the big jumps all day and told me to follow him. Hitting big jumps is ten times easier when you have someone to follow. I was feeling strong and confident. The ramps and jump features are built using full sized dirt moving equipment. Big jumps, like big waves, can be pretty easy to ride and offer more room for error to some extent then some steep and tight BMX jump (or head high slab to reef).

I trusted Tyler. He said 3 x pedal stroke to the 20 foot step down then open brake to the biggest jump of my life, a 35’ table with huge vert. We were in the air forever. I felt like I could reach out and touch the feet of the riders on the lift over head. We landed and rode away clean. I could not believe it! It was amazing but I knew one time was enough. We rode straight to the outdoor patio for a post season beer… Cheers to shredding the gnar!

[carpathian]

Sled Skiing

There is something to be said about sled skiing. It is fun, expensive and dangerous. In some cases it is practical while in other times it is not. It can be the most exhilarating thing you can do in the mountains and it can also be very back breaking and arduous.

I have found that within some circles of skier types there is a misunderstanding of what 'sledding' is. To the skiing elitist, sled heads are lazy, beer drinking morons that have too much money and not enough brains to realize that it is more fun to climb up a mountain by your own horsepower then to blast up the same mountain at 60 mph on your M1000. True, it can be very tiring to climb up 3000ft to ski one lap. But it can also be very tiring to make 10 laps on the same mountain with a snowmobile. Same effort = 10 times more vertical powder skied? Sign me up!

In Turnagain Pass there is a line of demarcation between the skiers on the East side of the highway and the sledders on the West side. Actually, the sledders are not allowed to go where the skiers go but the skiers can go where the sledders go. On the skiers side the parking lot is quite except for Phish wafting in on the breeze laced with aromatic 'cigarettes'. Telemark skiers munch granola and fluffy dogs frolic.

Go down the road a half click and the sledder parking lot is cranking Rob Zombie with huge jacked up trucks spinning donuts as sleds gap the snow berms. I admit, when I was a proud hippie I used to be slightly intimidated by the uproar and general mayhem that I perceived. “Look at those lazy people blasting around in circles... How can they experience true mountain beauty on one of those machines?”

And then they would zip away as if on greased lightning and climb the far horizon.

So I eventually got a sled. There is the debate, in BC at least, that you can get away with a smaller sled because you just need to access the 20k of logging roads before you get to the good alpine terrain where you can ditch the sled and get back to good old skinning, only because the sled can only take you so far. On the other hand a big sled can actually climb the steep alpine terrain with two people on board and deposit you on the top of a run.

In Turnagain Pass there is no logging roads or trees for that matter and a small sled will barely get you out of the parking lot, let alone up close to the good skiing. So I opted for the REV 800 with a 151” track. Pretty sweet ride, all I had to do was learn to ride the damn thing. After about ten days of burning fossil fuels I finally figured out how to counter steer in powder and how to basically not get stuck in the first place. It was time to really get after it!

Usually you ride two people to a sled when you are skiing or boarding. Both people ride up, one skis down and the other shuttles the sled to the bottom where you reload and go up again. I find it interesting that people in BC will argue until blue in the face that the best way to ride two people is to use the 'tandem' method. This is where the riders stand side by side, each on a rail while one hits the throttle and the other is on brakes. The riders both steer and negotiate the terrain together. This method is useful when traveling on logging roads or established trails but to me it seems unwieldy when it comes to more aggressive terrain.

The other method, which I prefer, is called 'potato.' Basically one rider is in control of the whole sled and stands up while a passenger sits in front and hangs on to the steering column. This way the center of gravity is lower and is actually centered on the sled. The driver yells “LEFT!” and they both lean left as the driver counter steers right and you make a right hand traverse...

Anyway, this is all child's play. The true experts ride solo and rely on the 'ghost ride' method.
As the name implies, one rider rides up gets off at the top and pushes the sled into the fall line and if all goes well, she will be waiting at the bottom like a trusty steed. Sometimes you will fake ghost ride, which is just riding without braking or steering, so a track gets put in. This technique is not for the faint of heart and really only works in wide open alpine terrain with obvious fall lines and no real obstacles.

There is one guy in Girdwood who only ghost rides. I would watch in amazement as he would release his brand new REV and not even look twice while he strapped on his bindings before he slayed powder for 2000 feet. I did see him nearly demolish his sled one day. He kept ghosting down Juniors and since the whole slope rolls over from the top, he did not see how his sled was punching in a depression at the bottom of the long steep pitch. Lap after lap I watched from a distance until finally it was too much and his beauty of a ride compressed and then launched and then nose dived and then came cart wheeling out the bottom. He seemed unfazed, strapped it back together and was off to the races.

I only ghost rode a few times and never really liked it. It is kind of like sending your kid off to college. You know they mean well, but you know they can also 'get off track', if you know what I mean.

Jared and I were poking around in one of the southern bowl that spills down into Seattle Creek. Later in the sled season this bowl is a real highway of traffic but as it was now mid February, no one had been down into Seattle Creek yet, at all. We were up on the ridge top speculating on our next run. From where we could see, there is a small bowl that rolls off the ridge top and it flattens out before falling another 1500 feet to the creek bottom. Even though there were two of us with a sled each Jared was pushing for me to ghost my ride into the first small bowl. I did not want to because I knew that my track was on the loose side and when she coasted, she coasted farther then other sleds.

He really thought it would be all right and I finally caved. I took my skis off and pushed and guided the sled about 50 feet before releasing her to the world. Jared sat perched on his ride right next to me. As my sled disappeared over the roll I had a moment to tell Jared to get his sled ready, he would have to hurry and save mine if it looked like trouble. Just then she popped out on the lower flats and I knew right away that she was moving fast. She slowed... and slowed. I told Jared to get on it fast and he paused and I finally pushed him to get going. I could see my sled slowing, slowing. This was going to be close. I could see Jared down on the flats now racing. I could see that my sled was now not slowing as she actually crested the point of now return.

[carpathian]

Jared raced over the gentle roll and managed to get right up along side of my sled but there was nothing he could do. Mine was accelerating now and was about to roll over the real steep part. Jared was ride up along side like he was trying to corral a wild bronco. He could save mine bit he would loose his! He had to pull a shit-hook turn at the very last moment as my ride disappeared into the no-mans land.

It was a walk of shame for me as I turned up hill to gather my skis and my wits in preparation for the what was to come next. As I skied down by myself it was quite enjoyable. On skis it felt fairly low angle, in the 30 degree range. About half way down I made the mistake of looking back uphill, over my shoulder, and felt my spirits sink. As a sledder trying to go uphill it looked steep and completely covered in powder. I made dollar signs with my sled track and could see where it caught air and where it dipped and rolled with the terrain. For a while I could not see the actual sled until about three quarters down the run when I saw a small speck at the very far away bottom of Seattle Creek.

'Ho-Lee Shit' I thought as I skied up on to the scene. There she was looking all innocent with powder piled up around the cowling. I took my skis off and it was a solid waist deep. I knew that this would be a test of my minimal sledding abilities. I got the skis strapped on and took a deep breath.

I got her started and made a tentative tap at the throttle. If I dug a trench with my track here, I would be hooped. I stayed light on the throttle and then eased into a full throttle display of machismo that only the ptarmigans would witness. The sled pitched in the air and wallowed and wailed and I managed to pull an all out survival turn towards uphill and then I really gunned it! I made a high mark up, oh, about 20 feet before I had to pull her down hill again with all my might. I got back to where I started and carefully tried to stay on my track as I gunned it again and made it another 3 feet. 'Three feet?! Holy fuck, this is bullshit' I thought as I circled again and made it another 3 feet. At the top of each of my mini high marks the sled was damn near vertical in the snow pack as I struggled to maintain control and composure. A lesser man surely would have cracked right then but I knew I had to dig deep.

My first real goal was to surmount a small wind drift thingy about 50 feet up hill. I can remember how that first little goal seemed so big and daunting. I felt that I would be happy if I only made it that far because I knew I had tried my hardest. Soon enough I made it over that first roll and realized that my up track was quickly becoming more like a highway. After the first steep mini pitch it was a long, long medium pitch that I had to dissect one high mark at a time. I would be racing up my sweet track and then get bobbing back and forth and all of the sudden loose all my momentum in the deep snow on the sides.

After about an hour going balls out, I was becoming fatigued. I had to position my knee on the seat just so that I took the weight off my arms as I battled the G's uphill. On each down lap I would hang my arms loose and try to shake them out in preparation for the next rep. It was funny because if I was skinning, I would have taken only about 45 minutes to get out of this same drainage and here I was only half way out and damn near beat.

There was one more main crux that I could see. At the top of the long, more gentle pitch, it turned fairly steep before rolling onto a flat knoll. I can remember the first time I cleared the knoll my sled was actually vertical and digging deep in the snow. I was hovering 8 feet in the air and could look to the top and see three of four people sitting on the ridge watching over me. I spun a 180 on the tail of my track and descended to the bottom again. The problem now was the trench I had just dug at the top of the knoll. It was a good 4 feet deep and 16” wide and it kept throwing me off for the next 5 attempts.

Finally, after an hour and a half of sheer battle I gained the little knoll and ran out of gas. Luckily I had a the reserve jerry can strapped on back and it took all of my effort to refuel. By now the cavalry decided that I had had enough and they descended to help punch a track up the remaining 750 feet.

That night I could not sleep because I kept dreaming that I was still trapped in Seattle Creek. It started snowing the next day and 15 feet of snow and a week later it cleared. If I did not get out of there when I did my precious REV would have been buried for the season.

[carpathian]

Maui, Last Wave


... now imagine the trepidation in trying to figure out the 'rules of the break' as a kook haole on a SUP!

First thought is to see if there are other sups out in the line up you are good to go. Until the day I was watching this break and the only sup guy came out and he was the classic leather brown haole who had been on island for 25 years. First thing, he chastised me for parking with tire on the white line on the road. Then proceeded to tell me the only reason he could sup there was because he'd put in his time otherwise... ok buddy. In general the rule still applies.

So I try to be over respective of not pissing people off. Which usually means avoiding busy breaks.

One time I was at Kukio and there were just two locals taking turns. I kept hanging back, hanging back, just watching from the shoulder until they called me in... new best friends!

Closest to actually getting ass kicked?

I'd been surfing/supping at the Lahaina break wall most every day all winter. As it turns out that is the off season for south side swell on the islands. Lots of waist high to shoulder with the occasional over head set once a week type thing.

Vesna, Rosie and I stayed on a volunteer farm for 6 months over the winter of 2012/13. It was the first winter I had ever ‘missed’ in my life. I did not put ski boots on once.

Then the first south swell of the season hit in early May. I rolled to the parking lot early got all baked and jumped in the water. To my astonishment there was like 100 people in the water. Not one paddle boarder. Whatever I thought as I literally bee lined out about 50 feet past the deepest guys. This is where the wave break so this is where I am going seems logical right?

It was a nice day, perfect glass and these waves had serious meat to them unlike the waves that had been coming through all winter. Then I noticed the silence. And then I looked around and realized these dudes were all tatted locals. No tourists to be seen. Then I saw a couple guys looking at me as one whispered and pointed at me.

Ah shoot, I know what is going on now. At least I was as tanned as could be but that only gets you so far...

I tucked tail before even trying for a wave and went on the inside where the inside breaks were surprisingly good! I caught 7 or 8 maybe but kept looking longingly to the sweet overhead glassy walls on the outside.

This was my last surf session of the year and was getting on plane back to Alaska the next day. Fuck this if I'm gonna sit in here picking up scraps on the best day of the season! I slowly made my way back out through the line up ignoring the stink eye. Right as I was near the front of the line up I could see a rogue set on the hazy horizon.

I saw it before everyone and just stated digging! Then they all were but I was in the lead. It was a 1,2,3 set with the tallest looming in the rear with the first of the three being bigger than anything else of the day anyway. I made it over the first one easy, barely made it over the second one. I figured that cleaned everyone one out but when I looked back I saw 8 or 10 dudes all smashing the water behind me. OMG they want to kill me! I thought as the monster wave stood tall. I had to muster all the skill in me to turn the board 180 deg as the face picked me up and right at the top of the lip I was in position and made the drop!

Now I was staight-lining though the crowd that was duck diving. Made one heel side bottom turn to the left and saw that 4 or 5 other guys snake my wave!

* pause* this is the point of the story about who has right of way, technically I do because I dropped in the deepest but I broke a bunch of rules to get there *unpause*

The wave basically smashed everyone to oblivion as I had to stayed on my feet and got in front of the huge pile of white water and rode straight to the beach. I double stepped to the parking lot fully expecting to get chased down for a beat down. Hopped in the van and drove away. That was my last wave in Maui.

[carpathian]

Girdwood Marathon 2018

I survived a trail marathon this morning and it wasn't pretty. I jumped into the lead off the get go. This was my first marathon distance race (outside of triathlon) and I was pretty sure I’d go out too hard, so I did.

The first 6 miles were quick with 8:30/miles. Then route became tight twisty root snarled trail with a lot of steep short ups and downs basically for the next 15 miles. maybe 40% of entire course would be considered 'muddy'.
Lots of quick feet and trying to keep dry feet as long as possible. Lots of steeple chase style log jumps and whatnot.

At mile 12 I was 2 hours even (10 min /mile) No one around. Following fresh bear tracks for 3-4 miles, and had close run in with huge bull moose.

There is a 3.2 mile out and back section with the turnaround being approx. mile 15. The trail devolved into nasty rock pile stuff covered in leaves. Ankle twisty ground. I kept think I was close to turn around and was loosing hope and energy quickly. Had to walk numerous short steep sections.

2nd place guy caught me right at the turnaround and he was cruising. I struggled on the return and was passed by another guy about mile 18. I was deep in bonk territory. Carried 2 Gu packs and 2 gel chew packs and no water. Planned on drinking from streams along the way. I would steal a sip here and there but felt pursued by a pack of wolves.

Probably only drank liter total. We pulled out onto nice wide gravel path for last 5 miles and I was feeling surprisingly refreshed. Then my right hamstring seized up. Dehyration. stopped me in my tracks. 30 seconds later it subsided and I kept at it.

I knew there was a guy couple hundred yards back slowly reeling me in. Then with 2 miles remaining, my left groin hamstring combo seized. Wow! That shit will stop you dead.

The last mile is climbing up broad grassy ski hill run. I knew the guy would be able to see me hobbling and he could smell blood. Right as he caught me I had full double leg cramps, lol. Seriously 5 minutes from finish at this point. He passed easily, I came across finish 2 minutes later in 4th.

4:20:30 @ 10 min/mile average with 3500 vert or so. Winner was 4:08.

I drove home and laid on the couch on deaths door for a while. My stomach was topsy turvy and i had to eat carefully.

6 hours later I'm feeling better. The Zombie Half Marathon next Saturday on pavement will be a joy after this. Last big race of my season…

[carpathian]

Zombie Half Marathon

I knew this last half marathon race was gonna be a tough nut to crack. I told my self I needed to be on aggressive rest program for the week and to freshen up after that trail marathon 7 days ago. But it is hard when you want to keep things moving...

I partially took my own advice:

Sunday: 1 hour on mtn bike, trying to spin legs into recovery
Monday: 30 min lap swim in pool
Tues: rest
Wed: run 20 min. Fatigued legs and body
Thurs: run 30 min faster, residual fatigue in core, legs felt better
Fri: Rest, I knew I was still tired deep down

Race morning : heavy drizzle, 40 degrees

650 people at the start line. Whole stack of 20 something college runners. Oh god this is gonna suck..
As far as pacing I did exactly what you strive to not do:

Mile 1) 5:18, felt surprisingly spry. Looked at watch and knew this was gonna lead to trouble. Intentionally slowed down.

Mile 2) 11:28 (5:45/mile) Ok if I can just hold this, I'll be around 1:15... my predetermined arrogant goal for the day. 4th place

Mile 3) 17:15 (5:45/mile) 6th place

The reality was setting in. I could tell my gas tank was not topped up. The rain picked up in intensity.

Mile 6) 36:06 (6:01/ mile) Ok Ok, not so bad. I felt mid race surge. It literally took 20 min to really warm up. My legs were bright red from the cold water. 10th place

Mile 11) 1:08 (6:12/mile) My legs were cold. I could feel the tendons in knees grinding and popping around. Hypothermia real concern. Absolutely soaked. It was now raining so hard my eyes were constantly filling with water like my face was in the shower. And could see breath at same time. The bike path was covered edge to edge with yellow dead leaves and standing water for 100 yards at a time. 12th Place or so

Mile 12) This section of the trail comes around a point and is now exposed to full blast of wind barreling up the grey cold waters of Cook Inlet.

The last mile is serious grind up long hill to finish. I am literally slobbering like crazed black lab chasing a ball. Finish on top of hill: 1:23: 24, exact same time as my first half marathon back in June. (6:23/mile) 16th place

Haggard, went and stretched it out with 30 min lap swim which was nice because when you start already beat, you can focus on good technique. But that is another subject. Hey, any you guys watch Ironman in Kona today? Poor Lionel, I wonder how he will take it…

[carpathian]

Finally finished this one, been busy around here.

Called 'RGB'

I think if two concepts here.

1) The basic division of the colors Red Green Blue from the left, right, top and bottom panels coming together in the middle panel.

2) The political divide between the left and the right, the red and the blue. IN the middle there is harmony.