Weekender Bender Part 1

This past weekend was awesome! Coming into it I had that feeling that you get right before you go on vacation; how lucky is that?! The plans were to ride the Test of Metal course on Saturday morning, after which I was going to attempt to put a timely end to my 12 week hiatus from climbing in the Grand Wall boulders. Then for Sunday I was trying to rope in anyone willing to suffer on the three peaks of the Northshore with me.

Saturday morning dawned bright and warm as it seems to have for the past 3 weeks and I got my stuff together and headed north. The Squamish-bound crew comprised Churchy, Erik, Martin, Megan, T-bone and myself with a possible showing by Markez and a surprise showing by Matty-Berger. Booky had to stay home from this one to sell his house, and Sizzle had to bail because he couldn’t not go for a ride on his brand new Suzuki GSX-R 600!!!

So we got under way and shortly after setting out, we got a bit separated and I promptly got lost (after assuring the others that I definitely knew the course – har har har). Not to worry though, after it just meant more bike riding and soon enough I ran into Martin and Erik where the Mashiter Bridge was down for construction.

We decided to do a detour down a black diamond trail called Entrails that turned out to be super technical and tons of fun! Along the way we passed other enticing trails such as the Icy Hole of Death…for some reason we passed that one up?

Back on track we proceeded to follow the regular trails for the rest of the course. Martin was riding like a bat out of hell today and it was insane to try to even keep him in sight, especially on the downhills; nice riding Mart! In the end, after a somewhat shakey start during which I didn’t feel I was riding all that well, I was really happy with how I was able to ride the Plunge and Crumpit Woods.

Upon returning to the parking lot, to our great fortune who showed up but Markezzy! At that point everybody was disbanding and I was going to go bouldering but I grabbed a bite to eat Markezzy first and we enjoyed some delicious Italian calzones from Nester’s Market.

After lunch I eagerly made my way over to the Grand Wall boulders and stepped into forest with a mile-wide grin on my face. Suffice it to say that it was a short, easy session but one of the most pleasant I’ve ever had. That forest is one of my favourite places to be hands down so it was a real treat to be back, bounding through the rocks with a pad and shoes in tow.

Unfortunately the next morning I woke with a sore shoulder so I guess it’s not quite ready for climbing again just yet but soon…soon I’ll be back in there mixing it up.