Powder Hounds and the Spitzmark Lockett

Oh man was this weekend ever a bonanza! It started Friday after work at the climbing gym with me faltering somewhat after my warm-up, but then regrouping and hopping on the send train to crush 3 of my projects! Noice! Further to that I worked out the moves for the next 2 problems in my sites so I'm excited to get back into the gym tomorrow evening after another day of rest today.

My brother Cam drove up from Seattle Friday night and the plan was to attack the Musical Bumps with a ferocity not seen since the heroic days of William Wallace! Our group was me, Cam, Sizzle, Martin and Markezzy. We made our way up over Whistler and back into Symphony bowl, before skinning up to the top of Flute and then off the backside into paradise. I chose to try to ski because I knew I would get left behind faster than you can say Spitzmark Lockett if I was on snowshoes and I've also committed to learning how to ski since I really want to do more backcountry skiing in the coming seasons. I tend to find skiing in-bounds a bit repetitive and it's also quite expensive, so why not have an adventure with far less crowds and way better snow?!

So anyways, we got away from the crowds and had 4 amazing runs by the time we decided to call it quits and head back out the Singing Pass Trail to the Village. The trail was an interesting way to get out but I would have to say I don't think I would choose that option again for exiting the area. In the end it would have been much simpler and more enjoyable to do one more climb up Flute Mtn and then get to ski down the entire mountain to finish the day. But who the heck cares! It was amazing and I wanted to do the Singing Pass exit once anyways. Back in the Village we shared a cold pint and then headed home to Vancity. Here's a photo my bro Cam took of me heading down the west side of Russett Ridge with my heart in my throat and shaky knees! The whole time I could hear Cam coming down behind me hooting and hollering about how we were all a bunch of Powder Hounds! Ha ha ha...

Sunday morning dawned and after agreeing firmly that we would do something today that did not require us to use our arm muscles and was not too strenuous on the legs since we were both pretty tired from teh previous day's bru-ha-ha, we came up with...skate skiing! Ha ha ha...it actually turned out well and we covered a fair number of the trails up at the Cypress Nordic Area. As we covered the trails, occasionally we saw a few little kids with race bibs on so we agreed that there was likely a hotly contested loppett under way. Not surprisingly, we turned a bend and saw two little rug-rats going full bore for the finish line, read: walking on their skis poking each other with their poles and alternating between looking up at the trees, calling to their dad and sliding backwards down the hill they were ascending...har har har. Anyways, we dubbed the race the Sitzmark Loppett after the green circle trail named Sitzmark. After a particularly steep section I caught Cam up and he mentioned something about the race to which I gasped, out of breath: "...SPITZMARK LOCKETT?!?" We both had a good laugh and adopted the new name for the rest of our ski.

Definitely the best weekend of 2010 so far and I think plans are in the works for the next adventure when Car, KC and I get back from Florida: The Mt. Baker Showdown!!!