Acorns, Part 1: Coho Park and the Smoke Bluffs
“Mighty Oaks from little Acorns grow” I’ve been thinking for a while now about doing a series chronicling our first humble forays into learning to explore the wild. I’ve never really documented them in any way and I think I’ve learned some important lessons from reflecting on them. I’ll get into what I feel those lessons are in the later parts of this series. Something that I feel is unique about myself and Spring is that we have learned almost everything about the activities that we engage in, in the Outdoors, since we moved to Canada a few years ago. Before arriving in Canada I had no idea what Gore-tex was, or Vibram. If you’d uttered the words Gaiter, Crampon or Adze to me while I was living in Ireland I’d have imagined you were speaking a foreign language, don’t get me started on randkluft, krummholz and bergschrund. I’d never owned a tent, sleeping bag or even a pair of hiking boots before coming to Canada in 2010. This may seem odd to many people in Canada, at least in the West, where a connection with nature seems to be a part of the cultural tradition but in the Capital of Ireland, Dublin, where I am from, I was happy to spend all of my time in cities and suburbs, watching movies at the cinemas and meeting friends to chat in coffee shops. Cities do a great job of providing ample amounts of distraction to keep you from leaving their walls and streets behind for the untouched wilds. So what changed? Well when we moved to the town of Squamish, British Columbia, in the Spring of 2010 myself and my wife knew absolutely no one here. We also knew absolutely nothing about the town. Really, our decision to come here was based on the fact that it was north of a large city, Vancouver, and south of a resort town, Whistler. Hiking or climbing near Squamish was not even a consideration. Thinking back I remember imagining that I might just replicate my life from Ireland in Canada. I would meet friends in the city for coffee and take in a film at the cinema. In Ireland I had been meeting up with friends to play a video game called “Street Fighter IV”. I had been taking it quite seriously and actually wanted to start playing in competitions. I imagined starting a “Street Fighter IV” community in Squamish. Amongst my sparse belongings that I brought with me from Ireland was a large, arcade style, gaming joystick along with other gaming controllers and a host of other gaming equipment. I can’t...
Salomon Speedcross 3 Trailrunner Review
Bottom Line: These runners were extremely comfortable right out of the box. I didn’t encounter the usual “breaking in” period that I have experienced with other running shoes. They are a fairly lightweight trail runner with a burly cleated tread which is great for technical trails and all-weather conditions. I have found that the tread wears out fairly quickly on Salomon shoes, but overall they are such a comfortable trail runner that I highly recommend them. How I chose it: I had owned Salomon trails runners previously, before I was doing any serious trail running, and loved them as an all around walking/hiking shoe. I also had a few trail running friends that highly recommended the Speedcross. Observations since using it: The lacing system is excellent. Unlike traditional style laces the Kevlar Quick-Fit system works with one pull and won’t loosen. There is even a handy tongue pocket to tuck away the laces, which I personally love as it keeps things from flapping around. It is a one-time tighten before you leave the house and you are good to go for hours. When I ran my first 50km trail race last year I used the Salomon Speedcross and I didn’t have to adjust them once in the 8 hours I was out on the trails. There was no breaking in period required for these shoes. I took them out of the box and went for a run without any issues with rubbing or blisters. They are as close as feeling liking like a slipper as a trail runner could. The fit is very precise. I have narrow feet and find that once I tighten the shoe it molds nicely to my foot which makes for a secure fit, making for more confident footfalls when running on technical trail. The toe box provides enough room to not cause issues with any rubbing or pressure points, which also helps to delay the onset of black toe nails. There is an 11mm drop in this shoe, which is simply the difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe when standing; zero is the equivalent to standing barefoot. So there is a pretty substantial drop in these shoes which is more akin to a traditional running shoe and will support people who are heel strikers. I personally mid-foot strike, but haven’t found these shoes to cause me any issues. Pros: Lacing - Excellent lacing system with tongue pocket to keep lace ends out-of-the-way. Comfort - Super comfortable from date of purchase. Fit - Secure, precise fit due to locking lacing system and the mold of the shoe. I feel...
Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XTherm Review
Bottom Line: Super light, super packable, very comfortable, air mattress. Might need to be babied on uneven or sharp ground to avoid puncturing it and it does make a crinkling noise when you move around on it but overall it’s an amazing piece of gear. Highly recommended. We use ours 12 months a year. How I chose it: Before buying this pad I had been using a Big Agnes Insulated Air Core, the largest one they sold. It weighs ~0.9kg and took the better part of 10 minutes to blow up, usually leaving my lips feeling like rubber but it was really comfortable. I slept like a log. I still use it now for car camping. But, there came a time when I wanted to climb higher in the mountains and do it faster and to make that endeavour easier I started to research ways to reduce my pack weight. The Big Agnes was also too large to fit in the tent I wished to buy, The Sierra Designs Convert II. I needed a pad with a mummy shaped design that took up as little space when inflated as possible. After some research I decided upon the Neo Air XTherm. Some friends I knew were already using it and it came highly recommended online. Relaxing and warm on top of snow. Directly on snow in a snow pit Inflated and in use in an MSR 3P Tent Observations since using it: I’ve used this pad exclusively since purchasing it for every backpacking trip that I’ve been on. It’s incredibly light and packs down really small. In regards to comfort, which is subjective, I’ve found it to be reasonably comfortable. It inflates quickly. It is recommended in Winter to not inflate these pads by breathing into them as the water vapor from your breath will condense back to a liquid when it cools and remain in the pad. Therm-a-Rest supplies a stuff sack with this pad that has a valve attached to it so that you can inflate the pad by opening and closing the stuff sack and rolling the air from it into the pad this way. I’ve never used this method of inflation. I find it slow and laborious compared to just blowing into it. I’ve been using the pad through all 4 seasons for the last 2 years and, so far, I’ve noticed no water staying inside it. Pros: Light: The regular size, which I bought, weighs 430g’s/15oz’s. For a pad that inflates to 6cm/2.5” thick which can be used through the depths of Winter on top of snow and ice this weight is simply amazing. Packable:...
Get scared.
“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” Eleanor Roosevelt Last week I decided to accept this challenge. I chose to go trail running at night… solo. Now I love running trails solo, but have never ventured out into the night on the trails. I have journeyed out into early morning darkness, but that was based on the knowledge that the darkness would quickly turn to the lovely golden light that brings with it feelings of safety and confidence. This run was going to be very different, it was going to start in darkness and end in darkness. There would be no warming glow of safe sunshine, just the bubble of light cast from my headlamp. I tried to keep my focus within this little bubble of light, not thinking so much of what might be happening outside of it, what might be scurrying in the depths of the forest or peering at me from the darkness with vision more accustomed to nightlife. I left the house that night, reached the car and turned right back towards the front door, but just before I reached it, I forced myself to stop, turn the other direction and head right back to the car. “Just go!” When I actually got to the start of the trail and started running the first section, which runs parallel to the highway, the presence and light cast from passing cars gave me a sense of security. Somehow I convinced myself to just run to the top of the section, before it spit me into the forest. “Just cut it short it’s okay” I told myself. But the closer I got to top I couldn’t let myself be that easily persuaded, I knew I would regret not following through. So into the dark forest I went. Shouting and clapping as I went, I refused to look behind me, which I often do on trail runs during the day to make sure I am not in the way of oncoming bikers or faster runners. But this time I knew if I looked behind I would see only a few feet of light cast by my headlamp and then darkness. In all honesty the only fear I had that night was of large animals that may be roaming looking for a night-time snack, and I did not want to surprise anything that was out on the trails looking for food. My mind mostly turned to cougars which frequent this particular area of town. I had to keep telling myself that the only difference on the trails at night is the absence of light; there was nothing out to get...
The Runners High
“What the hell was that?” Breathless, I sat beside Spring as we got into the car. Spring spoke but there was a dull ringing in my ears that muted her voice. Eventually I heard her say “something got into you eh? You just took off, how long were you waiting for me at the end?”. We drove home and pulled into our driveway. Spring got out, she noticed that I wasn’t following and asked “Are you coming?”. I responded “In a few minutes”. I needed to understand what had happened. Where my mind had gone. Before distractions dulled this experience and reduced it to something imagined at a later point in the day. Like a dream, precisely like a dream to be exact, I needed to not let this memory fade into the ether now that I had regained composure, regained consciousness. I looked at the running app on my phone. I had run the fastest split time for that distance in my life, at least 25% faster than when I had ran the same trail and distance a few days prior. I rejoined Spring in our apartment; “I think that was it” I said, “I think that was a runners high”. This experience happened some months ago. In the period between then and now I have battled with whether I should write about it or not. I’ve written drafts of this post and then scrapped them. I’m skeptical by nature. I spend my leisure time in the mountains and take calculated risks. The key point is that these activities require me to be calculated, to evaluate the hard evidence, to mitigate dangers and to move safely through the terrain. There’s no room there for flights of fancy or the unquantifiable. I like the raw honesty of the wild and the trust I can put in those experiences. Rock is hard, Ice is cold and the Mountains are eternally indifferent. I’ve heard of climbers refer to being in “the zone” but it always sounded foolish to me. Nobody plans a trip and says “ok, when we get to the base of this climb we’ll enter The Zone and then climb effortlessly to the summit”. It sounds farcical. The sporadic nature of accounts about this heightened state of awareness naturally leads one to be skeptical. Yet I couldn’t deny my own experience. That state I was in while running was not normal consciousness, it was not a normal level of awareness. It was different. I’d read about the purported “runners high” before. It always seemed like marketing fluff to sell more race tickets or running shoes. Or just another way...
Currently
This has been an odd Winter. Really odd. I’ve experienced 3 Winters since moving to Southwest British Columbia in 2010 and I’m being told that I was spoiled with how amazing they were. Watching this winter unfold has felt like watching an awkward stage performance on some reality TV show were the individual tries to sing but sounds like someone strangling a cat, at first the fact they can’t sing is humorous, in a schadenfreude kind of way, but eventually you become uncomfortable at the display and wonder why somebody isn’t escorting them off the stage. Somebody needs to escort this Winter off the stage. This Winter was going to be The Winter we’d nail skiing, not only resort skiing but backcountry skiing. It’s been a hard activity for us to get good at but we hadn’t really put much effort into it in the past. This Winter we planned to change that. I’d imagined doing midweek night skiing at Cypress Resort, then getting out into the backcountry on the weekends to experience the joys of powder skiing that we’ve heard so much about. So far, those dreams haven’t materialized. We’ve had a few large dumps of snow broken up by long stretches with no precipitation and the temperature and freezing levels have been really high leading to heavy, wet snow cheerfully referred to locally as “elephant snot”. We’ll just have to see how things progress as the Winter goes on. For now it feels like I’m in a holding pattern, waiting for permission to land. So I thought I’d write a “currently” post, a post about what I’m doing right now instead of planning my ski trips. Currently… reading The Rock Warrior’s Way, I think the title is lame, and I’ve found the writing so far to be pretty verbose, but I’ve seen some great improvements in my own climbing focus from the techniques it recommends so far, so I’ll continue to read it. loving Sticking dynos at the local bouldering gym. I’m not a fan of gyms in general but climbing indoors is actually pretty fun. Working a problem for a few days and finally sticking that crux dyno move is pretty damn satisfying. I’ve only been at it for a few weeks and I already feel functionally stronger than I have in my whole life. thinking a lot about Social Media and Networks. I’m always on this knife edge between loving and hating it. I love that it gives me a medium to inspire people to get outdoors, but when I see people in the wild staring at their phones, holding them up looking for reception,...
