Hurley Silver Mine
Sometimes it’s nice to tag along on a trip and not really do anything to plan it. It’s too easy nowadays to completely destroy any discovery when exploring a new area by doing research online. Most places will have pictures of everything on the route, 360’ video panoramas, HD Satellite imagery available in Google Earth, with detailed reports describing every step of the way. (I’m aware of the irony of writing this and posting it online). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it’s nice to discover an area fresh without any previous knowledge of what to expect. So mid last week I received word that a friend wanted to explore the “Hurley Silver Mine” area and potentially summit “Hurley Silver Peak”. I’d remembered reading something about it, and vaguely knew it was off the Duffy Lake Road so I agreed. I’ve never been on a bad hike that started from the Duffy Lake Road. Saturday morning seen four of us heading North, past Whistler, then Pemberton and along the Duffy. We passed the pullouts for all the popular weekend spots for sledders and skiers and they were packed. Why wouldn’t they be, conditions were awesome and the weather was forecast for bluebird skies. I worried that our chosen area would also be overrun by skiers and sledders also. Nearing our parking spot I seen it was empty with only an old pickup parked up the road. My friend, Adrien, mentioned that we had to be dropped off at the parking area and that Ben, the driver, would need to park about a kilometer away as there was rumours that a First Nations man might vandalize our vehicle if we parked nearby. Turns out there used to be a proper, drivable bridge that crosses Cayoosh Creek which runs parallel to the Duffy Lake Road for a while, but it washed out some years back. Since then a new footbridge has been installed, purportedly by this First Nations man who lives on the opposite side of Cayoosh Creek, the side we’d need to cross over to before heading along the Hurley Silver Mine road towards our objective. He has been reported as blocking peoples attempts to cross this bridge. Whether or not these rumours are lore, past tense or true didn’t matter. It was better to err on the side of caution rather than risk a possible confrontation. We unloaded, moved the car a safe distance away, geared up, then quickly scurried across the footbridge and along the road. The footbridge instantly meant we wouldn’t be listening to the obnoxious sound and smell of sleds for the weekend. We...
Mt. Rainier
The highest point I had been too before I attempted Mt.Rainier was the summit of Wedge Mountain at 2892m’s, in Garibaldi Provincial Park, B.C., and I remember feeling a keen sense of achievement at having scaled that height. Just knowing that it was the highest summit in the park made it feel like more of an achievement for me, like I had conquered some invisible force, a force that as you reach higher becomes more and more oppressive. Rainier, which stands at just over 4300m’s (14,411ft), was now going to be the tallest mountain I had climbed to date. Despite the many mountaineering trips I had taken in the last few years, the trip to Mt. Rainier felt like something outside of the scope of anything I had known. This was a big mountain and it felt like it deserved a deep respect of it’s own. “….the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.” - John Muir As I stood at the Paradise visitor centre looking up at Mt. Rainier on that hot August afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking of how close it seemed. It looked no farther than a stone’s throw away. Rainier just stood there in all it’s glory, streaks of grey rock showing through the late summer snow, deep crevasses gouging the glacier that tumbled down within my view, brightly colored wild flowers dotting the grassy meadows in the foreground. Standing alone in all it’s immensity with no concern for the tiny creatures standing below looking on in awe; standing there thinking that we could somehow conquer this mass of stone and ice. But as usual the mountain doesn’t care that we are there or that we care to struggle and gasp our way up it’s flanks. It is just there, and it was in my own mind that I felt this sense of the mountains willingness to accept us, allowing us to pass and giving me the opportunity to test myself. I remember looking at the winding path that made it’s way in the direction of Camp Muir, comparing it to previous hikes in my mind, thinking it wouldn’t take long at all. The mountain after all looked so close, like a super-imposed image on a screen, but no matter how long I walked that image remained the same distance away. My sense of scale was becoming more and more obscured. At that moment I remembered a quote I had seen in an outdoor store earlier that year regarding the Himalaya, it said “everything is so much bigger and so much farther away than you can imagine”....
Ultrarunner?
Oh my goodness, what did I just do? Ok so I just signed up for the Arc’teryx Squamish 50 50km race August 10,2013. So far my amateur running career (if I can be so bold as to call it any kind of career) consists of a 10 mile and a 13 mile in 2009 and then a full marathon in 2011 and 2012. Just looking at the list on this page makes me realize I don’t really take baby steps when it comes to things like this. It’s all or nothing I guess. I convinced myself to jump to an ultrarun with the rationale that it’s really only 8km more than a marathon, even if it’s all on technical trail; plus we do a lot of long tiring mountaineering trips most weekends, which is a good base, right? I rather enjoy the suffering involved in these types of sports and from my limited experience have found that, along with a lot of training, there is a huge mental aspect involved. Just being able to talk yourself through discomfort and pain and still being able to carry on is a huge part of it, right? Well this is what I will keep telling myself for now. I have 8 months to get ready for the biggest race of my life. What do I expect from myself? What kind of time goal should I expect? What kind of training plan will I use? These are all questions that I am sure I am going to be agonizing over for the next month or so before the real training starts. Until then, I will enjoy the “just registered for my first ultrarun” high I am feeling and deal with the knots in my stomach that I feel are slowly forming tomorrow morning! If you want to follow my progress and updates then bookmark this: http://pebbleshoo.com/tag/Squamish50/ Video of myself and a few other runners by...
Crown Mountain: Powder Pushers
Mid last week we got wind of a planned trip to investigate and possibly climb Crater Couloir on Crown Mountain. It’s been on our radar for a while so we immediately put our names down to go along. Some details changed and due to a few of us needing to be back in the city earlier 4 of us, Spring, Leigh, Dean and Adrien ended up planning to start hiking at 4:30am it meant a 3am wakeup alarm on a Saturday but c’est la vie. We approached via the Grouse Grind trail, a leg burner that stops for most at the Chalet at the top where they check their watches, record their times and never venture further into the backcountry beyond. For us, the Chalet would be our first pitstop. Starting in the dark, and trudging up this trail that turned from soil, to ice, to snow it was a novelty to burst out into the open and be surrounded by the fully lit up Grouse Mountain Resort. We refilled our water bottles in the Chalets restrooms, changed some gear around then headed out on the corduroy groomed trails towards Crown Mountain, where we left the groomed and broken trails behind. We made good time from here and passed Dam Mountain, Little Goat Mountain and then continued down to Crown Pass. As our plan was to do the Crater Couloir we started descending towards the Hanes Creek Valley at this point. About half way down we noticed a rather large and wide runnel that had been formed recently by a slide released from the bluffs above to our left. It was enough of a pause to question whether we should attempt the Couloir at all. Conditions weren’t good and we all knew it would be a heinous snow treadmill up the couloir so we decided to leave it for another day. We decided to attempt the summer scramble route instead. Once we regained Crown Pass we began following the Tree Markers that lead the way along the summer trail. Simple sections that I’m sure are easily bypassed when there isn’t any snow ended up taking considerable amounts of time. An ice layer about a foot or two beneath the snow caused numerous problems in steep sections as the snow on top of it would slide and would also not compress to allow us to make footholds. To add to this, due to the snow, the runouts in quite a few sections of sidehilling were pretty bad. Nevertheless, we pushed on, swimming and plowing through the powder. We gained the final ridge to the summit and decided to don our...
Arc’teryx Alpha LT Jacket Review
“With my Mack and my Merry’s I’m ready to hike!” A silly phrase I coined 2 ½ years ago as I went on some of my first real hikes wearing what was, at the time, my hiking uniform; a North Face DWR Rain mack and a pair of Merrell Siren Song Mid Sport hikers (my “Merry’s”). You can see me sporting these very items in the picture above. The items have changed but the phrase still applies. I now own an Arc’teryx Alpha LT Goretex jacket (and a pair of La Sportiva Evo Nepal Mountaineering boots, but we will save those for another post) which has come to be one of my favorite pieces of gear. Weighing in under 12 ounces, it’s so lightweight that I pack it on every trip, summer or winter. Here are some of the features that I have come to appreciate since owning this jacket and using it in the mountains: - Provides full on weather protection. It keeps out moisture whether it’s rain or snow and works double duty as a windproof barrier for those, more often than not, windy summit days. I have used this jacket in conditions ranging from full on winter snow storm, summit camping, lashing rains of the NWP and dry blustery days. It’s the most essential piece of my layering system. -What’s with the location of the pockets? That’s what I first thought when I put it on, fresh off the hanger, in the warmth and comfort of my living room. But, get out on a glacier or on rock, put on a harness, backpack and all the other gak that goes along with this type of awesomeness, and you soon realize that the strategically placed reach-across pockets are the best thing that just happened to you. The easy access pockets make for great storage of your mobile phone, extra slings or any other items you need to keep handy but out of the way. - Helmet Compatible Hood. I can’t speak for everyone but unless you are feeling some serious frigid temperatures, I personally don’t like to wear a toque under my helmet as I tend to overheat pretty quickly and it’s a real hassle to have to take off your helmet and toque whenever you get too warm. Which is why I love this hood. It fits right over my climbing helmet with room to spare and cinches in at just the right spots for a nice snug fit (which by the way is great for when you’re not wearing your helmet as these adjustable cinch points on the hood keep it from blowing off...
