McConkey Movie
This is not another Ski Movie. This is a really well researched, edited and composed documentary about living life fully, pursuing purpose and the challenge to never stop dreaming. The subject of the documentary centers around the life and ultimately, the passing, of Shane McConkey, a free skier turned base jumper, and his impact on the culture of extreme sports. It intricately traces the path he followed from a child onwards. This process is executed meticulously, thanks in large part to Shanes personal efforts to document and video his own life from a young age. You do not need to be an adrenalin junkie to take something away from watching this. Everyone will garner something of value. Similar to the story of Christopher McCandless in “Into the Wild” (Our review of Into The Wild) it would be naive to say that it was their way of life and principles that brought about their end. Shane lived with passion, which I feel is the most important lesson that can be learned from watching this film. From a young age he put very little value on monetary gain. Rightly so, the bulk of his energy went into nourishing that which drove him. His love of being in nature and testing the limits of human potential. Many of us may be able to say that we lived longer than Shane, but I doubt that many of us will admit to having lived truer to ourselves than him. This documentary is not about the glorification of risk, or in idolising those that pursue it. It is about challenging all of us to dream a little more and to not simply live a life staring at the heels of those in front of us, but rather to forge our own path and leave a new trail for others to follow. Full Documentary here: http://mcconkeymovie.com/...
Animal House II: The Tenquille Invasion
“Are you guys all from Whistler?” I asked. He finished chugging another Pilsner and shouted out: “Yeah buddy, how’d you know?” I smiled as a reply and kept walking, past the Canadian Tire Queen sized inflatable mattress floating in the lake with somebody passed out on top of it, the shotgun and shells, the brewery worth of beer cans, the frenzied pack of dogs, the bleary eyed girlfriends wearing swimsuits that might have originally fit them some time back around ‘95, the Brahs tomahawking hatchets at the nearest tree trunk as if training for Z-Day, wearing board shorts, 5 dollar shades and baseball caps with comedy sized flat brims (still nonplussed by the sticker) Yes, yes, we had arrived, along with approximately 60 other people, 3 babies, 10 dogs and 8 mountain bikes at the Tenquille Lake Recreation Site to bask in the glorious death throes of Summer, long may she rest in peace. Getting here had been no mean feat for our 2WD jalopy. It had developed a mean cough in its muffler somewhere along the 4WD section of the Birkenhead River-Tenquille Creek Branch FSR. As we crawled through the water bars, giving the belly of our steed a good scratch I thought the lady doth protest too much. Eventually though we realized that she was hobbling along slower than we could actually walk this road, so we parked about 3km’s back from the Trailhead. Indeed, we walked at the same speed or faster than other 4WD vehicles on the road, overtaking them at the waterbars. Do yourself a favour, bike the road. Unless your truck is seriously jacked, you will be crawling it. A bike would be faster on the way in, and way faster and more fun on the way out. We made short order of the trail itself. It looks like somebody is trying to reroute the old trail away from all the muddy sections that have become hilariously braided. This rerouting is creating a bit of chaos as there are now branches off the main trail everywhere. We talked to some guys who had tried to hike in the previous night, took a wrong branch, and ended up back at their trucks via a different trail a few hours later, wherein they decided to camp instead for the night. Another aside, cross to the other side of the lake outflow on the way in for the shorter and easier trail to the cabin. Over the weekend we summited Tenquille, Finch Ridge, Copper Mound and McLeod. All nice, hands in pockets, rambles in the Class 2 range. Views were pleasant. Some MTB’rs got heli-dropped onto...
There.. Are.. Four.. Pitches: Star Chek
If you’re a die hard Trekkie you may get the reference in the title of this post. If not, then don’t worry about it. A few weeks ago I climbed a multi-pitch route named “Star Chek”, probably named as a play on the name of the popular Sci-Fi show and due to it’s location, above the Cheakamus River, being out of this world. I’d been mentioning this climb to a friend of mine, Adrian, for a while. Ever since I seen pictures of it from reports online the idea of climbing this exposed Arête of rock while a torrent of white water roared below seemed so tantalizing. I’m not at a skill level yet where I could lead it so I’d need Adrian to go on the sharp end of the rope. The stars, pun intended, aligned, and he offered to lead it with me. He’d be passing it on his way North to do some camping so it would work out perfectly. It ended up being myself, Adrian and his better half, Sophie. On the morning of the climb the weather did not seem to be on our side. It was showering and the idea of climbing wet, slick rock was losing it’s appeal. I met up with Adrian and, always the optimist, he said that we should go check it out at least. We got to the parking lot and it was still raining on the windshield of the car. I commented and said that we could do it another time when it was dry if they wanted. Adrian, still being optimistic, wanted to wait. After about a half hour, the rain didn’t seem to be abating much and Adrian said: “We should go”. I initially thought he meant that he wanted to leave and go away, but when I seen him get out of the vehicle and start getting his stuff I realized he wanted to go do the climb. At the very least he wanted to get to the base of the climb and see what the rock was like up close. I’ve written about this in the past in my post “Get your nose against it” and how you should always go as far as you can before turning around but on this day, with it raining, I was thinking about breaking my own rule and throwing in the towel at the parking lot. Adrians gusto was infectious though so we grabbed our stuff and began descending into the gorge that would lead us to the base of Star Chek. After about 10 minutes I noticed something odd. The rock further down in the gorge...
