Shock Monkey Okanagan – Day 5

Day 5?  really?!  Well, I guess we’d better hit up Gillard then.

We did the usual warmup stuff in Gillard, then it was time to try some steep techgnar.  Dr. No is needing some lovin’.

That got he juices flowin’.   After that we headed down to Boss Hog for a session on some slightly bigger stuff.  Props to Jay for getting the ball rolling, but…

…shot of the day goes to Gen for overshooting the opener on the Hog.

Simon gets an honourable mention for not landing on me.

Jay has got the berms figured out now.  They’re easy when it’s not raining.

Ah, good times.  We banged out a few runs here before we called it a day.  What’s more important is that the rain is holding off.

Junior, learning to ride at Gillard. 

I’m bored of driving.  I think I’ll rake this picture of myself with a very serious expression.  Seriously, don’t piss me off.

Oh wait, here they come. I’ll just run over and play with the macro setting.

…and a little sender down Dirty Sanchez and we’re spent.

Time for some appies at the Eldorado.

This is the creepy dude watching us from the deck above.  Does he have ANY clothes on?

Chevy, don’t look.  Here’ check out the fish instead.

Oh great, it’s his naked girlfriend instead. Gross.  I’m outta here…

Shock Monkey Okanagan – Day 4

This is better.  It might not be sunny, but it’s not raining either.  Everyone is battered from endless days of riding in the wet, so we took a mellow one today.  Finally, I’ve ridden the trestles in Myra Canyon.

Simon, missing the liquid falling from the sky, takes a giant whizz.

No seriously, it’s 130’ down there.

A nice little pano shot for comparison. 

Kind of a weenie wildlife encounter, but they don’t have chipmunks in Australia.

Please sir, can I have some more?

A millions laughs…

We could just ride a railway grade though, so we trundled on over to the Crawford DH.

And lo and behold, the sun actually came out.

Everything is wicked green right now after all that washing it got.

Our Monkeys didn’t know how to deal with Teddy Bear Junction.

But if I know my Aussies, Simon is thinking that he’d like to treat the Koala bears back home like this (every Australian I’ve ever met tells me Koala’s are fairly disgusting and vicious brutes).

They totally look like Koala’s if you just squint.

Shock Monkey Okanagan – Day 3

Welcome to Canada’s only desert. 

Sure is green…

Yeah, June-uary keeps on giving around here.  Although we have been snowed on in July on this ride, so torrential rain is not that big of a deal, right? 

Andrew and Brant came out with the saws today, so we did a bit of refurb on Cawston Creek Trail.  It really needed it.

Besides clearing some major deadfall, we also rebuilt this jump.

Note the size of that saw.  That’s no farm saw.  That’s over 100cc’s of Husky on there.

Kind of forced Jay to work for this one.

We also fixed the entrance to this log.

One plank, coming right up.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to outwit the weather with our good deeds.

It just socked right in while we were building. 

Not that the riding was bad or anything.

Actually, it doesn’t really get any better than this.

It also meant that for round 2 on TKO, that we were looking for some serious wet.  It was only about +3 at the top, and windy.  I wasn’t sure, but I had a hunch that the conditions were going to be prime, and I wasn’t disappointed.  The best run down the top half of TKO for myself, and Brant, AND Andrew that we’ve ever had.

Even the 2nd half, which can be a nasty sketchfest, was pretty damn good.

The Aussies were definitely feeling the steep though.  It was a bit of a stretch for them at times.  Here’s Jay trying to stretch out over the back wheel.

..and Gen stretches her legs.

A big bummer to report in that some friends of ours lost their home in a mudslide in Oliver this week.  I’ll be heading down to help them muck out in July, so I’ll post up some pics when I get a chance.

On the happier side, Happy Anniversary to my parents!  Now quit spending my inheritance.