Stag Ride

Every once in a while I get a call from the past, and usually it involves some guy I used to ride with that is getting married soon.

Poor buggers…

I haven’t ridden with Keith since….well it may have been around 1997 or so when we did the first heli drop into Disneyland.  That does take it back a bit.  I guess I’d better treat this crew right, then.

Yes, that’s wet wood right there.  Gotta make the coastal boys feel at home, right?

The wet wouldn’t last long, though.  I think these guys scared the bad weather away.  The ladies clinic we ran across at the top looked a little nervous, at any rate.

They aren’t scary…they’re all rainbows and flowers, see?

Actually, had I known that the average level in the crew was this high, I would have…done exactly what we did.  Naramata is the bomb.  We picked off three of the best routes possible today.

Although we kept the pace up, we did find time to session a few of the classic hits like the reshaped Redemption Compression.

Also ducks.

Can you quack like a duck? (Very NSFW….you’ve been warned…)

An excellent first group of the season.  Very, very good times, with 3 solid runs and 9k’ of perfect tackiness.  Thanks to Santana for the driving.

 

More Trailbuilding, and Thursday

Went back to the Mice today to do a couple of little cleanup chores and to scope some lines with Andrew.  The weather was spectacular.  While the valley bottom was bathed in fog and gloom, it was a lot nicer up high.

Here’s a bit of a mosaic to attempt to show the scale of the rock walls on the new line.  There’s 4 so far, and one more which is going to require a bit more of a run out build.

Coolie decided to send a few lines of her own today, too.

Oh, and we got rid of that deadfall on Holy Roller too.

Workin’ It

No takers on the Fall Special (really?), but there’s a few projects I’ve been meaning to get around to anyway.  Like this series of monster rock slabs that needed some shaping to link together (and you know that these things always look smaller when shot from the bottom).

After a couple of hours, this is what it looked like…

Which meant it was time to guinea pig it.  I did the first run from a bump near the top.  That bump was kind of freaking me out a little, but starting there necessitated a surf turn style drop in from a standing start.  Kind gnarly in itself.

Nailed it…

After which I went back and hit it from the top, which was much easier.  Now this line drops into a more moderate rock (as demonstrated by Dave)…

…and then into the NightStocker.

From here we’ve scouted another couple of hefty rock faces that will link straight into Holy Roller.   We’ll see if we can get that done, as there’s some committed woodwork to pull off.

This coming weekend the plan is:

  • Saturday – Shuttles in the Mice and Beer Run
  • Sunday – Shuttles in Kelowna or West Kelowna

Only $60 per person per day.  Dedicated driver, lots of vertical.