Salad Doggers – 1

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Smoke

Ready for some good times? How about 40+km of good times, via a float plane?

Hey, it’s one of those annual things. Some stuff you just gotta do every year. As luck would have it, we’re having a sunny day too.

Lots of pics today. Enjoy.

Early start.

The view from the cockpit.

Morning cold. It’s still technically summer, but it seems to be ending early this year.

A shot out the window of the trail we’ll be on later.

The 2nd group, unloading.

2 fingers…

Crap views.

OK, finally we’re riding. Ewan at Warner Lake.

Richard.

Lee.

Richard again, this time at Trigger Lake.

Sort of reminds me of the M5 at rush hour…

Total postcard shots.

These boys are having quite a trip. A few days at Whistler, a heli drop on Rainbow, and now this.

Ahhh Steve…there you are.

Hummingbird Lake.

You can see the weather changing on us. Looks like the sun won’t last, but meh…we got it when it counted.

Rode the lower meadows today. We had an extra body on the ride (nice guy, but not as experienced or as well equipped as the rest of the group) that cost us the climb to the upper meadows. Not that it adds a lo. but I do enjoy the upper route a bit more. If you’re gonna fly out this far, may as well.

The lower meadows are in very good shape though. Definitely less traffic through this area, and the one section near the end of this was something else. We were averaging over 20km/h for a few km at this point.

If you’ve done this ride, you know that the 2nd half doesn’t quite match up to the 1st half for epicness, and combined with the change in the weather we put the cameras away the threw the hammer down. Total time on the ride was 5:20, which is pretty quick considering the pfaff factor on the first half.

Celebrations ensued at the finish.

HA!

Yeah, that Canadian wood is slippery when wet. May as well try a backflip…

‘Nuff said.

4:19

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Smoke

Well, we woke up to fresh snow and lousy forecast, so we had only one choice this morning, which was to head west. As usual, Mark had a little something extra up his sleeve for today, and that something extra involved one seriously long approach drive.

I worked it out on Google Earth last night. We got around 3000 vertical feet of elevation loss on the descent over about 12 km. And while the top elevation was only around 4500’, it’s still winter up there.

Plus there was a little bit of hiking to get through. What makes this extra awesome is that the closest town is hours away by bike, and we’re really out in the middle of nowhere here, carrying our bikes through knee deep snow on what is essentially a flagged route through the bush.

Our first casualty. PeeNut finds a HUGE thorn.

The trail really opened up after a half hour of descending, and we found this cool old Cariboo fence.

Ahhhh, back on familiar ground. Looks like Mark had so much fun he peed himself.

Guinness, going the distance.

“Doctor. I get this real sharp pain when I do this!”

Good times. That was a proto frame from last year, and Tyler completely abused it. What you’re looking at is the result of a high speed encounter with a really deep ditch. He was lucky to walk away with a headache.

There’s probably some smartass caption involving clowns we could use here. I’m kind of at a loss for words. Clowns are funny….

I can’t make this stuff up. CBC showed up and started interviewing us about the election. So random. Mark’s reaction was to send it down the nearest cliff, screaming…..

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, sit back and groove on these epic shots of ripping up these world class lines with the boys.

Cory’s got a nice t-shirt.

Did I mention Super T was in the house today?

He was shredding it old school today. The peanut gallery in the background there was entertained, for sure.

Johnny Bejoin and I took the steeper line. Not as much of a rush as the other two, but scary like nothing else at the top.

Shreddie dropping in on the big berm. This doesn’t do it justice, but there’s HUGE exposure in there.

Super T again.

More Big Berm action.

Oh, and Radical Films superstar James Doerfling was putting on another clinic today.

Of course, there’s a price to be paid for this kind of fun. Here we are, grinding out of the canyon. It’s even steeper than it looks here. Glad I didn’t drop my helmet here. Like Jay did. It bounced all the way to the sage down there.

Mark, letting off some steam….

One last run boys?

So we finish up with my favourite shot of the day. Here’s Jake on the Finger, with some awesome lighting across the valley.

Family Style in the Puddle

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Smoke

After many years of needling and cajoling, I finally got the rest of the family to come up to Williams Lake for a visit. Not only that, I even got the old boy to bring his (gasp!) mountain bike for a little jaunt through the Chilcotin Plateau.

He picked a good day for it.

Perhaps not the usual challenging terrain that we seek out, but to cruise for miles under a fall sky in interior grasslands is pretty awesome in itself.

We had to keep it sort of short. Not only is Dad a bit unused to the fatter tires (he’s a roadie….), but I was under some pressure for the second part of today.