Dynomite

Dynomite – Day 4

Posted on by Smoke

Finally, a little break in the weather.  Should be ideal conditions for Kobau.

There was even a bit of fresh snow in the high country, but still, all that rain this week was still not enough to really settle the dust.  I don’t care what various government officials are trying not to say….we’re in a drought here.

It was still awesome conditions for riding.

John makes this look huge, eh?  He’s only 3 feet tall though.

This is the part of the day that makes everyone realize just how big these hills are.

Hi Stash!  the camera just loves you, did you know that?  i always get the raddest pics of this girl.  With Gary on babysitting detail, Stash was able to get another lap in with us today.

Oh, there she is again.

Joe on the same line. 

Many thousands of feet of dust and sagebrush later, we’re still descending.

Maybe it’s not a full bluebird day, but we’re still having a great time.  Brant, Rob, and Gabe tagged along today to fill out the group.  Lots of Kobau virgins along for the rip this time.

OK, it’s time for the Rogues’ Gallery…

Rob

John

Stash

Joe and Jim.

Jim.

..and Gabe.

Of course, that was only round one.  Round two is TKO, and it was in awesome shape again.

You never get many pics on TKO.  You’re just too busy hanging on to the bars on that trail.   It was definitely getting bonier than the last time we were here.  The lower half was pretty sketchy in places. We found out later that an Oliver local crashed at the worst spot on the trail just before sunset, and had to get Search and Rescue out to keep him company overnight so he could get heli’ed out in the morning.  This is big mountain riding, you have to respect this one.

Besides, you don’t want to miss out on the wine tasting at the bottom.  We went to Hester Creek this time.

We actually managed to finish up early enough (these are the longest days of the year after all) that we could go for a swim in Okanagan Lake, and have a couple games of bottles.  It’s like horseshoes, but it involves beer bottles instead.  Don’t worry, the rules make it impossible to break one.

He also shamrocks walks on the beach, sunsets, and sleeping in vans.

Dynomite – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

OK, enough dilly dallying around (thanks to my Mom for the turn of phrase there).  Lets get this party started.  As if the first day wasn’t rad enough, now we’re on the home trails at Powers Creek.

I promised the boys that if they couldn’t get their fill of vertical today, then it just can’t be done.

As it was, we only got 4 runs in before we were totally cooked.

Good runs though.  Hard to go wrong when you get over 8 grand at Powers.  We scored a full house on Crazy Train by the end of it all too.

That was all three bro’s hitting it up there.  We also did Justin’s new line below there, and it was my first time on that particular one.  With the bit of rain through the day, we all had some interesting …. situations.  I saw Jim bum sliding one tranny, and Joe totally missed another one off to the side.

It wasn’t until we got out to 2.5 that things got really rad.  The rain picked up a bit more then.

As Joe was just killin’ it, he got sort of confident as we went.

Really confident…..until he:

What doesn’t kill you, gives you a muddy face and makes you want to drink beer.

More tomorrow….

Dynomite – Day 1

Posted on by Smoke

What happened?  Good way to start a trip, now jump in the lake and sober up.  Who knew that this was gong to be the warmest water we’d see all week?

Here’s the guys that caused all the trouble.  Some Legends in there if you know your North Shore history.

It would appear that the boys brought some Pennsylvania weather with them.  It was wet and cool today.  Luckily, it’s been like that all spring back east, so they were fired up and ready to hit Big Ed.

OK, so that’s how it’s gonna be.  To think that I was a bit worried about starting out on one of the harder trails in the Okanagan.  These guys lapped it up like it was cream.

Actually, it was pretty good.  Will this do for day one, John?

We took some time to session a few of the smaller booters to get into the flow. Jim was charging everything pretty hard, a theme that was to be repeated throughout the week.

John also had a theme.  He keeps nailing great shots, but if you were there…..yikes.  This wasn’t just a cased landing; he actually hit the lip with his FRONT wheel.

Joe just quietly rode it all.

John is a much better skinny rider than a hucker.  although for a technician, his bike maintenance skills are a bit…curious.

Just ignore the dab and pretend he rode it.

We were in the presence of one of the Whistler legends for today too.  Binty rode this lap with us, but for some strange reason I have no pics of him.  If you think you’re a good XC rider, head on out to Binty’s Highline in Whistler and see how you feel.   That guy has been riding Whistler on a little bike for something like 25 years.

He had no reservations about this rock line, and we got a full house on it.  That’s Jim in the pic.

Another angle with John, and we’re out for lap one.

We had plenty of time to kill for day one, so I thought we’d go over to McDougall for an All Mountain run.

Yeah, it’s a bit pedally, but when you get views like these coupled with a solid 45 minute downhill, what’s to complain about?