It’s time to ramble. The past week or so was full of random events, goals, and adventures. It was all good but I feel as if I need to write about it with hopes to find some structure. I’ll start with the mountain bike trip near the Slocan, in British Columbia.
Paul Anderson, a man famous for his rock climbing accomplishments as one of the pioneers of the sport and the first person to climb a 5.11 in the U.S., has discovered the joys of the mountain bike. His goal is to sequence a series of trails, from east to west, that stretch from nearly the eastern side of British Columbia to the western side. The trails are derived from resurrected and modified train tracks that were purchased by the Canadian government and donated to local clubs for maintenance and general stewardship. Paul has plans of riding a 30 mile stretch of the trails once a week. To do this he needs a partner with another vehicle to ditch at one end of the trail and use the other to ferry back. Paul is actively recruiting and I was one of the fellas that he asked. I couldn’t turn the opportunity down so I went along. The ride was fairly easy but the scenery was breathtaking. The ride started at the southern end of Lake Slocan and paralleled the Slocan River with views of Valhalla Provincial Park and a unique and wonderful peak called Gimli Peak (which I will hike to or summit one day).
The next day I had plans to white water kayak but those failed to materialize so I went on a few nature hikes around the property where I picked up four more tick points and discovered a huge limestone bouldering rock with some kind of den underneath. The next day I went mountain biking with friends up a strenuous trail to the east of Sheep Creek Road. It was a good ride with a steep and fast descent. Following that I went to soccer practice. The next day I had a soccer game in Canada. We were able to field a full team so I wasn’t responsible for the entire midfield this time. I exhausted myself a couple of times but it wasn’t as bad as last week, the day after Bloomsday.
Tuesday my dad and I met up with a fella in Colville and we three headed to Leavenworth for a 4-H Challenge Instructor’s training in rock climbing. That was an incredible experience which I really should write a dedicated post for. The other attendees were fully supportive of my dad and my efforts to get a non-profit outdoor school started. The training was a great refresher for my climbing knowledge and incredibly valuable for methods of teaching kids new skills in a fun and safe manner. Leavenworth was amazing with warm weather and high water flow in the Wenatchee River (darn cold though), beautiful granite, and great climbs. I plan on going back.
I got back from the training a couple of days again but was sick with either the flu or heat exhaustion until today. So the past two days I sat around being unproductive and worthless which was nice (I played Dragon Quest VIII for like 16 hrs – which is odd for me because I’m not a big gamer) but has caused a great stir of renewed determination to get crap done again.
The temperature finally isn’t dipping down below 40 F so we can finish up the master bedroom and start building the library shelves, the tomato plants are ready to be transplanted and general planting is finally safe, the barb wire is ready to be stretched, kayak season is in full force, a huge snow ball effect has started with the non-profit which I need to roll with, I need to make up a bunch of hours for my ‘real’ job, and I need to start developing some climbing routes with my pops. No more Dragon Quest.
This post was the final catalyst. It’s zoom time.
