KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE.

Well Folks,

There is a lot to update the world on. I have been slacking in that sense. I am okay with that though, bigger things have been the focus of my energy and time lately. More on that later, for now, check out this ode to wagon that was published today in the National Post.

It seems only natural that my first national newspaper clip would be from a wagon tail. If you scroll back through this blog you can find more heart warming stories of those lovely gravel roads I traveled.

Cheers to health and happiness.
A Wagon Tail for the Nation

Stelly's secondary school and Boulders climbing gym in Victoria

I was recently whisked away from work and home by my visiting parents who wanted to see the island. At the end of our trip together, travelling by wagon, we ended up in Victoria, BC which happens to be the home of the infamous 'Boulders' at Stelly's secondary school.

I heard about Stelly's from the competitive youth climbers in Toronto, and then again when I was researching Canadian climbing education for an article written in Gripped Magazine last year . I cannot believe what a gem this school is, and how much the students and climbers of Saanich and Victoria owe to Kimanda Jarzebiak.

 

“We wanted to meet our current demands and give Canada what it needed to get to the next level of international competition.” Says Jarzebiak, the Chair of the Board of the Boulders Climbing Gym Society, as well as the founder of the Boulders Climbing Academy at Stelly’s Secondary School. In January 2011, the Central Saanich, BC district school board approved the proposal. 

The climbing gym, known as 'The Boulders', is a not-for-profit that has been supporting youth and disability programs since 2005. In 2008, their programs had outgrown their facility. Along with a waiting list for all of the after school, they were also starting to produce top youth climbers. 

Today, the facility is more than double the size with competition-approved 60ft overhung walls and 15m official speed wall. The new gym is one of two facilities in North America capable of hosting the world youth championship, and will be doing so in August of 2013. It facilitates over 90 participants in after school programs, public access and also provides a climbing academy for 30 secondary school students.

The gym is organized so that a bouldering cave, and short top rope routes are in one section of the gym and through a different set of doors you enter a lead climbing environment, with 60 overhanging routes set, anchor clips hanging from the roof and a speed wall which is set up for international competitions.

For 13 dollars I rented a harness, was tested for top rope and lead climbing abilities and was let loose to enjoy the space. It is a welcoming atmosphere and the staff are all very enthusiastic about climbing and devoted to providing safe experiences. The climbers in the lead room were strong, but not intimidating. It was obvious that everyone knew how lucky they were to have this state of the art facility.

 One staff member who gave me my top rope test had been the youngest person to be certified with the ACMG climbing gym instructor (level one). He plans to continue through his levels as he continues through his highschool education at Stelly's. Another instructor was excited to tell me that preparations for the youth world cup in summer 2013 have already begun. 

Needless to say, the gym lived up to every expectation I had. I am excited that Canada is progressing towards a more well rounded and integrated perspective of rock climbing. I am also very interested to see what opportunities like this will do for the mind sets and motivation of future generations.

A view of the lead climbing roof at The Boulders.

For more information and photos check out The Boulders' website HERE

TOFINO IMAGES

Prints are available. 

Please inquire.

Never blame the mountain.

Where am I now?

It has been an uncomfortable few weeks. Physically, I have been housed, fed and warm. Outside the sun has been shining like some endangered creature allowing the people of Squamish a rare privilege of its presence.

Mentally, I have been trembling on a gully wall, watching rocks whip down from pressures and the winds around me. I have been getting cold again, shivering and soaked to the bone.  Multiple events have added up to produce that horrible and helpless black hole question of why? which when spoken just floats away, stolen from your lips. Why me? why now? Why at all?  For the first while I assume that friends can give some kind of solace or maybe science can explain these things, but at the end of the day, the 'why' monster remains. Creating this fragile and cowering being of myself.

I rolled over this morning after some really strange and realistic dreams about trying to surf on a flimsy board in an ocean with no waves and I flipped up the screen. On a different kind of surf I came across this video: Echoes, in which Nick Bollock explains with great conviction his choices in life.

It reminded me of what is and what isn't.

You can never, ever blame the mountain. That will get you no where. Events in your life do not have soul, or intention. The people do, or at least you might hope they do, but none of them are within your command, most of the time outside my understanding too. The only choice that I really have, the only question I really need to ask; is how? How will I deal with this? how will I build from it? How can I react, analyze, learn, grow and inevitably callus.

I am attempting to run that whole track. If I was on a physical mountain, would I just curse at the rain and the wind and allow those happenings that are outside my control? Would I allow them to stunt my growth and my progress? or would I take control of my battered ego, and alter my direction and my goals to find a new way, a new challenge in this storm. Getting down seems too easy, I have to find my way back up.

Game on.

This is not me, as I took it. But it is a perspective I value.

taking flight.

I like to believe that if I were to pick up a child who is screaming beyond reason on an airplane, sit them stiffly on my lap and stare deep into their young eyes, that I could connect with their soul. If I was to keep my focus, really stare them down, I could access a level of understanding that adults tend to dismiss as luck. Through this wizardry I could make them quiet, satisfied and curious.

 But, alas, social hurdles prevent me from trying; the parents, the stewards, the small aisle ways and the misinterpreted kidnapping.  For now I will just have to turn up the lumineers and drown the chaos. My ears the victims.

The woman across the aisle from me is clutching a rosary. The beads indent her wrist as she squeezes and her french nails turn white as the plane drifts up to altitude. She makes the sign of the cross and closes her eyes. She has her faith somewhere else right now. Mine remains firmly planted on the pilot's java fix this morning.

I am on a flight, en route to San Fransisco and then Wyoming. I will be performing my duty as a bridesmaid, with due honor and respect for my friend who is brave enough to follow her dreams. So where is my mind? It bounces like a slow motion pong ball between pending goals, obligations to friends and a strange guilt from getting what I wanted.

Why must we crave to be the things we are not? Who am I speaking for anyways? ...or is it just me. I am about to go celebrate a union between two people who were brave enough to commit to eachother and although I just passed customs I feel a world away.

In my haste to smash my eardrums and silence the children through jedi mind tricks I must have missed the safety briefing.

whoops.

Ninja kick the writer's block.

Squamish is beautiful right now. The heavy veil of spring has lifted to reveal this bright and powerful white light in the sky, it is surrounded by blue stuff. So fantastic.


While rummaging through old journals, of which there are many, I found some gems. It was a grueling sieve through the pans of teenage angst and break ups and over-elaborated feelings, but somewhere along the way I managed to record some of my interactions with the world outside my own head.

This is 2007 for ya.

Foot Bridge over Speed River

Today I met a man. I was busy trying to set up a photograph of the river when he approached me. He asked me not to take his picture. He told me that on this day he was not feeling very photogenic. 

Looking up from my work I asked him why. He  said it was because he dropped his glasses in the river. I told him I was sorry. He told me I didn't need to be sorry, but thanked me for it.

He asked what I was trying to take a picture for.... was I a journalist or something? I told him I was not. I was trying to take pictures of what I saw. 

He said it must be hard, hard to see everything. I agreed, remembering that he recently lost his glasses. I asked him to have a good night. He said  he was sorry for taking my time. I told him not to be.  He left telling me his glasses hadn't helped him anyways.  

...hope you enjoyed that. 

Picking apart the past is a peculiar activity. It seems to change over time, you reassess and chose your prized memories for the walls of your mind, embellished and framed squarely.  Meanwhile other details go into storage or worse, fires, where the passions you once felt can finally burn to ash and leave you alone, or so you hope.


I am currently looking to rediscover what made me a vagrant dirtbag.

 I think I have pin pointed the first adventure, the turning point. This idea came by reading an inspired memoir of Alabama in the middle of the twentieth century. All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg. It has taken me back to the southern lands where I cut my teeth on climbing trips and adventure living. The place that remains to have delivered the biggest culture shock I have ever experienced, with a history rich in passions, both the ones we are proud of and the ones we most certainly are not.

So here we go, down the gravel roads.

Turning wind to Granite Walls.

It was hit or miss.

Many a thing stood in the way of making June 21st 2012 an epic. The first being that I worked until 11:45 pmthe night prior. Arriving home, I slumped on my house mate's floor and told him what some co- workers had told me some hours earlier... that June 21st was not in fact the longest day of the year and that the Chief trail was closed due to rockfall. A quick Google search revealed that yes, indeed, the trail was closed and  June 20th, the day that we had just bid farewell, was the longest day of the year.

What was the point of waking up at dawn anymore? We couldn't bag the peak and we had missed the longest day. It all seemed more trivial especially because dawn was still so early ( but not the earliest) and work finished so late ( 4 hours sleep max on the radar). We really had to re assess our goals, our objectives, and our motivation. Why did I want to do this?

We carved out an answer, recollecting our reasons; it was all quite simple: We love the sun.

Living in Squamish alone makes you grateful for sunny days, but long sunny days are priceless.  It does not matter that a few minutes were shaved off our fun.... we still have 16 hours and 24 minutes of sun in the sky to be grateful for... and having a day off ( and having told an inter-web of social circles the preliminary hatch of the plan), gave us no excuse.

Today, we will make the most of it.  Today we will celebrate the beginning of summer.

 Bedtime on Summer's eve: 12:45am


FIRST SEGMENT:

Woke up at 4:40am. looked outside and felt cheated, the sky was already light.
By 5:10am, myself and Jimmy were on the trail, moving quick, silenced by the thunder of the creek on our side. As someone who usually wakes up at 10am, I could not believe how much light was on the trail. It could have been mid day! We slipped under the signage and cautiously made the decision to make our mission light and speedy. Returning before 7am would insure no interactions with BC parks. The rock in the trail was huge. A not so subtle reminder that rocks do fall, and when they do, they are unpredictable.


The summit came quick and before 6 am we were watching our snowy neighbors illuminate, cut between stratus clouds and rigid coastal shadows.

The fog has lifted. The sun is up, it's morning.


SEGMENT 2:

Right after the fog lifted, it fell heavy. I was tired. Feeling the effects of late work and early rise, my all too spoiled body stiffened and fell under an thick blanket of fatigue. As Jimmy was whipping up some amazing looking pancakes, I tapped out for a sun- nap.

3 hours later, the adventure continued.

SEGMENT 3: 

10:00am: Kayaking was looking iffy, as no other kayaker's were capable of joining and Jimmy has neither experience nor gear. As for biking, I had no bike. We decided to use what we had... we had climbing gear. Peasant's route, a 6 pitch climbing route up the Grand Wall of the Chief was our objective.

It was hot. The air was humid and the bugs were out full force. With seeping rock and sweating hands we tackled the classic. The beautiful belays in between pitches lay as reminders to how damn lucky we were to be there. All the while, the Grand Wall route loomed. It hung over our petty goals, teasing us to try. Come Mid july, when the skills are honed and the days reliable... try we will.

After 2.5 steady hours of upward momentum, we were rappelling from the top anchors. Minds steady and legs wobbly, we hiked back to the car. Drove to base camp and decided it was time for a hardy meal. 

SEGMENT 4:

I tried to avoid it, I searched for more options, if there was anything else I could do. But when it came down to it, you cannot complete a day in Squamish without a bike ride. Jimmy and I packed up and made our way out of town,  by help of the little green wagon. For the first time in 4 years, I mounted a bike and rode a trail.

It was easy, apparently.

Pedals, handlebars, weight distribution... Jimmy reminded me that it is just like climbing, stay relaxed, allow your body and the bike to do the work. I followed the trail, stopping and stuttering the first time around. Steeper sections were walked and strange noises were emitted when roots or rocks were hit without enough momentum. I felt new, I felt beginner, and I loved it.

We flew out of the woods, back on the road where we started. Jimmy patiently waiting for the word... " Let's do it again!" He laughed and we pedaled back in, dialing the turns and the speed, trying a bit more, a bit harder. And then I stopped. Jimmy was ahead. The afternoon light warmed the lime green moss on the trees, branches arched like rainbows across the canopy, the world was a hundred shades of green and brown.


To end the day off, we drove up to Alice lake. With Mount Garibaldi as background, we stripped to the bare minimum and sprinted in. More refreshing than coffee. We were both ready for more.

After some nachos and beer at the Howe Sound Brewpub...

Dusk settled in over the slack lines of Nexxen beach. Friends came out of the wood work and with stereos and hoola hoops. We slacked and danced and wandered the beach. It was 10:30 before I would call it dark. Slowly but surely, we all dissipated, most with jobs the next day, but smiling because summer has begun!

THE DEBRIEF:

75% complete... kayaking was lacking but not because of a lack of energy... just a lack of resources.

NEXT TIME:
no car. all human powered.
no naps: more time.
No work the night before maybe?... ya that would be nice.



Have a great summer everyone!