Two days after getting back home from the David Simard tour, I was crammed in the back jumper seat of Will’s little pickup truck, barreling towards the Walbran Valley. I was exhausted and sick (a gnarly cold was setting in), but excited. I hadn’t been back in the valley in months and hadn't done any work on the trails since early spring. I was itchy to get back at it. Last year, I had spent 4 months going up to the valley almost every week, often for 5, sometimes 12 days at a time. We broke our backs brushing old trails that had disappeared, cutting new ones and doing boardwalk repair. Just before heading out on the road with Aidan Knight, I met Will O’Connell, a forest firefighter who was super amped to tackle the massive list of things to do in the valley. We decided that later that year, in the fall, we’d go at it guns blazing. Six months later, three and half hours from Victoria, cramped and sore, I pulled myself out of the truck, stepped into the cold, wet air, and relished the constant white noise from the river surging below. For the next 17 days (with a total of 4 days off), we worked from sunrise to sunset ripping and replacing decrepit boardwalk before passing out completely exhausted. We’re giving ourselves a forced two week break before starting the saws up again in the December. - The first half of these recent trips were accompanied by Alex Smith and Maia Beauvais. We could not have done the amount of work that we did without them. - If you like the idea of a well maintained trail network, think about checking out this gofund me page. A friend of mine setup this fundraiser to help offset the costs of these trail building trips. I had some major repairs come up on Janet, my old Rav4 and without funding we sadly won't be able to continue repairing and maintaining the iconic boardwalk trails.
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Yew!!! We’re just getting into the last leg of The Heavy Weight album release tour, it’s started snowing, and I’m starting to get excited to see the coast again. Some highlights so far. - Kenora: Career first. Someone threw their hat at us, someone else threw a beer can. It was one of the rowdiest show I’ve ever played. People heckled us, yelled at us (and each other), and were mostly horrible. Kenora, you sucked. - It started snowing yesterday in Saskatoon. Arrrghghhh!!!! - Played a show in a vintage, still working 1950’s bowling alley in Sackville. It was incredible!!!! Even got to sleep in the lanes that night. - Rampaged around Lloydminster last night climbing buildings. Boulder problems for the restless urban prairie boy. - Maybe hungover right now….. :-\ October 5 | Village Guitar Amp & Co. | Saskatoon, SK October 6 | Almanac | Edmonton, AB October 7 | Wine-Oh's | Calgary, AB October 8 | The Ymir Schoolhouse | Ymir, BC October 14 | The Wise Hall | Vancouver, BC October 15 | Northern Quarter | Victoria, BC Hell yes! This route is F*CK*N* AW*SO*M*!!!!!!! It starts in a forest’y alpine meadow, climbs up a big mountain, goes over the top, down a beautiful ridge, climbs a huge step, into a gorgeous, remote lake, makes you sh•t yourself with terrifying day trips, climbs another big ass col, then gives you permanent knee problems with a 6 hours descent. LOVE IT! After two days of absolutely stunning trail up and over Mt Albert Edward, we got to the flawless teal waters of Ruth Masters lake a day ahead of schedule. This small, but deep, crystal clear lake is walled in by two mountains and a connecting ridge, giving it a huge amphitheater’esk feel. Trip reports had mentioned the lake’s serene beauty, but they couldn’t of been less understated. With an extra day on our hands, we decided to stay another night and spend the following day hiking up Augerpoint Mountain. The next morning, we skirted around the lake and, forgoing the easy trail, started climbing up a beautiful little creek. Within minutes, the hiking went to scrambling, to full on climbing. After a series of 15 foot chutes, we decided to traverse across the mountain to try to regain the trail. What we thought would be a 30min traverse turned into a major 5 hour adventure across steep scree fields and class 3-4 rock gully scrambles (class 3 means it’s freaking scary, class 4 means don’t fall). We finally linked up with the trail for the last 50ft to the summit. It was nice to stand at the top, but wayyy nicer to come back down on an easy trail after an exhausting climb powered by cliff bars and adrenaline. I won’t talk about the next day because the descent down to Buttle Lake broke me. My knees are recovering, but my morale is done forever ;-). With swarms of mosquitos clouding around our exposed skin, we surveyed the climb in front of us. It was only about a 100ft down with most of it walkable, but a series of near vertical, 10-20ft steps bared our way to a beautiful little tarn that looked perfect for camp. Shifting our 40lbs packs around in a futile attempt to ease our sore shoulders, we tried to find a route down. It was the second day of a beautiful hike on flower ridge. The day before, we had hiked up the steep trail 1800m up to the beginning of the ridge. Waking up with unbelievable views of the mountains on both sides, we started hiking the ridge, slowly gaining altitude and the illusion of getting closer to the giant mountains on the horizon. Pushing beyond the well worn route of day hikers, we landed on steep scree slopes and barren alpine rock of the ridge summit and eyed our descent down this large grey rock wall. With some careful prodding and butt sliding, we made it down safely with much more imaginary danger than reality. Unfortunately, the tarn ended up being a bug super camp and with more mosquitos than either of us could handle fully clothed with bug nets on, we decided to turn back and camp as high and as close to the ridge summit as possible.
After an awesome summer of backpacking, adventuring and first class bumming around, it's time to hit the road again. For the next 6 weeks, I'm going to be going coast to coast with David Simard for his new album, The Heavy Wait, and I'm supremely excited about this. We just finished three days of rehearsals in Montréal with an awesome 4 piece band and things are starting to sound great! (it helps that Hugo Chaput and Pete Pételle from Marc Bérubé's band are SO good.)
We're heading east tomorrow morning for the Halifax show on Thursday, turning around and going all the way west to Victoria. For advance tickets, check out David Simard's site. You can also listen to his new album here. It's going to be a great tour. A few weeks ago, the Friends of Carmanah Walbran held a beautiful event celebrating the 25th anniversary of action in the Walbran Valley. It was an awesome weekend filled with hard labour, laser shows, cave explorations, hikes, and good times! (PS, the food was incredible) After years of trekking in the valley bottoms and coastlines of Vancouver Island, I finally decided to look up to the mountains and venture towards the alpine. This mesmerizing high country, with it's immeasurably vast landscapes, dramatic ridgelines and ice clad mountains, violently grabs your attention and does not let go. It's nature in it's rawest form and it completely reveals itself to you, stripped from it's old growth forest and dense salal underbrush. My first of 3 Strathcona trips this summer headed up to the popular Bedwell lake area of the park for a quick in and out of the area with a hike to the base of Mount Septimus. Our camp was stuck in a rain cloud for the first day and half, clearing up only as we got up and over the little pass to Cream lake. It was a short trip, but it left a major impression on me and an increasing obsession with the scree filled alpine high country. Home! I’m finally home and ready for some sweet sweet R&R. I had a wonderful time with Aidan and Julia in Berlin and Glastonbury was an insane, muddy, apocalyptical hallucination, but I’m now back in Victoria and so very happy it’s over for now. I’m excited to get back to some forests adventures, rock climbing, and hanging out without a schedule (!!!!!!). But I won’t be anchored in one spot for long. At 28 years old, I’m pulling a major adult move and buying my first car. The jury’s still out, but I expect to have my first set of wheels this week. Goodbye stressing out about borrowing people’s trucks to get out to the bush and hello crippling car bills ;-). I’m also hoping to announce an upcoming tour in the next month and a handful of summer concerts with a couple different groups. Stay tuned! As the train pulled into Martigny, Switzerland, I started feeling really nervous. I had come to the province of Valais to do some rock climbing with a man I’d never met, I was completely under equipped (read, I had nothing; no equipment, gear, or outdoor clothing of any kind), and I had never climbed outside of a gym before. On top of that, the weather report had predicted rain for the duration of my stay and I wasn’t sure how I’d get by without a rain coat…. Ever since I started climbing indoors about a year ago, I craved to leave the sweaty, loud, crowded gyms to climb outside on real rock. The problem was, I didn’t know anyone back home who would take me out. My mum had told me about a climbing friend of hers from her time as a nurse in Switzerland 30 years ago and suggested I get in touch with him. After finishing up a long tour in Europe in early June and with two weeks off in Berlin before heading home, I sent Lucien an email. I jumped off the train and started peering at everyone on the platform. It’s a funny feeling trying to recognize someone you’ve never seen before, but as my gaze settled on the figure of an calm, smiling man with a halo of gray hair, I instantly knew it was him. An hour and half later, I stood at the base of a giant slab wall jutting out in all directions. The rain had stopped, the sun had peeked through the clouds, my harness was on and Lucien beckoned me to go up. Over the next 4 days, I’d scrape, cut and shred every square inch of my forearms, legs and hands, spit my toenail in two, and do my first lead climb as well as my first multi pitch. It was an incredible trip. |