Harvesting Dungeness Crabs with the Dundas Family

Check out this vid below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeIHqu-6H8

"Ya Rookie" MOMAR 2008

The day I had been waiting for finally arrived, May 10th, MOMAR 2008. I was to race this one solo since my partner Frenchy was sick and couldn't make it up. After a vote of confidence from a close friend and training partner I was to run this one solo. I figured that would be great since I could only blame myself and I could go as fast as I wanted. There was light rain at the start of the race but overall it looked to be a good day. The race started well for me as I took off with the lead group and felt solid. Minutes into the race we hit the first transition and most of the experienced guys dusted me while i played with my shoelaces and packed my bag just right. These guys were quick in the transitions while i looked like a disorganized kid. Onto the bike where i managed to catch a few guys on the next part of the course which headed uphill to the orienteering section. In the orienteering section I managed to do pretty well collecting most of the checkpoints pretty quickly and catching glimpses of the leaders running through the woods leaving me wondering what the hell I was doing and where I was going. I hooked up with Money and we collected a few check points together. I had two checkpoints to go and when I went to punch my second last check point I reached deep into my pockets and to my horror realized I had lost my map and check cards. I checked even deeper in my pockets hoping to find the map with that long lost quarter and that 20 dollar bill I lost in 89'  but nope, noway, nohow, no nothing. It was gone. Pulled out by some crafty tree. "Teach you a lesson you little punk," the tree smirked. F#@$. S#$@. You have to be f@#$%^& kidding me. The crux of the race was in my hands. Money said to just forget it and keep running with him but I choose door number #2(no deal loser), and went to look for my map. Of course I couldn't find it. I wasn't on any trail prior to that and knew that we had bushwhacked to get to the second last check point. After what seemed like an hour of searching( i think it was only 15 minutes) I gave up looking and was ready to give up the race. I was so upset, so disappointed in myself. I was looking for someone to blame, I have always been on team, there was always someone to blame, not my fault, hahahahahahahahahahaha.......oohhhh I realized quickly how much I love solo racing. Crux decision #2. Quit or keep going and change my focus. Lots of thoughts went through my mind as I walked on a trail by myself as the reality of being done my "race," set in. I felt that that was the toughest part of the whole thing, going from competing and being up there to not competing and being down there. Man I was upset at myself. My decision was to carry on and new that i had a ways to go when I came out of the orienteering and saw most of the bikes gone, with competitors that did not look like competitors. It was as soon as I got on the bike that i left my disgust behind and realized I was going to have to crank for 3 hours. The biking was fast and I was pretty happy with my performance since I had not heard anyone this year calling me Napoleon Dynamite on my bike. I felt really good blowing by people on the uphills and even downhills on my new Specialized Stumpjumper. I was laying waste to trails like Recycle, Pseudo Pseuga, and the Powerhouse Plunge.(not really but I was going fast and I was reckless). I realized I had finally made it into no mans land where I was ahead of the mass but behind the guys and groups who had not lost their maps. I had a pretty good trekking section and rappel and ended that section in the transition back onto the bike. Not realizing I had just stood on and ripped the nozzle off to my Platypus I put my backpack on and proceeded to pour the remaining contents of my energy drink all over myself. Deron, one of the volunteers, was kind enough to tell me my pack was leaking. Thanks. Insult to injury. The last leg was a bike back up to Quest for the run up to the cafeteria where the race ended for me at 5 hours and 30 minutes. I was greeted by my brother and sister which made me really happy. It felt great to finish and although I was upset, i left most of my grief on the course. I spent the next half hour, one of the best half hours of my life eating a massive amount of cookies and chocolate. Wicked day, wicked race, wicked learning experience. This has now motivated me even more to train, compete and win. WHAT'S NEXT?

Thanks so much to Jen for all of her amazing support and training expertise. She designed an amazing tough course and helped me with all of my gear problems. Thanks to Adrian for giving me my second map and thanks to my brother Brad, sister Shannon, and Brad's wife Tara for being there for me. Special thanks goes to my nephew Sam. Thanks for coming out west little man. It was great to see you and thanks for being at my race and coming to visit me. You rule. Congratulations to Toran and Jo for winning the Co-ed doubles section.

Frenchy........next year you can hold the map. Missed up here and I look forward to racing with you soon.

Student Mentor Program

At the end of April I headed up north to Hartley Bay as part of King Pacific Lodge's Student Mentor program which I had been doing for the last 4 years. In this program all of the students at the school are interviewed and then take part in a tourism program which I develop and deliver to them. From there four students are chosen to work at King Pacific Lodge. There they will work in areas of their interest and will be matched up with a mentor at the lodge. The program has been very successful and has created employment for the youth of the village. This year I created a small adventure leadership course for the grade 10-12 students at the school. Within this program they received their Flatwater Kayaking Skill certification with Paddle Canada. The 11 students did an outstanding job. They learned new strokes, practiced wet exits and performed rescues on each other. I was very proud of them as they battled through their fears and gained confidence by the minute. The last part of our course was a boat ride up into a stunning inlet north of the village which is a place of strong tradition and an area of food gathering. On the trip we saw mountain goats feeding up high on the ridges and bears wandering the estuaries feeding on sedge grass below. The course was a big success and I will be heading up in the fall to deliver the Level 1 certification to the grade 10-12s and the Flatwater course to the grade 7-9's. Congratulations to all of the students and thanks to Cam and Eva for having me at their house and to Marvin for help with the kayaks and the fantastic boat tour.

MISSON COMPLETE

I just successfully finished my 10 day Advanced Wilderness First Aid course and my reward was a 5 am wake up to get down to the airport so I could travel up to Prince Rupert.  Tomorrow I will be heading down to Hartley Bay to delivery a week long Intro to Sea Kayaking Course for the students at the high school as part of the student mentor program that I work in with King Pacific Lodge. My fitness took a hit the past 10 days so I am looking forward to getting back into it. The Momar adventure race is only a couple of weeks away. I have my new used Specialized Stumpjumper now and I am looking forward to getting on it when i get back. Next update will be sometime this week from Hartley Bay.

Grumble Grumble

Well these days in am knee deep in a 10 Day Advanced Wilderness First Aid Course. Not high on my priority list but something I need to get done so for now it is keeping to a low level workout schedule. I am looking forward to it being finished this Wednesday. I am getting  new mountain bike tommorrow and I will be excited to rip the trails with it real soon. I have to get some mileage in for the Momar Adventure Race in May anyways. My next adventure takes me up to Hartley Bay on the 24th for a Guide Training Program for the youth in the village. I am looking forward to getting back to my adopted home. Reports from there to follow

GARIBALDI NEVE TRAVERSE

Finally, this trip lined up. I have been wanting to do this trip since I showed up to Squamish four years ago. Well I finally got the peeps, and the weather and after a season of ski touring we were all in shape to do it in a day. We had Michelle Boender, a nordic patrol at Cypress, her friend Mark, my buddy and Ski Guide/Patrol Martin Fitchl and his young German friend Rafi. After pounding back a cup of coffee at 5:30 am and picking up the crew we were at the Diamond Head trailhead and leaving at 6:15 am. We absolutely nailed the weather as it was a clear bluebird day without a cloud in the sky. By the time we got to Paul Ridge the sun was beginning to come up and it was spectacular. I have probably toured up here 25 times this year but everytime I come up I am amazed with the scenery. The majestic Tantalus Range sprawls to the west, the big Massif of Garibaldi was beckoning to the north, Mamquam Mountain northeast and the Squamish and Cheakamus valleys far below blazing a path through the various ranges. We stopped at Elfin Lakes for some foot repair and then headed back out into the sunshine for 5 hours of climbing up Ring Creek. The further we got into this trip the more dramatic the scenery became. I had never seen the views of Mt. Garibaldi as was laid before me now. It was also getting hot and I was dropping a lot of water. We stopped for one of our lunches on the neve, stuffing our faces with food and crushing bottles of water with Nuun tablets. I sat in amazement with the scene laid out in front of me. Hard to believe we were only 5 hours out of Squamish but in a place so remote and stunning, our backyard. After our first lunch we carried on higher and higher with a bit of frustration occurring due to sticky snow on the skins and hot spring like conditions. We certainly didn't need anymore weight on our skis. We were going light though since we were knocking this off in a day. Our high point of the trip was 1000 feet below the summit of Garibaldi. It was in fine shape and tantalizingly close. We all agreed to come back to knock on the summit next time. I am sure we would have bagged it if we had an overnight plan but our "mish" today was door to door so we needed to save some energy. After our second lunch at our high point it was backcountry skiing heaven on the north facing aspects. We shredded some incredible April snow, zippering lines into the Warren Glacier, one of the best runs I have had all year. I couldn't keep the smile off my face or the hurt out of my quads. This is what it is all about. Another bit of uphill touring lead us to the top of the Sphinx Glacier. I had a visit from my raven brother along this section, he flew overhead  sqwalking about hoping spring would arrive soon. Skins back off we crushed another line right down to the Sphinx hut just above Garibaldi Lake. I was really happy to see an open creek since I had gotten very quiet over the last two hours since I had gone through all of my water. Water is the best thing in the world eh? Especially cold Sphinx Glacier water......not that crap in plastic water bottles labelled "glacier." Now it was time for the long trek across the frozen lake. An hour into the flat traverse I felt like Mr. Roboto, in rhythm, mindless touring with awesome mountains jutting out of the lake and great views of Black Tusk. It was also at this time that my feet started aching, my boots and feet not used to the duration of this tour. As J.S.G would say, "stop whining and just put it in your pain box", course I think I left my pain box in the car or I had trouble opening it. Once we completed our traverse across the lake it was all downhill to Mark's truck. The ski out to Rubble Creek was pretty good except for the last KM where we had to take our skis off and walk the rest. The bag of chips Michelle had strategically placed in the truck for our arrival were demolished in minutes......as was the Flask of vodky......seconds though for that. What a day. I was stoked. 14 hours truck to truck and 42 kms. Thanks a lot to my teammates Michelle, Mark, Martin and Rafi, for such a great day. Now I am motivated to find more big day traverses in our backyard of Squampton.

REV HEADS

Over the Easter weekend one of my oldest friends from Coniston, Derek Nixon, came out to visit me. We have know each other since we were three, when we used to cruise our old mining town looking for trouble. Our big plan for the weekend was to go snowmobiling and since the week prior we had a fresh 80cms of snow we were pretty excited to get up there. We signed up for the Backcountry X tour with Canadian Snowmobile and we were joined by Jaime Reid, a good friend and guide who I worked with at King Pacific Lodge. I hadn't been snowmobiling since I was really young and never have I ripped it up in alpine powder. Nix was really excited. He is a very competent snowmobiler but he had never ridden in the mountains and this had been something that had been on his tick list for awhile. After a great trail ride up we hit the powder and we all realized quickly that sledding in powder is a really tough thing to do. We all got stuck a number of times and quickly depleted most of our energy digging ourselves out. I managed to disappear from the group and ended up scaring our guide, Brad in the process as I got stuck way out on the outskirts of the sledding terrain. I think the helicopters were on the way but Brad managed to find me and I received a well deserved scolding. After about three hours we had all been significantly "worked" and we were ready for apres at the Sled Head Pub of Squamish......The Shady Tree. Thanks a lot to Derek for coming out to visit. I look forward to returning the favor this summer when he can take me out for some central ontario bass fishing. I am also looking forward to getting back on the sled next year to shred some more pow.