Cycle to This House Of Sky

This is a great time of year for outdoor types in my area. I can cycle outside in shorts and jersey, or I can head into the mountains to ski or ice climb. On Thursday evening, I had the brilliant idea that I should combine both in to a multi-sport adventure. I worked on Easter Friday, my birthday day, so I considered this to be belated birthday present to myself, or more correctly, exercising my right as "birthday boy" to do whatever crazy thing I wanted to.

Depending on which circle of my friends you belong, the plan doesn't sound too crazy at first...cycle 90km to the Ghost River Wilderness Area, walk to the classic ice climb This House Of Sky and climb it, then go home.

The reality of the situation is somewhat tougher: the cycle would be 180km round-trip, 30km of which would be effectively logging road, and another 20km is not normally driven on without a high-clearance vehicle. The prevailing westerly wind kicks in early to mid-morning, and while riding into that, I would be carrying ice climbing boots, axes, crampons, gloves, and enough food to see me through the day. Plus a headlamp. :)

The night before, I had concerns about the viability. Doing the math, a realistic 25km/h cycle, plus what is normally a 4 hour climb, plus hiking a half-marathon, and a couple of hours for stopping to eat/change clothes, etc, plus a date that night at 7 or 8pm, did not give me time for 8 hours of sleep. I decided that I would have to average 30km/h, not stop, solo the climb quickly, and hope that I could cycle the hike. Thus reassured (that's my strange way of spelling "deluded"), I set my alarm for 7:30am.


8:45am - leaving the house, 45min behind schedule

My back was in pain after about 500 metres. Note to self: buy panniers. The wind was already starting to pick up. No problem, I'd just ride harder.


10:50am - arriving in Cochrane, about the same time as 15 knot winds. Two hours behind schedule. I realized my schedule was out the window.

From Cochrane I had a slog into the wind for 20km, until the turn north onto Hwy 40. The trees and hills along the road started helping, so I was able to make it to Waipourous by 12:30 and stop for lunch. I'd told people I'd be back early evening, and not to worry unless I hadn't contacted them by 9pm... Okay, great, that gives me 8.5 hours to get back, so an hour to get to the Ghost, an hour to get to the climb, two hours for the climb, two hours back to this point, and 2 hours to do what had taken me 4 hours thus far (I'd have a tail-wind, right?). Yikes, that's starting to sound tight, I'd better start cycling again.

Just a few km after Waipourous, the road turns to gravel. No problem. Then at the turn-off to access the Ghost River, it is...well, a bad gravel road. I remember it being uncomfortable last time (I was on a cross bike sans backpack...). Let's just say it deteriorated from there...


I'm sure there is a road here somewhere.

The driver of the pickup in the photo offered me a ride. I declined, because, as I told him, I'd got myself into this situation "somewhat intentionally".

500 metres later


As I started changing my flat, I saw that I had three spare tubes (how responsible of me) but only two CO2 cartridges (doh!).

After the break, I didn't need a speedometer (which is good, because I didn't have one) to know that my progress was slipping into single digits. So a few kilometres later when I was offered a lift, this time with climbers going into the Ghost, I took it. 10km is 15 minutes! Just 5km to the climb! By this time I'd stopping doing the math on my schedule...I'd made it this far with that damn bag, I was putting those boots on and sinking an axe into ice, regardless of the improbability of making it back on time!

Since the flat, I'd been cycling out of the seat a lot, to reduce the weight on the back wheel and so hopefully reduce the need to use my last CO2 cartridge. Let's just say I was getting a good full-body workout.


Not your normal road bike terrain

..

I was able to cycle a good chunk of the rest of the way, and finally I made it to the climb. By this time I was feeling pooped. Like, really really pooped. But at the same time, I love this climb and was pretty excited to climb it again. It's mellow and "stepped-out" enough that I wasn't worried about soloing it, but by the second pitch I had to put my sandwich away and use two axes. :)

Made it!

This photo is the proof. For anyone that has climb THOS, you'll know that you can only see this once you finish the last pitch. The WI4 and last pitch of WI3 is way back there, and I thought I'd toss my axe in the photo for good measure.

Ok, so I "made it", but at the same time, I was at the 21km mark of a marathon. I didn't bring a rope, so I had to downclimb the 12 or so pitches of the ice climb, which is decidely harder than going up. The hardest part is actually starting to downclimb a pitch...sort of requires you pretend the top is a horizontal ladder, and you step backwards and then down the face, hanging your butt out so you can see where your feet are going while your top half is still on the horizontal. Fortunately it requires a lot less energy, so I felt really good at the bottom.

This photo is one of the creek crossings I had to do. Sometimes there were logs I could walk across, and on occasion I wheeled my bike beside the log for balance. This time, I went bare-foot. Yes, that's snow beside the creek. At least I had a half of a tea-towel specially for drying my numb feet on the other side! :)

The ride out went fairly quickly, with the strong tailwind blowing through the Ghost valley, and once I *cycled up the Big Hill on my road bike* (It's about 200 metres, 15% and loose gravel - I'm thinking of putting that on a t-shirt) the ride out was mostly downhill. Unfortunately by the time I got to Waipourous, the wind had all but died, so I didn't do the 50km/h I was hoping for.

After I got cell reception as I got close to Cochrane, the tone of my date, all dressed up with nowhere to go, convinced me that calling for a ride was required (thanks David!), and I skipped out on the last 30km. Still, not a bad day's work!

I'm back. In one piece

Just got back. It's...9:30pm, so a tad later than planned. Now I'm going to go shower and try to eat 10,000 calories. Then collapse.

Plan for tomorrow

With the silly things I tend to get up to, and having no desire to end up like Aron Ralston, it's about time I tell people where I'm going. So here's the plan: ride to the Big Hill in the Ghost (well, I guess technically it's Don Getty PP), ride/hike from there to This House Of Sky, solo that, potentially all the way to the ridge if the WI4 at the back is solid, then doing it all in reverse. I figure someone will read my post in the next week, so if you haven't heard from me in the meantime, perhaps ask around... :)

Here's the map (I only have a rough idea where THOS is on a satellite map):

A recipe that worked!

I sauted 3 cloves of garlic, and an onion. Then I browned a pound of ground beef and added that. Drained and added a large (540mL) can of lima beans. Then threw in a couple of pinches of salt, two tablespoons of paprika, some cayenne pepper, chilli pepper, and black pepper. Added a cup of pasta sauce and one pound of baby carrots. Simmered for half an hour.

Served it with couscous and broccoli.

Nutrition-wise, it contained a ton of protein (100g from beef, 20g from beans, and 24g from the couscous) and carb (180g from the couscous, 50g from the beans) and is enough to feed two hungry cyclists.

A good way to fuel up for tomorrow's adventure!

Ronde van Cowtown

Elevation profile of an in-town ride!


Google maps ride route, and just in case the map disappears, here's a png:

Two for two!

Had another great race, even after a night of fashion, breaking b-boys, rapping and funk. It was another intra-club race, this time two loops of the Prairie-Roubaix course. I'd write a report, but Trev already put up a hilarious post on the ST blog. Again, Trev handicapped himself, this time by towing a combine harvester for a couple of hundred metres each lap (show off! ;) ), and he still managed to pull alongside me before the final descent to the finish.

Calgary is awesome

I'm impressed that someone got the domain name calgaryisawesome.com...definitely catchier than calgaryishohum.com. But taking a look through all the recent posts, wow, I think Calgary DOES have it going on! Sometimes it's just hard to find out about these things, unless you're in The (appropriate sub-) Scene, be it dance, music, theatre, fashion, comedy, etc etc. For instance, I always seem to randomly find out that High Performance Rodeo is on, making me think I'll completely miss it one of these years.

Anyway, check out the blog.

calgaryisawesome.com

Cycling training articles

Found some interesting cycling training articles. Tim, I think you'll agree with much of them, particularly the "anti-machine, pro-free-weights" one! :) Even a couple on sports psychology in there.

Peaks Coaching Group articles

One for one

So I might as well take this fleeting opportunity to boast about my current win to races entered ratio...one for one!

The Speed Theory cycling team, being the team-focused, energized, generally awesome team that it is, hosted a little club race, a 20km TT, last Saturday. We scored some wicked weather (I'd say "lucked-out" if I had a purely Canadian audience, but the alternative translation of said phrase being the exact opposite, I'll resist), and had a solid turnout of 23. We did a couple of laps as a group to get familiar with the course. Basic directions are "turn right at every intersection, not including driveways" (since the 15,000 sq ft houses in the area have significant driveways). Rolly, twisty, gravelly, with the odd horse and even a horse-drawn carriage...I think the term is "technical".

Description of the race itself: I pedalled really hard for 20km.

Admittedly, I was on a TT bike while other, stronger guys rocked their road bikes (you know who you are (<cough> Trev)), but still, gotta celebrate the small victories! :)

http://speedtheorycyclingteam.blogspot.com/2010/03/club-rave-20-km-tt-results.html

Battle Abbey

It's been far too long since my trip to Battle Abbey to still not have a post about it. I'm reconsidering my approach to this, and I'm using the reasoning that Rome wasn't built in a day... Not that this post should be compared to Rome.

An interesting prelude to the trip was finding someone to come along. And then when someone did decide to come, not buying their flight until 90 minutes before the flight left Toronto! Nigel, you are setting a bad precedent for procrastinators everywhere! :)

Nigel made it to Calgary, and so Sat morning we drove to meet the chopper in Golden, BC, and fly 150 km south from, well, anything, into the mountains to the hut, with 10 (12?) other skiers, 3 guides and one and a half chefs (two chopper trips) (the second chef was in training, and had recently broken both ankles). Pretty wicked flight - I remember thinking about 30 seconds in that it would take at least 4 hours to cover that ground on skis. Then for the rest of the week, we were skiing from the hut. We had to skin up every bit that we skied down...multiple 1,500foot (about as long at top-to-bottom Mt Buller or maybe half of Lake Louise) runs of untouched powder (we were the first group of the year), racking up something around 32,000 feet of elevation gain for the week. Exhausting but great.

In the mayhem of finding a new abode in the week before the trip, and moving into said abode two days before leaving, I neglected to bring a battery charger for my camera...or a charged battery. I got 6 photos I think, before it died. Moot point though, since I can't find my card reader. Until I find a few select pics to post, here is the group's combined haul:

http://picasaweb.google.com/battleabbey2010/

So cute!

My twin baby neices are two days shy of 1 year old, and are pretty adorable.

Jayco Classic

After doing the 120km Amy Gillete charity ride, I was chuffed to find out we had arrived in time to see all three semi-pro crits that were in today's stage of the Jayco Classic. Brilliant way to recover from a long ride: watch other guys suffer! :)

Sorry about the prevalence of iPhone photos...I didn't expect to be watching a race!

New Year's bike tour

For New Year's, my buddy Simon and his girlfriend invited me to come on a three day bike ride from Wangaratta to Bright and back.

Ordinarily, 80km in a day would be a walk in the park. Trivial, even. However, add 40 degree heat, mountain bikes, and a 40kg bike trailer and it turns out it's harder than it appears on paper. But we didn't have too hard a time.

Bright was positively jumping on New Year's Eve. We also happened to be in the wettest part of Victoria: 50mm overnight (i.e. deluge). 11pm-12:30am consisted of listening to a band play in the second storey balcony of the pub across the city square, from under our own balcony, and watching kids dance and roll around in the rain in the square.

New Year's Day was pretty easy...ride 60km to Milwa, mostly downhill, stopping for lunch and two wineries for tastings. The following day was even easier: ride 50 metres to the mustard shop for tastings, another 50 metres to the olive shop (fresh olives! Mmm!), 400 metres to the Brown Brothers winery for a comprehensive round of wine tasting, 2.5 km to the cheese factory (yes, more tastings) and finally 18km to Wangaratta.

Feathertop Winery

Mmmmm....cheeeese!

Doing nothing to dispel myths about Australia and spiders...I guess it was drier in the tent

Photos from Toronto

I've heard that it's not the camera that makes a good photo, it's the person behind the camera. Possbily true for outdoor photos during day time...

Had a great time in Toronto last weekend. Met up with great friends, enjoyed the city life, and got in enough sport to make me need a rest when I got back to Calgary.


A couple of iPhone pics of the Cavalcade of Lights fireworks at Nathan Phillips Square that I went to with Nigel, Noah & Gwyn and co.
..


A shot of me taken by Ed with what appeared to be a pretty phat lens, but unfortunately using a Nikon... ;)

Extending the season: 'cross in Toronto

I was visiting some friends in Toronto this past weekend, and although I took my cycling shoes and shorts, I didn't anticipate a race... My buddy Nigel told me about Subway Cross, and another friend Shawn lent me his sweet (although a wee bit too small) rig AND loaded on his new race wheels and tubulars. Doesn't he know about my terrible reputation for staying upright? :)

Great race, though. Thanks to Cyclocross Ontario for putting it on, to the weather gods for making it not a COMPLETE mud-fest, and again to Shawn and Nigel for gearing me up.

I have to admit that I was picked up from Nigel's by Shawn because I was running late, and when I got to the course, I had to call Nigel to bring my shoes that I'd forgotten... Some things never change. :)

..

Bike on bike

Noticed a guy with a unique bike transport arrangement at races this year. Caught these photos at the last road race of the season...does it remind anyone else of a male chihuahua and a female lab? :)

It's all about performance

Still finding people to share this with, so I thought I'd throw it on the ol' blog.

Typical cycling conversation with significant other

Great vid making the rounds on cycling blogs everywhere.

I wasn't sure whether to laugh at this, or be worried that this conversation was deja vu from this past summer. Although, cycling makes me super-human and therefore impervious to disease, so I could laugh at that bit... ;)

Cyclocross miles

Had an awesome cyclocross ride today with Keith. Keith's been riding for ages in Calgary, and knows tons of backroads and single-track (narrow mountain bike trails) around here.

Anyway, when the alarm went off this morning, I was definitely re-thinking the late night drinking beer and watching UFC. Showed up late, but luckily Keith wanted to grab more layers, so I only got there 5 minutes after him, not 45...

Started off bloody freezing, but we quickly got into some hilly single-track in the Tuscany ravine, out of the wind, and that thermostat up to operating temp. My off-road skills have improved with the bit of MTB riding and cross racing this year, so I managed to only fall down one thistle-infested gully, and only ran into one tree.

After that we were cruised past the Rocky Ridge? golf course, and then got onto gravel road. It had warmed up a bit and we were riding with the wind, riding through rolling ranching country, just perfect. Only saw a couple of cars over the next hour, so I could concentrate on reducing the fish-tailing and watching Keith ride along rock-steady like he was on a trainer.

A short paved section, then we got to Bill Hill Springs Provincial Park. We rode straight through the car park and off the road, threw our bikes over the barbed-wire farm fence and rode across paddocks, walked over some partially frozen creeks, more fences and creeks, a bit of snow-covered trail and a few hundred cow patties...just like I imagined cyclocross how real cyclocross started! So fun! (however I now hear that's not that accurate...I'll have to do some research).

A quick stop in stop Cochrane for food, dragged our butts up Cochrane Hill, then crawled into a head-wind back to town. About 5 hours, door to door. So tired, so sore, so stoked at an epic ride!! Well, not as epic as Dallas and Stappler's recent ride, but awesome for me.

Last splash

Tim had a stop-over in Toronto on the way to Africa, so I joined him to be tour-guide, and spend time with my Toronto friends. Nigel organized an awesome trip to the Madawaska for some white water canoeing. Shawn was also there, which was great to increase the average canoeing skill in the group, while Noah...not so much on the skill front, but a good job on boosting hilarity.

Normally alone, I can increase the likelihood of a group epic, but with Tim there two, it was practically guaranteed. And we didn't disappoint: late Sunday evening we found ourselves canoeing/kayaking down the river, with head-lamps on, heading towards a class 4 rapid (i.e. we probably wouldn't have attempted it in the daylight). Luckily we found the portage before the rapid.



Having Nigel along, on the other hand, increases the chance of having a frisbee and good food (particularly bacon). Two for two...Nigel finding another use for a frisbee, and check out these flame-grilled beauties:





Looks like we got our last dip in the water just in time, as snow is forecast for this coming weekend!

'Cross fun

Tuesday crits, run by Midweek Mayhem, change to Tuesday cyclocross. Just as much fun, if not more! Ask someone that has done cyclocross what it's like, and invariably the answer is "fun!". It's strange, since all the running up hills, lifting bikes over hurdles, and contantly accellerating out of corners is SO PAINFUL! :)

Tim has gotten pretty hooked too. He's flying back from a quick trip to Vancouver, so that he doesn't miss his last chance for 'cross before he leaves this fair land.

Love this pic taken by K2:

Last hurrah...kayaking the Red Deer

For Tim's last weekend in Calgary, we headed to Stephen's cabin (thank, buddy!) on the Red Deer River. It's a wild one! And considering our last kayaking trip ended with a trip to emergency, we were a little....cautious. :)

First we ran the river from after Double Ledge down to the campsite, then the next day we showed Double Ledge who's boss and ran it twice. Scouted it, discussed our line, and kicked some ass! Woohoo!







































How about this last one...now that's what I call the relaxed look of a conquerer! Woo!

Hang gliding

Last weekend we crammed in yet another new activity...hang gliding! At first we thought we'd be shown the basics, then be soaring off cliffs, but realistically, if they don't want a 50% survival rate, they need a little slower progression. We started by running on flat ground, then moved a couple of metres up a hill and got more speed before "flaring" (pointing upwards to intentionally stall) which gave us a couple of seconds air time. Woo!

Then we moved further up the hill and started actually gliding. Lots of knees were dragged on the ground, and fun was had.

I couldn't make the second day, as I was contesting the Provincial Hill Climb in Banff (unsuccessfully), but Tim was getting the hang of it (oops, that was an accident) on the same hill, and had a great time. I hear Australia has a pretty big gliding scene...it might want to keep an eye out for my brother some time soon!

MTB

After an epic Saturday, we decided to "take it easy" and go mountain biking. Tom's crew had taken us up Baldy Pass the prior Wednesday, which was so much fun we wanted to go again. Following recommendations from Powderface website's top 10 trails in Kananaskis, we decided to hit Sulphur Springs and Powerface-Praire Creek Link, and had a blast! In fact, we had so much fun, we headed out again the following day with Sean on his brand-new bike.

Attempt of Castle

I'll start off with a rather embarrassing story of what happens when you get two Holmes brothers together. By ourselves, we are often late. But the two of us leaving for the long weekend on Friday afternoon, for activities Tim has barely done before, was, well....put it this way, I was supposed to be home at 5:30 so that a 6pm departure would put us at Mt Athabasca by 9pm (for a 4am start to Saturday). We ended up leaving at 10pm! and so scaled back our plan to hit Brewer's Buttress, a 5.6 rock climb on Castle Mountain (the "Castle Junction" Castle Mountain, not the ski resort near Crowsnest Pass). So we still got to the carpark at midnight, briefly wondered whether the car stinking of Safeway roast chicken would attract bears, and rose for an "alpine start" at 8am. By the time we changed out packs from being equipped for glacier travel to rock climbing, we left the car at 11am.




Castle Mountain is really, really big. It has two obvious tiers, with our rock climb starting on the second tier. I figured the approach similar to Yamnuska, a 45 min to 1 hour tough switch-backing hike to the base of the cliffs. Castle, however, took four hours to hike to the bottom, then climb 4th class (i.e. just easy enough to not use a rope) rock to the large ledge at the top of the first tier. Wow. We stopped for lunch at the hut and pondered an attempt on a 8 pitch rock climb with 5 hours of daylight and a rappel descent back to the hut, followed by a descent of hike and climb we'd just taken four hours to do in daylight. Being stubborn and wanting to get at least SOME rock climbing done, we headed off to try to exceed all reasonable expectations of climbing speed.

The dunny for the hut has a killer view!


Hiking to and from the base of the climb traversed some pretty steep scree slopes. In the following pics, Tim and I tried to show how wild it was, and the massive scale of the place in general.


I'm the tiny black dot in the very centre of the photo

The ledge we climbed to is on the upper-right of the photo.


After two pitchs at the expectable pace of 1 hour per pitch, we decided to call it. We rapped back to the ledge and got to downclimb to the base of the cliffs in twilight, getting back to the car at 11pm. So tired!

Iron Girl!

Tim, Jess and I went to Penticton on the last weekend of August to support Emilie as she attempted an Ironman: 3.8km swim, 180km bike and a marathon (42km). And she killed it...under 13 hours, around 1300th out of 3000 people. Congrats Emilie!!