Weekend Hike at Glenn

Pow

After driving down to the cottage on Friday night just south of Orford, half way to Owl’s head and seeing the immense amount of snow all around, we decided to forego the lines and crowds at Jay peak and hike Mt Glenn (closed down ski hill north of owl’s head).

We arrived Saturday morning to find a guy sitting in his car at the gate telling everyone to get lost as the mountain has been purchased two weeks ago and the new owner was now trying to enforce his “private property”. not one to be deterred, as the mountain has been private property for 2 years now and it’s been a hikers paradise.
Mt. Glenn, Hiking up, Summit cabin

We parked about a mile up the road and hiked in across a swamp to find beautiful conditions. The snow pack seemed to be about 2 feet of snow with a 3″ wind blown layer and then another 6-8″ of snow sitting on top of that.

Quick hike up the middle of the mountain (under the old t-bar) to the summit. We decided to try one of the open runs as they looked pretty good. Not quite as epic as we wished but fun none the less. The snow wasn’t quite deep enough in spots to really lean back in the turns.
Banane coming down, Tracks from day one

We went back on Sunday for another go.
Getting to the MTN, Hiking In

This time trying the glades in the center of the mountain which had seen less wind exposure and were UNTOUCHED – not one single track the whole way down. Much deeper snow and great coverage made for one of my best “2 feet and a heart beat” runs of my life. All the smaller alders and whippers had been pretty much covered over and pillows were starting to form over the larger rocks.
Barely touched runs, Glades untracked, Pristine !, Find your line, Runs looked good too, The View and fresh lines, Banane racing down after a long section, Stoked

We were able to ride all the way down to the swamp/snowshoe trail without losing too much speed. Another weekend – another awesome mission!!!

Full Flickr photoset

Cold water, warm water and frozen waves

The wall Nor'easter

With only 5 weeks to go before we’re dipping our toes in the warm pacific ocean; My mind has been turning to surfing and all that entails. Checking the wave cams, checking the surf reports for MEXICO, thinking about the new fish Johan is making me (for this summer), making sure my noodley arms are strong enough to handle 2 weeks of daily paddling. Even snowboarding 2 weeks ago, the most entertaining part of the days was hitting a natural “wave of snow” that forms on one of the runs at Jay Peak — slashing the lip — something that will take me years to learn how to do surfing.

The shot above was from the wall last Thursday (shot 1 and shot 2). The swell only lasted for a couple hours from what I saw and read but there were some heavy waves coming in. Too bad for the guys down there that it was also bitterly cold. I can’t help but mentally compare the layering/gear we wear mid january to deal with -30°C + high winds on exposed faces/lifts. It really does seem to pale when thinking about 6mm rubber and the risk of hypothermia within minutes in that water!

We’ve been talking – and are going to try to start even earlier this year – hopefully start trips down to the east coast in mid/late May. One thing that’s certain — It’ll be a shock after mex.

Mexico 2007

Wedding invite

We’re going back to Mexico in a month and a bit.

It was so good last time that how could we not? Two of my best friends are getting hitched – instead of doing a wedding in Montréal, they’ve invited their families and friends to join them in Mexico for 1 week. Should be about 20-30 good friends (plus ?? other family guests) total hanging out at an all inclusive resort for a week. After than 11 of us are staying on for an extra week, renting a couple swank houses in Sayulita. I guess you could say we’re all crashing their honeymoon. Least they have their own house.

Everyone’s looking forward to surfing, sayulita fish taco, cheap cans of pacifico clara and tecate, old poo river, cafe con leches and banane-choco muffins from the center of town to name but a few of the local delights. Linda’s told me that she’ll even try a surfing class !! Think she’ll enjoy the water temperature a slight bit more than the northern-east coast in August. We’re going to try exploring the area more now that we’re oriented – some day trips up north and some more exploring around Punta Mita. Might be a bit intense with a big group.. have never travelled with that many friends before.

It’s coming up quick … I’ve been hard on that “arms and chest” workout routine for the shock of 13 days surfing straight.

Photos from last time

The roof of the Belgo via Google maps

The roof of the Belgo via Gmaps

Update: Found this link to the art project on our roof. Love it.

Google has finally updated the satellite imagery for Montréal. This morning I was looking through google maps for an address and happened to click on the “Hybrid” button. Imagine my surprise to find the Plateau and Mt. Royal no longer shrouded by cloud cover — it had been mostly obscured since the launch of google maps last year. You can finally see the corner of St Laurent and Pine and the East side of Mt. Royal in all it’s glory. In fact you can almost see my car!!

But — the real funny part is Geoffrey found this oddity; Check out the roof of the Belgo building where we work (372 Ste. Catherine O.) in google maps.

What the hell is going on? An art project? Secret CIA monitoring/targeting of our building cause we work for Michael Moore? Anyone have an idea or conspiracy theory to throw in?

New montreal map imagery

Rosemarie Fiore and 80’s video games

Tempest

Rosemarie Fiore has taken some beautiful time lapse shots of a couple 80’s video games. Here’s hoping she does some more. She has another series that I like a lot based on “Exploding fireworks” in a controlled way over paper. And — who could not love her giant “Spirograph” project !!

“These photographs are long exposures taken while playing video war games of the 80’s created by Atari, Centuri and Taito. The photographs were shot from video game screens while I played the games. By recording each second of an entire game on one frame of film, I captured complex patterns not normally seen by the eye.”

See photographs

Powder barrels and charlie horses

Valhalla Powder

Saturday morning was some of the best powder riding of the year so far. We woke up to a windy, very-blue-skied day with almost of foot of fresh snow at Jay Peak. Got to the mountain nice and early (8:15am) and was able to get on one of the first tram rides up to the top to find some untracked runs.

I knew that I was not in my usual February shape due to the crappy season we’d been having — but nothing prepared me for the upper legs pain I felt yesterday. All that leaning way back, so as to not dip my nose under the deep snow, really took it’s toll. Feels like some jerk gave me two beautiful charlie horses.

But I’m no whiner – all that pain came at a great price. I had a couple steep turns where I “barreled” myself in snow from one slash to the next (riding under the wave of snow I had just tossed up). Probably the closest I’ll get to being “barreled” in any sort of wave for years to come — aka; surfing is hard.

I also thought I lost my wallet that day and thought I finally killed my camera – neither of which happened which made the day all the sweeter (found wallet at bottom on backpack and my camera did freeze up for a couple hours then come back to life – credit to Canon for making good products).

The couple photos I did manage to get

Public hammocks or nefarious ends?

Public hammocks or nefarious ends?

I parked my car behind the BELGO this AM (just near the corner of St. Alexandre and Ste. Catherine) – remembering that it was cheaper than the other spot I usually go and much closer to work.

Two things struck me as I paid my money to the PARK MONTREAL automated machine;

  • The price of parking JUMPED to 15$ (from 8$) ??!!
  • There’s a sign up saying.. “We’ll be no longer offering parking here as of Feb. 28th 2007” (closing down the parking lot)

Oo o…
What do you think?

  • They’re building a beautiful park with birds, trees, squirrels and public hammocks for afternoon naps ?
  • … or they are building something that means… No more view and noise for 6 months while they dig the foundation.

Doh. I’m personally hoping for a new summer afternoon napping spot.