The Squamish Scrambler has got to be my favorite winter running event. Held every February in the mountains above Squamish, BC, it's a magical half-marathon on snowshoes.
Getting to the start is half the fun. This first leg involves a commute to Squamish, a meet-up at the local Tim Horton's and a car pool up an icy dirt road. Reagan dropped $30 on a cab ride to my place in North Vancouver and he, Jason and I left for adventure on a rainy Saturday morning at 7:00 am. Straight up, I figured we'd be running in the rain and slush as it was relatively warm outside for mid-February. What a surprise Mother Nature had in store for us!
After getting stoked on double-doubles and maple glazed cholesterol bombs at the Tim's (special Canadian cultural and culinary treat for Jason from Florida), Wader and Erik joined us in the happy bus for the last push up Mamquam Road to the trail head. (Note: Don't leave your car at Tim's as it will be towed. Best to park beside the road next to the golf course.)
My old Subaru got us to the top without incident. Yes, I nailed a few potholes. (Sorry about your hemorrhoids, Wader. =;-) Yes, I did blow through the sign that said, "Chains mandatory from this point on", but my tires were fairly new and the Forrester is all-wheel drive, and the peanut gallery kept chanting something like, "Go! Go! Go!" so I caved-in and geared-down.
It seemed to me there were a lot fewer cars in the parking lot than in past years. As we put on our snowshoes, the park ranger scraped a deep layer of snow off a sign at the trail-head with a rake. "All of this came down since I left the lot late last night," he said.
Odd how the snow line started at the edge of the parking lot. Wader put the hammer down and dropped Jason, Eric, Reagan and me like a bad smell. The snow became deeper and dryer as we made our way up the trail. We passed some poor guy who dropped his camera in the snow. Sionarra, brother. Come back for a look in May!
As Jason and I came to the clearing before the Red Heather warming hut caught up to Wader was now breaking trail in snow up to his knees. We paused briefly to check in at the cabin and came across 3 dudes on skis who had spent the night sheltered from the howler of a storm. From this point on, we'd be breaking trail.
I've messed around in deep snow, but never in snow as deep as what we faced as we made our way across the wide meadow and up toward the ridge. Tour de France-style, we took turns taking a pull at the front of what had become a growing mule-train as the rest of our group caught up. Think a minute or two of intense effort trying to punch through snow that was waist to chest-deep snow followed by 10 minutes of shuffling along at a crawl. Given the biting wind, it didn't take long to get chilled to the bone if you were not taking the pull.
It soon became clear that we stood no chance of making it to the Elfin Cabin. For no other reason than to say we did it, our group pushed on to the ridge where the trees offered some shelter from the wind. At one point Eric disappeared in front of me in snow up to his chin!
While the trip back down to the Red Heather cabin went a lot quicker than the trip up, our trench had been almost completely filled-in with snow. Several runners were literally worried that they'd freeze their fingers off. (Thankfully, none did.)
As we dropped down into the trees, the trail was much more clearly defined and we warmed-up considerably. Wade was off the front like a bullet. (Forgot I had the keys, eh?) Hoping to share one of my simple snowshoe pleasures with Jason (who, by the way, had never seen snow like this and had never been on snowshoes before) I coaxed a handful of the folks with me into wading through waist-deep powder up a small rise above the trail. We packed down a runway and, one after another, took a running leap off into space. (Think jumping out of a second-floor window into a 3-meter deep duvet!)
By the time we got back to the parking lot, it was spitting rain. Wader was as good as frozen and Jason wasn't much warmer. All of us were starving and in need of beer, so the pressure was on to drive back down the hill bareback. However, twice in the past I almost slid off the road and down a cliff, so the warmer passengers and I installed one tire chain as an insurance policy. Apart from the obligatory potholes for Wade and a painful episode of crawling in the mud and rain to remove the tire chains, our decent back to the civilization of Squamish was uneventful.
Caving in to a large contingent of beer aficionados, Ryan agreed to move the post-event carbo load to the Howe Sound Brewing Company. Good call. Katie went for the licorice stout. I went for the special IPA. Many fine craft brews were served up as we took turns roasting our fat asses in front of a warm fire.
Good times. Thank you, Ryan, for some great memories!
Ryan's official report, other stories, some videos and photos about the 2011 Squamish Scambler.
