Seven Days of Baggery Makes One Weak

I think I have Bagger's Fever.  The symptoms have been particularly acute this past week:

  • insomnia.  inability to sleep nights knowing my pals might be bagging while I am sleeping
  • anxiety.  There are peaks out there I have never bagged and that I must bag before I die.  Better yet, on or before 22 October 09
  • weight loss.  Inability to eat enough to replace lost calories
  • intestinal distress.  Visceral desire to be playing outdoors while weather is fantastic.  Too many blueberries.  Too many gels.

It has been an eventful week.  Certainly the most prolific and exciting week of bagging I have ever experienced!  A short account and links to photos follow.  First, however, some background and clarification of terms I might reference, in case you were wondering which planet I'm from:

Bagger.  A participant in the Bagger Challenge.  Someone who is actively bagging mountain peaks in and around the lower mainland of British Columbia.  (Females are baguettes?)

Baggage.  The peaks bagged by a bagger.

Bushwhacking.  What a bagger does when (s)he is not on a trail.

Bagger's Shins.  What baggers get when bushwhacking.

Bagger's Itch.  My psychological affliction.  Also malaise caused by acquiring too many pine needles in shorts while bushwhacking.

Double Bagging.  Bagging the same peak twice during an annual Bagger Challenge.

A preamble to my week:  I had hoped to run my 100th ultramarathon at the Frosty Mountain 50K last Saturday.  For a bunch of good reasons, I didn't make the start.  I shouldn't have felt bad about not going, but I did.  So I was a bit bummed at the start of the week. Friends Peter Rietfeld and Wil Rougahles from the Netherlands arrived on their bikes after a ride from Calgary on Sunday afternoon.  We drank a lot of beer and burned some meat on the BBQ.

Monday.   Peter, a former Dutch national champion ultramarathoner, wants to do the Vancouver hash. On on!  It's in Stanley Park.  Peter and I lead the pack and find the BS (beer stop) before the beer arrives.  My pal's dogs get sprayed by a skunk.  Peter, Wil and I return home and sample some good old Canadian Sleemans beer.

Tuesday.  It's Peter's birthday.  Wil sleeps in.  I take Peter to Bowan Island and we bag Mount Gardiner on an exceptionally beautiful fall morning.   Celebrate with more Sleeman's upon our return.  Go to SFU to teach a business class.  Have some beers on the deck of the Highland Pub with my guest speaker and a bunch of students after class.  Delightfully warm evening.  Arrive home to email from the current leader of the Bagger Challenge.  Take the bait and agree to pick him up around 07:00.

Wednesday.  Pack according to Bagger's Essential Companion, but in haste, forget the knife and lighter.  Off and running direction Indian Arm Trail at 07:15.  Hammer our way to Runner Peak.  Take the "easy" route up the ice, then a cliff.  (Read it and weep, RunRik!)   Continue on to bag Mt. Elsay and a slew of religious peaks (Rector, Curate, Vicor, Bishop, Presbyter.)  Not a worry in the world... except how to get back to the car by 19:00!  Decide the quickest way home is to take a water taxi from the Wigwam Inn at the head of Indian Arm.  Do a bit of bushwhacking (OK, about 800m of it!) and lose some time.  Continue the bushwhack part way up one of the Dickens.  Now dark.  No cell reception.  Bag Dickens #1, then #2, then #3, then it's midnight and the start of another day.

Thursday.  Continue to run along a ridge to nowhere.  No exit to Wigwam Inn to be found.  Given we're en route for Squamish, decide to double back.  Route-finding a nightmare with headlamps in the dark.  Decide to hunker-down around 02:00.  Make a comfy bed of cedar boughs and tuck in under a space blanket.  A lot colder than the night before on SFU pub patio!  (CENSORED.)  Decide to head down to Seymour reservoir at 04:00.  Try the cell at Dickens #2 (renamed Brokeback Mountain) just before dawn.  Works!  Learn that loved ones have called NS Search and Rescue around midnight.  Chopper arrives at 07:00 and takes us back to car, both home by 08:15:  total time of 24 hrs, of which 22 hours on the run.  Eat all leftovers from BBQ I missed last night.  Catch up on email, make some calls and haul a couple dozen wheelbarrows of dirt into my backyard.   Bagged 10 peaks in past 24 hours, so pass on the opportunity to go for an evening run.

Friday.  Have to make some money and get some work done in the back yard.  Feel guilty for not bagging anything.

Saturday.  Up at 05:00 to meet Paul at 06:00 for some baggage on the Howe Sound Crest Trail.  Guestimated five hour run ends up being 12 hours.  Bad case of Bagger's Shins on top of raw scars from 2 days prior.  More breathtaking views.  Miss another BBQ.

Sunday.  Double bag Mount Strachan, this time with Wendy and my family.  Eat more blueberries.  Harassed by other baggers out bagging the Indian Arm trail, Gambier, etc.  Retrieve the magic rock from its hiding place on Cypress Mountain and put it in my back yard.  Haul a few more wheelbarrows of dirt into back yard.  Eat a hearty feast of boletes in garlic butter with homemade bread.  Celebrate life with a few pints of hefeweizen and 1/2 price pizzas at the Taylor's Crossing pub.  Another crappy day in paradise, but can't sleep knowing that:

  • the monsoons will soon come and there are peaks yet to be bagged
  • Tundra the Wonder Dog may have overtaken me in the Baggers Challenge