This is me in my snowshoes with my beloved banana tree on the first weekend of December. As you can see, banana trees don't like snow and we had a fair bit of it in Vancouver this week.
While in downhill skiing terms it didn't qualify as a "dump", there were several centimeters of the white stuff on the street this Tuesday. Buddy Dom Repta, who is on a snowshoe running binge these days, called in the late afternoon. "We're going up to Seymour with the snowshoes. Meet you at your place just after 5," he said. Yeh mon.
I cut short a meeting and arrived home exactly at 5:00 to find a whole crew of keeners waiting for me. "I need 10 minutes to change and quit my job," I said as hurried to the phone. Well, the bad news is that the boss wanted me to stay, so we wrangled for 3 1/2 hours during which time the boys gave up on me and had a great run in the snow. (Sorry guys!) The good news is that I have resolved some of the
issues around balance discussed in an earlier post... and my schedule just loosened up! Anyone know of anyone who needs a sales guy?
Today, as a light snow fell in the north shore mountains, Paul Cubbon and I got our gear together and headed up to Grouse Mountain. A scant 20 minutes after picking Paul up, we were in our snowshoes and hitting the well traveled trails. A half hour later we stood at the top of Dam Mountain feeling like 2 of the luckiest guys on the planet.
It got better.
Paul had never been to the far side of Dam, so I took him to the base of Goat Mountain. We were completely alone. Since the visibility was decent, I suggested we do the loop out along what I think is called Thunderbird Ridge. Just off the trail, the snow was a meter deep and as light as smoke. We ran down the steep slopes, sometimes sliding on our snowshoes, sometime on our butts. Snow was flying everywhere! I fell down a tree well. We raced down gulleys and through the trees until our lungs threatened to burst. What a blast! What a workout!!
The bizarre thing about our experience was that no more than 40 minutes later, I dropped Paul off at his house. We are so lucky to live in Vancouver...
