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Backcountry Snowshoe Running Adventure

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...