J - OR Show 07

We have come to a great pilgrimage of outdoor gear freaks. For 4 days the world's outdoor industry congregates at this show showcasing everything from superlight titanium mountaineering gear to portable 'adventure' grills. It spans 3 blocks and in Salt Lake City a block is a big thing. While Merewyn works her arse off I wander the aisles trying to get free booty. It's generally the land of milk and honey as far as gear goes. Pro deals seem to be handed out like candy and beer is free after 4pm. But it gets tiring after 3 days. Luckily we are going climbing this evening on some local granite crags. I would post some pics but cameras are banned. Arriving in NZ on the 18th!

J - Still going

Well since the 'End of the Road' we have gone a long way. Climbing in the Gunks was hot and sticky and rainy, but good fun. We got do do some classic climbs and saw a copper head snake. Thanks to our friend Ben who was so kind to let us stay in their weekend house and lend us gear. We taxied and bussed through Manhattan which was an experience. The last few weeks have been relaxing in Sante Fe, NM with Merewyns brother and family. We are on our way again to Salt Lake City to the OR show where Merewyn is working in Integral Designs stall and I will be wandering the Mormon capital hoping not be converted. Though speed week in Bonneville Salt Flats will be exiting if I can get there. For a few days we are in Denver, CO staying with my brother. We are hoping to climb Longs Peak if the thunderstorms allow. 14,000 ft (5000m) will be exciting for us even though there is a trail to the top it would be nice if we can make it.

Selling the bikes turned out to be more difficult than we thought it was going to be difficult. Due to some poor communication on the part of the CA DMV it is going to take 6-8 weeks to get the title instead of 1. Luckily our buyer isn't too unhappy about it however the bike may run out of registration by then... DMV's must be the most backward, slow moving, beaurocratic insitutions known to man. And there are 50 different ones!

Never mind we are now the embarrassed drivers of a 4 litre rental Jeep. No longer can we wave at motorcyclists, because they give us dirty looks! Trying hard to resist the urge to buy lots of cheap things before we go back to NZ.

Some trip Stats...

Total distance travelled: 21,137 miles or 34,016 kms or Wellington to Auckland 56 times, $2400 in gas!
No. of tires used: 7
No. of punctures: None!
No. of Chains: 4
No. of Oil changes: 4
No. of Tolls Paid: 1 until we got to Chicago but then we lost count within half an hour
No. of times stopped by police: None!
No. of bribes paid: Well... this is the USA!
No. of nights camping: 150
No. of tents sent back to MSR: 2 (they were very good about it though)
No. of photos taken: 3042

Don't even ask how many bugs we killed...

Right now we are in the 'Gunks another world famous climbing area. Many thanks to Ben who we met in Nordegg (remember the bikini ice climbing photos?) we are now in a great little house only meters from the rock with climbing books and magazines for Africa, and Family Guy and Simpsons DVD's to entertain all of Asia....

M - The end of the Road

It has happened sooner than anyone expected, we are officially finished the motorbike tour.

Much has been happening, since the last proper post we visited Montreal staying with Josh's uni friend Phil. We had a great time there, caught a little of the Jazz festival, had dinner at Shwartz's, breakfast at Beauty's and tried to speak french when we really have no idea. All the proper Montreal activities.

Then we tried to travel around Quebec a bit and Atlantic Canada but were plagued with rain everywhere we went. My speedo going over to 44,444.4 was a major highlight in this bleak rainy time, so I took a photo:


And you can all see Splat, a little alien who joined us in Ottawa. He rode along on my radio, bobbing his head agreeing with what ever I have to say. He holds on to those little strips of duct tape you see there, and at night he crawls down and eats all the squashed bugs off the front of my bike, hence the name.

This is the confederation bridge, 13 kms long it links PEI to the mainland. It was only built a year ago and has led to a tourist explosion which the island seems to be rather enjoying.


Big tides at the Bay of Fundy.

Our last morning in the tent, we are a little bit sad, but excited to be returning to NZ.


Washing the bikes for sale outside Uncle Peter's house. We mostly just transferred the dirt from the bikes onto ourselves!

And we thought it might be a little difficult to sell my bike, but the second person to come and see it took it for a ride, and dropped it, cracking the fairing (more) and busting the windscreen. Guess what buddy - you just bought yourself a motorcycle!

Josh's bike is also sold, but is still here as we are waiting for the California DMV to send us a copy of the title before we can transfer ownership to the guy who wants it. Red tape banana.

So the plan from here is a few days rock climbing in the Gunks near NYC, and then visit my brother & family in Sante Fe before we fly home.

See you all soon!!!!

M - Quick Update

After driving over a totally mad bridge, we are in P.E.I. having got about in Montreal, other parts of Quebec and New Brunswick. Proper update later, hopefully with photos when you also hear about our new traveling companion... and about how my odometer clocked over to 44444.4 miles!

Oh, and the tent floor has failed again. Soggy.

M - HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!!

We are in Ottawa which is really great for a number of reasons. Great timing for one, yesterday was Canada Day, and where better to celebrate than in the Capital City. Also, my friend Dave Burtt who I met working at Biv in Welly lives here. Josh and I were thinking of doing this trip way back then, so Dave and I have been talking about meeting up in Ottawa for over 2 years now.


Finally a proper Mountie!

I waved that little flag the whole day long, and now I am trying to think of a way to fix it to my motorbike.

Damn good fireworks - thanks Steven Harper!!! (Conservative governments are good for something)

Me and Dave on the very crowded bendy bus going home. Another really fun day, and today we are going over the river to Gatineau to see the Museum of Civilisation and "The Alps" film at the Imax dome theatre.

Next stop... Montreal.

J - The maid of the mist

We spent the day at Niagara falls.

J - Wisconsin

I was wearing a motorcycle helmet while helping cover my Uncle Daves car when this hail came down 1 minute after we arrived in Hudson. I felt a little bit silly though my cousin John was just running around in short dashes as if that would somehow confuse the hail.


Two days later we arrived in Monroe Wisonsin, Ahh the land of cheese. Wisconsin is pretty great. Rolling hills covered in corn and cows. In the evening fireflys come out and light up the fields. We have been yukking it up with the rellies, eating limburger cheese sandwiches and drinking beer. It's 11pm and I can still smell the limburger on my fingers from lunch. Tomorrow we are going to scream through to Detroit (Day-twaagh) and then to Toronto. The interstate is eating my rear tire for breakfast and travel is wearing away my entheusiasm slowly. We are going to the East which we vowed never to do. There is fun to be had but there is a lot of sitting still to endure in order to get there. Still, there's lots to see and do, we have friends all over the place, New Foundland, climbing in the shawangunks, New York. The traveling is different this time, planning 5 days ahead, and staying in cities instead of idly wandering in the national forest and parks. But we are getting lots of free food!

M - the dreaded crossing

4 days across the prairies were more eventful than I would have preferred.
First we left in constant rain in the hope that it would ease as we went east
(it didn't) and only got 200 miles to Medicine Hat where we went to Tim Horton's
for dinner as we were semi hypothermic. A Medicine Hat local
with a thick British accent told us where to find the town campsite, where we
went straight to bed and spent the next 3 hours huddled to warm up!

The next two days were better, we just ran into one shower which wasn't much, I
think it was also going east and we caught it up and rode through to the other side.

Yesterday we started in a little town in eastern North Dakota, and planned to
ride the whole way across Minnesota to Hudson. Various messing around in the
morning including filling up the oil in my bike, and then going to a town to buy
more oil as Josh's was also low. Riding at 75 mph for 3 days uses up oil. Just 4
miles down the road we turned off to take a wee diversion to see the tallest
structure in the world, a huge radio tower. Stopped at a stop sign, Josh
noticed some clouds of smoke, no big deal, he figured it was coming from my
bike... but then I rode off and the smoke stayed with him... then he must have
looked down and oh dear. It turns out we had topped up his oil and then neither
of us had replaced the filler cap, and there was oil EVERYWHERE! All down
Josh's right hand leg, boot, the bike, his rear brake, and all over the rear
wheel. Quite scary as we had been doing 70 on the interstate just moments earlier.

We wiped most of it off with toilet paper and used dirt and sand to try and dry
the tire, then limped the 4 miles back to the town... can't think of the name
just now. We found a friendly mechanic who had a pressure washer, though sadly
it turned out to be broken and as much use as a garden hose, but he did have
some great degreaser soap which worked a charm, we managed to get Josh and his
bike roadworthy again.

After all that we were still 300 miles from Hudson, so a quick lunch at Burger
King (it's about 4pm by this time) and we slugged it out, through Fargo, onto
the I-94, the whole way across Minnesota and then as we were going through
Minneapolis, and thunderstorm was brewing... I knew we we close, and I was
praying hard that we could just get off the Interstate before the inevitable big
heavy rain drops began to fall. Crazy spaghetti junctions and trucks and
changing lanes later we finally got out of St Paul and crossed the bridge over
the river and the state line, I knew we were going to take the first exit, right
into Hudson. As we drove though town it was getting very dark, I was trying to
read the street signs though my visor, and the storm warning siren was going off
sounding a lot like the fire siren in Wainui. Thankfully Hudson isn't a big
place and we made it to Dave's house, he ran around the back and opened the
garage, we pulled in as the first rain drops fell - whew! It only rained for
about 1 minute, then it turned into hail, which went from pea size to marbles,
and almost to golf balls - now we were running around trying to find something
to put over Dave's car!

Now we are trying to figure out where to go next and when.
vague plan is Monroe, then Toronto, then either to Ottawa, Montreal and the
Maritimes or to Shawangunks for climbing first... not sure yet.

So I rode the whole way across North Dakota and no black and white cows - not a
single one! Guess what they are farming now? Corn. Plenty of ethanol
propaganda billboards sprouting up in the fields as well.

I'll see if I can get a good photo of Josh's right boot, now a decidedly different colour to the left one, due to having absorbed a quart of engine oil. He'll be washing his own socks from now on.

M - Off again

Well it is raining and pouring here in Calgary, but we are going to take the plunge and get out into it. I never knew Calgary could be so wet, it has rained every day for a week.

We are starting the long haul east, beginning on the Trans Canada Highway, then dropping down into the USA on our way to Wisconsin.

Wish us luck in the wet!

M - Around about and back to Calgary

We have been very busy since the last post. Sorry about the lack of blogging, but now I am going to make up for i with a bunch of photos...

When I wrote last we were heading off towards Vancouver. Our hostel was pretty central on Granville St, so we were able to go out and walk around the town and stop for some terrible nachos and a beer or two. In the morning we walked down to Granville Island which not really an island at all, but is a 'park' organised by the federal government. There is a big market place, lots of art stores and general colourful businesses. Even a brewery.



Sadly I didn't actually buy any fruit. No sure why not now, would have been a good idea!


Although it isn't surrounded by water, there was some water between us and Granville Island, and we crossed it on this super cute ferry boat. We are sure they are powered by a few energentic mice hidden under the floorboards.


Quite the bike collection on the big ferry as we crossed over to Vanouver Island. Waiting for the boat we met Richard, a Caniwi (both Canadian and NZ) who invited us to come and stay at his house on Lake Horne. Thanks again to Richard and Jane! The house was halfway though renovations, and the weather was lovely, so we slept out in the gazebo.


Richard and Jane have only solar power, and a composting toilet outside, so it was a bit like being at a darker more rustic Taheke. In the morning we took a shower up on the roof. No photos of that though sorry.

Despite it being the weekend we decided to be brave and head to the west coast. We were warned that it would be very busy. It turned out no to be very busy at all. The first night we stayed in Ucluelet (You - clue - let), a nice wee fishing village which remains slightly off the beated path. Fresh fish cooked over a ceder drift wood fire was very nice. Then we headed up the coast hoping to sneak into the 'full' campground at Green Point in the national park. When we got there, it turned out only two of the 30 walk in campsites were in use, so we had 28 possible sites to choose from! So much for all the crowds and having to book two days ahead. Tofino was very nice, and a launching point for all kinds of tours that are not really in our budget.


When in rome... I decided to join the thousands of logs washed up all along the west coast of Vancouver Island.



Man have we seen some great slugs! This guy was my favorite so far, he is about 5 inches long, thicker than your finger.

We passed through Victoria in the rain, so stopped only for a quick look, then another ferry across to Port Angelus, Washington. We tried going to Olympic National Park, but we were to late for the visitors centre, and the campground we were considering was closed. Instead we headed along the coast to Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge for a clifftop campsite above the sea. Exciting to be back in the USA, especially as the beer is so much cheaper, but I didn't like the Wasabi chips very much.

We passed though North Cacased National Park which I thought was especailly beatiful, and then dashed across Washington, all the way to Spokane where we stayed with Dwyllis, my mother's cousin. Dwyllis and her husband Del gave us a great tour of the city, especially interesting as we have been watching Public Television from Spokane all winter and knew a little bit about the place already from that.


We then had an interesting ride across Idaho and into Montana ending up at the same campsite that we stayed in at Easter on our Rockclimbing trip. A good run of over 200 miles considering we didn't leave until 3pm. Then finally up to the Canadian border, stopping for lunch in Sparwood at the World's Largest Truck. Josh had to inspect the bouldering possibilities.


And now we are in Calgary again. While we were gone they have had a snowstorm and torrential downpours which flooded the city. I think I am glad to have missed all that!

M - Bye to Squishy Town

Well, we really like it here, the weather has been great, the climbing is amazing and we met some great people but it is time to move on. We are headed into the big city for one night in Vancouver. We are planning to share a hostel room with the Danish boys Alex and Rasmus. Then it will be over to Vancouver Island for a bit. From there we think we might take the ferry across to Washington, and start the eastwards trip through there.

Wow - we never normally have a plan lasting more than a day or two!

J - Climbing in Squamish

We are bumming gear and bouldering to get some climbing done while we are here. We always regretted leaving Yosemite so quickly without doing much climbing. In hindsight it was silly so we are not going to make that mistake again even if we have to climb with nothing but a handful of nuts.


We are about to leave the comfortable little nest provided to us by our good friends Lachlan and Jess in Calgary.
One of the many lakes in BC.We spent the afternoon climbing Star Check outside of Squamish, BC with Fred Beckey legendary North American climber.
Still climbing well at 86.

Not a new tattoo but a charcoal mark from testing out the camp hosts exhaust system for leaks.
I leave my little bit of sweat and skin on Easy in an Easy Chair. One of the most climbed boulder problems in Squamish.

Merewyn and Jackie tip toe up the apron. A glacially polished slab of granite below the Chief.


Squamish is a great little town, quickly becoming a larger town. The winter olympics have been given to a nearby area Whistler, BC and this means that Squamish is a very desireable place to be now especially with the vast array of great outdoor activities here.

M - Dunno what to call this one!

Another couple days of riding and we have arrived in Squamish. A famous climbing location, we are camped just outside of town under a huge granite cliff called "The Chief" it has a longer name but no-one can spell it.

Too bad we don't have a rope or any trad gear! So today i bought the bouldering guide. We met some other climbers right away, and they have a little bit of gear, so we might get to do some routes yet, here's hoping we can find something easy and run it out a lot!

From Penticton to here we rode some nice twisty roads, finally I am learning to corner the bike properly after so many miles of straight highways. Lunch yesterday was in Lilloot (sp?!) next to an enormous pelton wheel which had funny shaped cups and I really should have taken a photo of it. Then we passed through Whistler which is one of the scariest places I have seen, all totally new looking and packed full of starbucks and designer clothing stores.

I am starting to feel more settled into the roving life again, and looking forward to making a big trek eastwards. Just after I dip my toes in the Pacific Ocean, we haven't seen the sea for months and months.

M - Aches and Pains after a week back on the road

So far we have made it to Penticton in Southern BC, a nice wee town, with some excellent rock climbing. It is the long weekend (Victoria Day) so some of our Calgary friends have driven out too, (they only took 9 hours rather than 4 days though) meaning we have gear and people to climb with. Also a laptop to write this blog post!

We have been wandering our way across the southern part of BC, stopping to soak in hot Pools at Ainsworth, where they have a really cool hot pool in a cave, and Nakusp. Nakusp is neat in that the pools are owned and run by the community, and while we were soaking, we could watch humming birds drinking from the feeders they have hanging there. Funny to watch such tiny birds fighting over a very plentiful food supply. We swapped bikes for a day, with me riding the big 1200cc Bandit, each of us declared that we preferred the bike of the other! However I think the change in posture is what was nice, so we will swap more often in future to have a bit of variety.

This area has some of the best motorcycling roads in Canada, and we have been able to use some of the edges of our tires, rounding off some of the flat spot that develops on straight roads. We crossed two lakes by ferry, the first at Kootenay Bay, and the second at Needles. The Needles Ferry is a cable ferry and it was so smooth we were half way across before I even noticed we were moving. No worries about the bikes falling over in the swell!

There are signs that the bikes are starting to get a bit worn out. My speedo cable keeps falling off, so it has now been removed. Annoying as Josh's speedo is less than accurate so it's a guessing game as to how fast we are traveling. I think I can put it back on with some 'lock tight' and maybe a bit of duct tape also.

More seriously, we stopped just outside Nakusp to look at some Osprey nests, and petrol started pouring out of the cap on Josh's tank. Every time we shut the cap, it would rise up and start to spill over the top! All the problems which stop us from riding seem to be fuel system related. Eventually we determined that a pipe which is supposed to carry fuel overflow and evaporated fuel out of the tank has a hole rusted in it below the fuel line. Josh devised a plug for the top of the pipe out of the end of a pen with a piece of wood stuck in it! Apparently this is a long term solution. Repairs inside the fuel tank are notoriously difficult.

Unfortunately Josh has the camera just now or I would have been able to put some pictures up for you all... maybe soon!

M - Almost ready to head out again

We are all set to ride away from Calgary on the bikes tomorrow. Neither of us feel terribly sad to leave Calgary, but we did make a few very good friends here, and we will miss them a lot, especially Sherman.

The plan is to go West again into southern BC which we are told has the best riding roads in Canada, all of which we missed on the last trip. We will spend the May long Weekend near Pendicton at a place called Skaha for some rockclimbing, and hopefully a few of those Calgary friends will be there too. We'd like to ride as far as Squamish near Vancouver, a major Canadian climbing destination.

Then we will pass thought Calgary again briefly before going East, hopefully all the way to the Atlantic. No doubt there will be a stop over in Wisconsin, and we would like to visit the Maritime Provinces of Canada, especially New Foundland which we have heard is very beautiful.

We then have to return our bikes into the USA to sell them before we fly home to NZ.

So, I have a tank of gas, we are mostly packed and the major job left to do is to head down to the pub for some beer and wings, our goodbye drinkies.

M - transition

At this point we have moved out of our house and we are staying with friends Jess and Lachlan in their very nice home in the SW (thanks again guys!) We sold our car and as much of our furniture as we could, giving the rest to the sallies.

I have just realised a funny thing, our laptop is called an Acer Aspire, and our car was a Ford Aspire, now I need to take a look at the other things we bought here in Canada. Perhaps this particular marketing has a resonant affect on Josh and I? Josh frequently claims to be immune to advertising despite any number of examples to show this is simply not true.

The plan form this point is to take a short tour through southern BC as we missed most of it, riding quickly across to and from Alaska. There are a number of hot pools to be visited, one is even underground in a cave. We might manage to circle around and come back through Washington which we also haven't seen. Then back through Calgary briefly before riding east, stopping again in Wisconsin. Ultimately we want to reach the east coast, and visit the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and some of the north East Coast of the USA. Finally we will sell the bikes (or give them away!) and fly home. Whew!

There are a number of people we are hoping to visit along the way, and accommodation is likely to be more backpacker hostels, campgrounds and the like as the free camping options are more limited than in the west.

Short term we are rationalising what things we would like to take or send home. Josh is having some trouble with irritated eyes meaning he can't keep his contacts in for long. This needs to be resolved as he cannot ride very easily wearing his glasses.

M - Selling up and moving out

Lately I have been really looking forward to getting away from Calgary, on the move again, and ultimately back to NZ. We have listed all our furniture on Craig's List which is a free classifieds website (you might remember this is how we bought our bikes in San Francisco).

So as you can see we have been reduced to eating breakfast of the floor:


We had a really crappy bed which I hated and we got ripped off buying. The 2nd hand bed market in Calgary is very difficult, even the Salvation Army don't sell them due to 'hygene reasons'. As we only had motorbikes we had to buy a bed from the only person we could find who was willing to deliver, and we paid way too much for something really worn out.

Despite all this I found it a little stressful and upsetting that a man just came and took it away:

To top all this off, Josh has just taken the car to show to someone, and I am half hoping they buy it and half hoping they won't. It looks like we might be able to sell it for more than what we paid which will help cover the parts we had to buy and the effort spent fixing it. We are trying not to ride the bikes around town however, so I am unsure what we are going to use for transport. I will be finishing work very soon if it sells quickly that's for sure!

Sister Megan will hopefully smile nicely at the California DMV on my behalf next week, so once I get my registration paid up and some panniers onto the bikes we are less likely to get hassled by the RCMP. Strictly speaking we ought to have got Alberta plates, but this means having Alberta insurance and an inspection done. It all seemed like too much effort considering they weren't going anywhere for the whole winter.

Anyone want to buy a TV, DVD Player, Computer desk, or Futon Couch?

M - Signs of Spring

I clearly remember autumn in Calgary. It lasted all of two weeks in October, then winter hit hard and has been with us ever since - or is it? Increasingly we have been seeing spring like symptoms:

- The Geese are back, and can be seen everywhere on the ponds and lakes which are...
- Melting. The ice climbing is becoming increasingly sparse and many routes are gone completely. The once blue plastic ice is now something closer to hard...
- Snow. It still falls every now and then, but it is heavy and wet and tends to disappear fairly quickly, sometimes not even lasting past that same...
- Afternoon. I get to see them now because it is still sunny when I get home from work. The change in the length of the day seems to be exaggerated being so far north. The growing length of daylight is very obvious as it changes so rapidly from day to day.

And now the ultimate proof of spring - the City Roads people are going to sweep up all the gravel. The roads are covered in fine gravel, traditionally this is used rather than salt in Alberta to provide traction in the snow, they call it 'Sanding'. These days they put salt in with the gravel, but it only begins to work once the temperature rises above -15 or so. It can stay below that for weeks at a time such as during November when we didn't get above -20 for two weeks. It can however be bright and sunny, causing a small amount of melting on the road surface which then refreezes at night. Thus the roads quickly become skating rinks, hence the need for the gravel. This sanding is also the primary reason every vehicle in Calgary has a cracked windscreen. That and no one has mud flaps, the snow collects on them until it jams the wheel or rips the mudguard off.

Having the gravel removed is particularly relevant to us, making motorcycle riding a safer proposition, as well as the confirmed official belief that spring is certainly upon us.

J - Rock climbing/Tick dodging at Stone Hill, Montana

While it was cold and miserable in Calgary this Easter weekend, we all went down to Montana to do a bit of climbing at Stone Hill. The rock is fantastic and the weather was brilliant as you can see. Being outdoors without a shirt on is quite a novelty for us at the moment. Tentative at first we were fish out of water without our ice tools but after a few hours got back into the swing of things. Eureka, Montana, the nearest town is a great little place with a malt shop and juke boxes that only play country. Beer is $1.75 a jar and pizza a meal for 4.

Me climbing with Grant belaying.

Lachlan climbing a different route on the same wall.

Mereywn and Jess don't seem to recognise me?

Merewyn does her favourite party trick. Wax bomb. A half kilo of superheated wax explodes into the air and bursts into flame. Maybe that will burn some of those damn ticks off. Stupid ticks!

M - What a HUNK!

Asaide from climbing an ultra classic ice line on Saturday, we also made it along to a black tie dinner. Thanks to Jess and Lachlan for inviting us to help raise money for the Alberta College of Art and Design. Someone elses money...

Pics and the story of the ice climbing soon I promise.

J - Coire Dubh Integrale

We are experiencing a very warm chinook that most people are rejoicing in as it is about +15 at the moment when it should really be -10. Unfortunately it is melting all of the harder ice routes and even the moderate ones are pretty soft at the moment.

It was my birthday and with some friends over for some pecan pie we decided to go and do a more alpine style route instead of the short hard ice climbs we have been doing recently. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

You can see our route in the top left photo, up the ice and then up and right towards the low point in the skyline. This post is for those people who tell me to put in more photos.

Other than this our week consisted mostly of work and waiting in line at checkout counters.

M - Mixing it Up

Merewyn and Jess approaching the Bear Spirit Ice and Mixed Crag near Banff

This weekend we went to Bear Spirit, a mixed climbing crag near Banff. Mixed climbing is climbing rock using ice axes and crampons, and then usually finishing onto a hanging icecle or some such.

Harder than it looks, you never know how well your tools are hooked and they sometimes pop off launching you off the climb. Thankfully these routes are usually well bolted a la sport climbing so it is pretty safe. Even so, we were hanging on topropes, popping off all over and getting really pumped forearms. The trick to getting your tools to stay put it to keep a totally steady pressure, and this usually means you are hanging on as tight as you can!

It's fun because it is different, you have enourmous reach with your tools, and it can be very gymnastic using all the overhanging rock climbing type body positions. It is also frustrating because "I should be able to climb that - I have jugs to pull on all the way!"

My idea of what constitutes a huge hold has been totally revised. In other highlights I led my first WI3 route, though it was a shortie (like me)

There are some more pics but they are still on Lachlan's camera, soon I promise.

J - Tri-ice-a-thon

It's another monday night, tired from the weekends climbing we have been fighting to keep our eyes open at work all day. This week it was the Tri-Ice-A-Thon at Nordegg, a group of hostels have banded together to create a very strange ice event involving many odd props, semi-naked ice climbing, hot tubs and lots of shouting.


Here's Merewyn doing a speed climb, complete with party hat, and white chocolate dog strapped to her back.











Swimsuit climbing event, (not Merewyn). Which wasn't a speed event but was done with a fair amount of speed even so :) Wasn't too cold that day, -5 maybe.
















More 'swimsuits'. Notice the rock shoes and chalkbag.












Me top roped on a mixed climb on the second day. (not a movie)







After the weekend was over we had done well, Merewyn won a rope in a rope coiling competition and I won a day with a mountain guide. So we drove home in a snow storm and paid the now customary visit to Tim Hortons coffee and donut fast food joint. The only fast food restaraunt with an employee health plan. It is bit of a mixed bag and it gets better the more you go. It has terrible coffee of course but they will serve it to you in your own cup which is nice. Good sandwiches and other food and a huge array of donuts. They also sell donut centres, these are known as Tim Bits.

Buy 6 or more donuts exempts you from paying GST, it's the law. Strange but true. I bet it makes their taxes really complicated.

Josh