Who's the bad luck?

For the past 2 weeks, I've sworn it was Jodie. The day she decided to come to Terrace, the snow turned to rain and then to cold clear days so that the skiing was terrible for her whole visit. Then the day she left, 20cm fell with more in the forecast all week.

But, today, on the first day of snow in weeks, I sprained my ankle and likely won't be enjoying this dump....

So the mystery continues: who's the bad luck? Me or Jodie?

Insights from English Literature

From my english course this morning:

It doesn't take a Freudian analyst to see that childbirth and the evacuation of the bowels are intimately connected. Diarrhea, or loss of control over one's bowels, could be seen as Philomena's loss of control over her reproductive system, while constipation could signify her desire, having lost one child, to not let go of another one.

HOLY CRAP (no pun intended)! Are we not looking a little too deep here? I like to think I'm pretty insightful but I would NEVER have drawn that parallel. No, it doesn't take a Freudian, it takes an English major!

All pow'ed out!

Tavis and I were disappointed not to get any skiing in while we were in FSJ and Prince George over the Christmas break. The weather was too cold and the conditions just weren't good enough to entice us to Powder King or the backcountry around Grizzly Den. But our patience paid off. The snow started to fall as we drove back into Terrace on New Year's eve and knowing it was going to be a powder day on the first, we were early to bed (ok, ok, and we just didn't have anything better to do!).

We started off the New Year with a bang - some of the best tree skiing I've ever had in the Shames backcountry. Four long laps left me completely but contentedly exhausted by the end of the day.



Two days later, we were back at the hill and with another 15cm of snow, the skiing was even better! This time I was beyond exhausted by the time we got back to the hill but grinning ear to ear and trying to re-live every turn in my head.

On Sunday, there was TOO MUCH snow in the backcountry so we settled for a day on the hill. I can't say that my legs were disappointed to be riding the lift although the turns weren't quite as rewarding. Still, it was pure powder and more falling from the sky all day!

What an incredible weekend! What an incredible place!

Girls Night Out!

Last night I was treated to my first McDonald girl's night. Courtesy of Tavis, we were off to the spa for manicures and pedicures. The four of us (Tavis' Mom, sister, sister-in-law and I) got totally pampered with hand and foot massages, moisturizers and polishes. Being far more fashion savvy than I am (which is pretty much not at all), Tavis' sister Laura helped me pick my colors and I've now got silver finger nails and very sparkley red toe nails! I love the toes, but my fingers keep catching my eye and are harder to get used to.

Before the spa, I even got a new sweater and earrings and a haircut so I was feeling girlier than ever by the end of the evening.

Like proper girlies, we sipped champagne, wine and port until our supply ran dry (4 bottles later)... A true bonding experience :)

When is a tailwind not your friend?

When you're out for a run at -17 with 50kph arctic outflow winds chasing you down, making it feel like -28 and all that is covering your 'tail' is a thin layer of spandex that, when you pull your tights of to surmise the damage once you get home, you realize has actually frozen to your skin!

BBBRRRRRRRR!

christine's christmas bake-a-thon

the gingerbread was too sticky. when i tried to roll it out to cut out the cute little boy and girl shapes that i was planning, it stuck like glue to the cutting board (sucked up all the flour i had put down and kept sticking)so that even after i had scraped as much off as possible with a spatula, it took me forever to wash all the pasty flour and dough off the cutting board. i think i remember that flour and water make glue - yes, yes, they do!

not wanting to waste all that dough (it still tasted pretty good when i licked the spatula), i heaped it onto a baking sheet, rolled it out flat on there and stuck it in the oven.

now i have to tell you, and this isn't just an excuse for my poor baking, but our oven sucks. the seals around the door are just loose and flapping so the stupid thing is constantly having to adjust it's temperature to make up for the lost heat. the poor seal also means that the back of the over is much hotter than the front and i have to keep rotating the tray if i want things to bake evenely.

anyway, the ginger bread was dry and awful when it came out, but at least it wasn't as messy as before - the whole thing went cleanly into the trash in one toss.

next up were peanut butter cookies. perfect dough. MmmmmMmm! the first batch went in and then i got distracted folding laundry, forgot i had cookies in and burned them. they went into the trash on top of the gingerbread.

so at that point i was about 2 hours into my cookie-a-thon and had no surviving cookies to show for it.

the second batch of pb's worked out well - the only good cookies that i'd make all day.

last up were the ginger snaps (that i made in a hurry to replace the lost gingerbread). now these i know how to bake - they're my favorite and i bake them quite often. but this time, afraid of burning them (and having no cookies to give to corey for christmas! :) ) i actually undercooked them!

it's a good thing that i enjoy my more 'domestic' hobbies cause i'm definitely no good at them!!

The Misadventures of Tavis and Christine: Season 2, Episode 1

The sun in the forecast enticed us into heading to the seven sisters instead of the ski hill on opening weekend. The sisters are almost always shrouded in clouds, only visible on the clearest days. The hike to the base of the glacier was high on our to-do list and the weather was perfect. How could we resist?!

Unfortunately, the snow wasn't perfect, and nor was the trail. We set off up the "road" which we were to follow for three kms before turning onto the trail. It was grown over with brush that we skied over, under and around and that smacked us in the face if we didn't keep our hands up.





With no way to judge distance, we passed the trail head and continued to thrash our way up the road for an hour beyond where we should have turned. Finally too frustrated to continue, we turned back and then found the trailhead...

On the trail, there was even less snow than on the road, and the skis were off several times to climb over large logs or walk through sections of trail where there was no snow at all.



We never did see the sisters (or the sun for that matter as we were in thick trees the whole time). We finally got to a creek crossing that looked sketchy and couldn't make out the trail on the other side and were afraid that by continuing, we'd just be asking to wreck our skis in the shallow snow. Besides, I'd already bailed several times when my skis got tangled in brush and had hurt my elbow and bent a pole. So we turned around and high-tailed it for home.



It was a good workout and worth a few good laughs at ourselves and at each other, but next time, I'll opt for the powder at Shames!

A lesson from Native American mythology

I have to share this exerpt from a cree creation myth that I read for an English course(I think there's a great message in there):

And Grey Fox picked up his axe and cut Coyote in half, from head to asshole. Then he sang a song and brought the halves alive. The better half turned out to be Coyote Woman. "Now you are twice as smart," said Grey Fox. And Coyote Woman looked all around, then turned to Coyote, "Why don't you go catch some mice for dinner? And while you're out there, cut some firewood, too."

a confession

to all the skiers in the northwest: i owe you an appology. it's my fault that the hill had to open late. that the early season powder just wasn't the same as the past few years. that rain has melted a lot of what little there was. it's all my fault and i'm sorry.

it happened on the bike trip. we'd been snowed on a couple times (and riding and camping in snow is cold and hard work) and we were worried that snow might close some of the high passes we had to cross and that we'd be stuck. so i said a prayer. jodie warned me not to, said it might screw up the whole winter, that ullr might get confused or angry if all of a sudden a skier was praying against snow. she knew better. and here's the confession: i did it anyway. i asked ullr to just hold off for a couple weeks or to only snow in the western hemisphere or something. i didn't mean for it to end up this way....

i'm sorry.

oh, and ullr, if you're reading this, please forgive me and send snow! if not for me, then for all of the innocent skiers in terrace!

an odd compliment

i was just finishing my run today near the pool and had stopped to walk the last block. a man, just your average joe, not drunk or crazy looking or anything, sort of got in my way so that i couldn't go past, spread his arms out as if greeting an old friend and said, "well, i have to tell you, your results are looking amazing!" and then continued on his way. standing there in my 5-year-old spandex tights, bandana around my head and sweat dripping into my eyes (feeling anything but amazing), i wondered if he had mistaken me for someone else or if he was just imagining some awful fat "before" picture of me or something. not the best line i've heard, but i guess i'll take it as a compliment.

Christmas tree hunting

We went to find a christmas tree today. Up north along the shore of Kalum Lake to Rosswood where old logging blocks and gravel pits are full of young pines. I wasn't sure about using a pine as a Christmas tree and seeing the scraggly specimens on offer up there didn't do much to convince me. I joked to Tavis that maybe if we tied 4 trees together, we'd get something full enough to call a tree. He didn't laugh. He's actually done that before.

The weather was overcast and wet, but there was enough snow to go over my boots with every step. After 2 fruitless tromps through the bush in different places, we adopted a new strategy. It was kind of like hunting deer out the truck window... We drove along slowly, pointing out possibilities and discussing their merits and limitations.

"No, too short"
"Branches aren't strong enough"
"We can do better than that!"

Ok, so it was mostly me pointing and Tavis objecting. Then he finally saw one that fit the bill. At the top of a un-hikably steep road cut. And on we went, necks craned and eyes peeled.

Finally, there it was. Standing amongst a hundred other trees that looked more or less the same, I don't think I'll ever understand what set that one apart. But I wasn't about to argue over the only tree we'd seen so far that Tavis liked!

Chop 'er down! I did the girlfriendly job of holding brush out of his way while he axed and nodding in understanding when he blamed the axe for being too dull. I did offer to help once, but then realized that maybe that wasn't very girlfriendly after all.

Back in the truck and pleased with our catch, we turned for home. And the gas gauge went "DING!". 25km to empty said the handy little info centre that we didn't bother to look at before leaving town. We were probably 40km from town at that point. We held our breath most of the way home, each with one eye on the road and one on the dwindling kms to empty. They were going down quick and when they finally hit zero, we more or less stopped breathing altogether and waited for the truck to sputter and die. It never did. We made it all the way to the nearest gas station, 13km past empty! We toyed with the idea of filling a jerry can then running it to empty just to see how far it would go, but in the end, filled it up and headed home to decorate the tree.

fighting fire in a rainforest

we spent the past 10 days on a 220ha fire just north of mcbride - in an interior rainforest. it was the most unusual fire that i've ever been on. in some freak weather event, the fire raged downslope through cedar and hemlock (one of the least likely to burn fuel types that exist). our crew worked the bottom edge of the fire, often hiking up to 800m through unburned devil's club up to our eyeballs to get to spot fires that needed to be put out. we didn't use pumps or hose because of how spread out the spots were. instead, we carried around canvas pails so that we could use water from small streams where they existed. if there was no stream within 50m or so, we'd just use dirt to put the fire out, or if the fire was too hot for dirt, we'd buck up whatever was burning and pile it up to let it burn itself out over a day or two and then we'd go back to check on it. we got our fair share of rain on the fire, and spent a good chunk of our evenings picking devil's club thorns out of our skin and scratching mosquito bites (i guess they don't just live in the skeg), but all in all, it was a pretty fun fire, mostly for it's uniqueness.

NOT impressed by the devil's club!


a huge cedar stump. funny story...my squad noticed a sign for an "ancient forest" with 2000 yo cedars on the way down to the fire that we wanted to check out. so on our last morning, we got up extra early to make the drive and hike to see it and still meet everyone in pg on time. turns out the biggest tree in there was no bigger than what our fallers had been cutting (don't worry, they only cut the burning ones) on our fire!

rodeo weekend in the john

...and we did it up in fine style. on saturday night, 18 of us headed to the rodeo dance in our best country digs and danced the night away to the music of a live country band. a lot of the guys are even saying it'll be tough to beat for the best night of the year!