dreaming of skiing

I know I'm a few days early with my new year's resolution, but here it is. My goal for the next year (yup, only one and it should be an easy one to stick to) is to take every possible opportunity to get outside. Skiing, hiking, climbing, biking - it doesn't matter what it is as long as I'm outside.

But for now, I'm shopping for ski touring gear and dreaming of skiing. Here's this year's skiing wish list:

Mount Reesor, North eastern BC

The Chic Chocs, Northern Quebec

The volcanoes in Mount Edziza recreation area, Northwestern BC

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Ahh. Christmas eve. This is the first year in 6 that I've been at home with my family for Christmas. It's wonderful- so much food, a real christmas tree (heavy with decorations), visiting neighbors and family... This is what Christmas is all about!

Merry Night Before Christmas!

good thing i didn't know about this while i was in school!

If I had to do it all over again - spending countless hours procrastinating in the McGill geography library - I'd play sudoku. Every day. All day. It's that good!

Check it out: www.websudoku.com

But don't blame me for any failed exams or term papers :)

oh the joys of a weather-dependent income

All summer, I wait and hope for heat and I get cold, rainy weather. All winter I wait for freezing cold temperatures and I get balmy weather that would be much more appreciated during fire season than snow-making season.

If I were anywhere else, doing anything else, I'd be ecstatic that it's only -3 instead of -30. But now that my bank account depends on the cold....well, don't hate me for this, but "let the mercury drop!"

We've been on standby for the last 5 nights, driving out to our work site at 2 am to check the temperature in case it's cold enough to blow snow. So far, no such luck, though we have been fortunate enough to see lots of wildlife (fox, coyote, lynx, and the biggest rat I've ever seen) and a spectacular display of northern lights. So it's not all bad, but I'd still really like to get back to work already!

blowing snow

Well, I think I've finally got the hang of this snowmaking thing, though it's definitely not the sit-in-the-truck-and-read-or-knit job that I expected. And for the better, really, because I would have gotten bored pretty quick had that turned out to be true. Quite to the contrary, Zeman and I have found ourselves running around almost constantly during our 16-18 hour shifts of snowblowing. The guns freeze up, the pumps die, the compressor needs more fuel, a bulldozer wants to cross the unfinished bridge...... and all these little problems are much harder to deal with at -30. At least that's as cold as it's been so far, but I'm expecting worse to come.

Our first couple bridges were tiny and we blew them in less than one shift with lots of help from my dad, who was training us. Our third bridge was also small and was the first one that we did more or less on our own. Problem after problem left us running around the whole time and we ended up with what should really get an award for the worst snow bridge ever made.

But dad must have figured that that bridge was enough of a lesson in how not to build a snow bridge that we should now know what we are doing. So, when we arrived at the shore of the Kantah river ( a 80 foot crossing with 12 foot banks on either side [= a very large snow bridge]) he explained where the bridge needed to go and left us to our own devices. Oh, and he told us that although this bridge normally takes four days of around-the-clock blowing to finish, the dozers wanted to cross it the next day at 2 pm. Yikes. The next day at 10 am, Robbie and I were panic-stricken. We had never even seen a properly-built snowbridge and so had no idea what it was supposed to look like before the bull-dozers flattened it out. So I called dad for some confimation:

"Hi dad. It's Chris. Um, I'm a little nervous about those cats trying to cross this thing today. What should the bridge look like when we're done blowing it?"

"Well, it sould be 30 feet wide and you should be able to drive your truck across. Could you drive across?"

"Um. I could...um...well, I might be able to ice climb up it..."

"Oh shit"

"Oh shit"

But thanks to the very understanding and talented dozer operators, we were able to turn our two monsterous mounds of ice and snow into a decent-looking bridge that we actually could drive our truck across. Phew. And now I really do think that we've got it figured out. Now, if only this stupid chinook would end so that the temperature would drop again so we could get back to work.

put me in coach

16 hour over-night shifts
40 degrees below zero
3 pumps
3 snow guns
500 kilometers from town
1 crazy red-headed partner

sign me up! i'll be back at christmas!

i take it back! make it stop!

wow. i can't even put into words how hectic it is getting all of the crews ready to go to work. my dad had an expression for it: "i'm as busy as a one-handed paper-hanger." but i guess that you have to have hung wall paper at some point to really appreciate that one. i've got nothing. now i'm really looking forward to being out at camp because then at least i only have to worry about 2 of us and not 22.

whaaaa! poor me :(

I'm bored. Oh so very bored. And oh so very broke. And it's oh so very dark and cold up here in FSJ. So boring and cold and dark that I don't really have anything to blog about.

But things are starting to look up: the temperature has been dropping steadily (never thought that would be something to excite me!) and some crews have already gone out so it's only a matter of time. And then at least I'll be getting paid for my bordom.

oh, those rednecks

I'm definitely feeling some culture shock. Two nights ago, I was wining and dining at L'Academie and watching Sarah Harmer in concert at the Lion D'or downtown and today I was learning how to stay safe from H2S gas and rescue fallen workers in the oil fields with a class-room full of diesel-drivin', tobacco-chewin', gun-shootin' rednecks.

Try as I may not to be judgemental, it's hard to ignore the twenty-something guy in a plaid shirt and cowboy boots with a big wad of chew in his mouth when he ends up with the only black Annie doll to practice CPR on say "Oh, no. I've got African Annie. This one's got AIDS. I better use two face shields."

WTF!?!?! Did that guy really just say that? If we were in Montreal, he'd get beaten!

But they weren't all bad. I had lunch with a 65 year-old man that had spent his whole life doing labour work (and was still hard at it), who looked as rough as they come in an old, oil-stained mack jacket and torn jeans. He had spent 3 years in Kazakhstan working in the oil industry and told me all about how he had learned russian (though many foreigners didn't) so that he could shop at the local markets and travelled all over the country on his time off. He said that now he has a "little lady" in Nakusp and thinks he'll save enough this winter to go down there and "play hippy for a little while."

I'm always fascinated by the different view people have of the world up here, but I've never seen such extremes in the same day! Someone should really do an anthropological study on the redneck worldview. I'd read it! But for now I'll just sit back and gawk and think about how crazy my life is that I can go back and forth between both worlds.

My brother really summed up the way it feels to come back to FSJ after spending so much time somewhere else. He said, "I'm the biggest redneck in Whistler and then when I come home, I'm the biggest tree-hugger in Fort St. John".

it's 8 am and still pitch black. wonder when the sun comes up.

I made it to FSJ. 5 hours late and without any luggage, but I'm here. And off to a course with 4.5 hours sleep. More news once I'm a little more coherent.

'tis (almost) the season

Since Rob and I won't be together for the holidays (for the first time since we've been dating - sniff!) we decided to celebrate early while I'm still in Montreal. So last night we feasted on turkey dinner (ok, it was really roast chicken), potatoes, veggies, gravy (yup, from a can), cranberry sauce, cake (oh, can i even admit it? it was mccain's deep and delicious!) and white wine, then exchanged gifts. Rob's rockin' out right now on his new mp3 player and I'm digging through my yarn box to figure out the first thing that I'll knit with my new denise kit (the most incredible set of all-you'll-ever-need knitting needles that you can get). Merry early Christmas!

i should have been packing, but how could i resist?

Here's today's creation - a wonderfully warm 100% wool toque, knit with super-chunky yarn on the biggest needles I've ever used. It only took an hour and a half!

well butter my butt and call me a biscuit!

I just read that expression for the first time a couple days ago and I don't really know what it means, but it seemed like the author was using it to express happiness so I thought I'd try it out.
Today I found heaven. It's at 2270 Mont Royal. It's the most incredibly wonderfully delectable knitting store that you could ever possibly imagine. You choose the kind of yarn, the weight and the color combo and they spin it for you right there. And it's cheaper than walmart yarn!

I bought two spools (1 pure wool and one wool/acrylic blend) and 2 bags of odds and ends for a grand total of $15. I actually thought that he had the total wrong at first. I'm so excited about it that I think I might go back tomorrow and stock up even more for the long months of boring work in the John.

chris and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Maybe I just should have stayed in bed this morning.

I was off bright and early on my bike to pick up a parcel at UPS way out in industrial-ville. I was cruising along the Lachine Canal, enjoying the warm weather after yesterday's snow. I made it about 6km from home before I got a flat tire. Hmph. No metro nearby. Hmph. So I bitterly walked home, without the package that I set out to get. It took 2 hours. At least I got some excersize, I suppose.

Home and bitter about my failed morning mission, I put some veggie soup on the stove to warm up and ran across the street to get some pitas, locking myself out of the apartment. Big hmph. I called Rob at school and he raced home to let me in to a smoke-filled apartment where my veggie soup was burnt to a crisp in the bottom of the pot.

After that, there really wasn't much I could do but put on my PJ's and call it a day. It's just not worth the risk of going outside again when my luck's this bad.

a new blog

So I obviously haven't figured out how to line up pictures and text yet, but it'll come. For now, I'm just happy to have a new home for my blog. Big boo to Myblogsite for kicking me out! Anyway, welcome to my new blog, which will be very much the same as my old blog, but hopefully will last a little longer!

Climb faster, I hear banjo music!

Well, we never got to hear a local tell Rob that he had purdy lips, but we heard more than enough hillbilly-speak to keep us entertained while we were climbing. "Git 'r dun" was the motto of the trip and we had a very friendly gas-station attendant ask if we wuz from real far away when she heard our accents. My favorite moment was in Charlie's pub, Fayetteville's only drinking establishment, when Charlie himself handed us 2 Buds each for $2 and said, "drink easy, boys - i ain't countin".

And the climbing was pretty good, too, even though there were more beers drunk on the trip than climbs climbed.

First stop: the Gunks near New Paltz, New York.











This is me getting ready for my first trad climb ever. Yikes. Actually, I didn't really get scared until I was about half way up, then I got really scared. But the different thing about trad climbing is that once you start up a climb, there's no turning back unless you want to leave a $100 piece of gear on the cliff. Or worse yet, ask a guy to finish the climb for you. So up I went.













Here's Rob leading the second pitch on Easy O. It's a Gunks 5.2 and a good example of how CRAZY the Gunks grading system is. Anywhere else in the world, this would be a 5.6 and an exciting one at that.















Hardcores that we are (tee-hee), we always found ourselves rapping down from our last climb in the dark. Though we balanced our hardcore evening climbing with very softcore mornings, waking up at 9:00 and moseying to the cliff sometime around 11:00.

Next stop: New River Gorge near Fayetteville, West Virginia

Home of the Western Hemisphere's largest arch bridge

Trying out a chimney climb at NRG. Being in a chimney is like climbing in 3D because you use holds on both/all the walls, not just the one in front of you. Very fun.

Oliver checks out some of the cool features in the rock at New River Gorge.

Last stop: Senenca Rocks in Seneca Rocks, West Viriginia.

Scared spitless at the crumbly top of Seneca Rocks. Just as I was nervously making my way back down from my little perch on the top, a 50 year-old man with a bandana around his neck and a chalk-bag around his waist wandered past us, having just finished a free-solo (ie. no ropes) of the moutain. On a much harder route than we just finished. Humbling.