Six Photos For Now

It’s been crazy busy since my last blog post. I had an insanely jam packed summer of guiding and exploring, left the Yukon in September to do more adventuring, and now about to hop on a plane for SE Asia for even more adventures.

I miss this blog, and I miss writing fun little stories. So, in the interim, while I think about what I’ll write about when I get home in January, here’s 6 photos from the summer that I really like. No context, no stories, just some snapshots of my life. I hope you like them.

Dogs for Emma Live - June 8t

A show! A new show! Can you believe it?!! Yahoo!

Thursday June 8th at the Heart of Riverdale in Whitehorse, I’ll be performing the music from my EP “Dogs for Emma” with an amazing band! With Andy Slade on keyboards and synthesizers, Olivier de Colombel on saxophones, Ben McGrath on drums and special guest Rob Dickson on guitar and effects, we’re going to be bending and mashing as many genres of music as possible while playing reimagined songs from my EP along with a few other favourites. This band is really special because I don’t we’re every going to play together again. Olivier #2 is moving to the east coast and I’m going on an indefinite performance sabbatical after this concert.

Limited tickets are available on my bandcamp page. Hope to see you there!

A Ski Story

Bishop to F4.

I moved my chess piece delicately. One more move and I’d have Étienne’s king in checkmate. My plan was flawless.

Before I had a chance to catch my thoughts, Étienne’s rook slammed down taking my queen and almost knocking the chess board over, perched precariously on top of our wobbly cooler now turned table.

“Check!”

“God Damn it Étienne!!! My queen!!!!” I still had lots of pieces left, but it was only a matter of time before I lost this game…again.

It was day six of our ski trip and Étienne and I were huddled in my homemade pyramid shelter manically playing chess to pass the time. We were skiing as much as possible during the day before playing endless rounds of chess at night, shivering in the cold drinking cheap beer. It was the middle of the week and the entire ski hill seemed devoid of any humans. Camping on the slushy, icy ground of the empty parking lot of Shames Mountain outside of Terrace BC, we basked in the cold quiet of the evenings listening to the hooting of a nearby owl and the distant hum of a generator somewhere on the hill.

I started skiing in earnest 4 years ago after moving to the Yukon. I had tried skiing a few times before, but a mix of injury, money and location always prevented me from diving deep into the sport. Now in Whitehorse, there seemed to be the perfect combination for a newbie skier: a small but cheap hill 10 minutes away from town and endless backcountry terrain a few hours away. The pure fun of racing down a hill mixed with the freedom and natural beauty of the backcountry was addicting and it didn’t take much time before I was hooked.

Skiing wasn’t without its challenges though. Both my feet are filled with screws, metal plates and bone transplants (the result of a degenerative neuromuscular disease) and my feet have neither the circulation, flexibility or shape to make ski boots anything but torturous. In the cold days of winter, with special liners and heated socks, my feet are either freezing cold, or reheating in screaming agony. When the weather gets nicer in the spring, my toes will swell until I’m nauseous with pain and I have to take my boots off.

Weird body issues aside, skiing is really damn hard.  Nothing is more frustrating than seeing all your friends rip down a chute yipping and hollering in delight, while you have to labour and grunt your way down, flailing head first into the snow every other turn. By the way, trying to get back up after falling down a steep slope, in powder with giant sticks attached to your feet has to be one of the hardest, most physically demanding tasks out there.

Regardless of these hurdles, I still love this sport and after six days of skiing with Étienne, I felt like I had made some breakthroughs. My kick turns on the way up were becoming more stable, the jump turns on the way down more fluid, and my confidence a little more steady. Étienne, an incredible skier and recently certified ski guide, had given me a ton of helpful coaching and it seemed like it was paying off. We had to leave the next day to start the 16 hour drive back to Whitehorse but maybe, just maybe we could sneak in another ski before we left. Étienne had spotted two steep couloirs during the previous day’s excursion and was keen to ski them. The thought of going down something that vertical terrified me, but if Étienne said I could do it, I wanted to try.

We got up before the sun had crested above the mountains and hastily made breakfast in the brisk morning air. Cramming our feet into cold boots and shouldering our 30lb touring packs, we dashed off towards the alpine, gaining 500m in less than an hour. As we reached the narrow ridgeline that led to our objective, the sun came out and painted the mountains around us in brilliant gold underneath a deep blue ski.

In what felt like no time, we were standing above our first couloir. Narrowly nestled between two steep rock walls, the chute disappeared below me underneath its own progressively steepening curve. Pawing good, untracked snow, Étienne grinned from ear to ear at our line. I on the other hand couldn’t stop my legs from shaking, fear engulfing my thoughts.

Étienne launched down the couloir, effortlessly floating down the steep line while releasing waves of snow sluff which each turn. Tucking in safely behind a rocky outcrop, Étienne hollered up that it was my turn and reminded me to have some fun. I took a deep breath, dropped into the chute and tried not to crash into the rocks on either side of me. It wasn’t pretty, but I made it down without getting hurt and actually had a bit of fun.

We powered through the rest of the morning, skiing another couloir further down, power skinning back up to the ridge and making it back to the car by 1pm. Wolfing down a greasy burger and poutine lunch, I couldn’t help but feel pretty darn proud of myself. I’ve been dreaming of being in the mountains on skis and watching those youtube clips of skiers sending big lines has always inspired me to get out there. I don’t ever aspire to send some giant, mega steep mountain face doing backflips off of cliffs, but I do want to travel through the mountains in all seasons and skiing has been the missing piece for me. After this trip, I think I’m a little closer to filling that gap.

Chess wise, that’s another story…