No beavers, plenty of "Damn!"s

**UPDATE. Forgot to mention that the default setting is to only allow GMail users and selected others to post comments. Have fixed that now.**

It seems like a long time since I've posted anything here. Well, it's been a long week of disaster followed by recovery.

I'll start with last weekend. Last Saturday was the first sunny weekend day we have had since our first weekend here. So on friday, I decided to do a wee bit of bike maintenance so we could go riding up the

The objective - See, looks pretty harmless...

trail behind the field centre to Mount Baldy. A simple brake pad replacement, since my front pads were getting quite worn. Really just a case of undoing one bolt, pulling the old ones out, and putting the new ones in. Of course I'm incapable of not trying to make an improvement while I'm at it. So I tried to make the brakes work better by pumping the pistons out a bit. I got a bit distracted and when I looked at the calliper, I had pumped too much and the piston had popped out, followed by all the brake fluid. Damn! Rather annoying. So a quick internet site found a well reviewed bike shop in Cochrane which could rectify the problem. I drove down on Saturday morning and they kindly worked on it at short notice. By 12.30 I was back at the field centre with working front brake. Jeff and I rode off at 1.24pm. Mount Baldy doesn't look too high, and it seems like it's only about 1 lateral kilometre. So 2, maybe 3 hours tops to get there and back. The ride up Baldy pass trail is mostly forestry road, and not that steep. Jeff is still getting his bike legs so he ended up

A little bit higher

pushing a lot while I went ahead. I didn't take my map, which could have been a mistake as I came to a split in the trail that I wasn't expecting. Fortunately for me a couple of hikers were coming the other way and gave directions. One of them clocked the Scotland strip I was wearing and asked why they weren't in the Euro's. I briefly considered telling him that it was something to do with having Spain in our qualifying group, but decided on the more honest answer of “we're terrible”. They were supporting Holland though, so I'm sure there was some empathy! Now pointed in the right direction, the trail narrowed and started heading more steeply up. Fun for coming down later I thought. After a couple of km going up my unused bike legs were showing. So much in fact that Jeff had caught me up, having dumped his bike before the start of the hill and walking. By this time as well, the repair of my front brake was starting to look suspect. Pressure was dropping out of the system and brake power was very low. By the top of the climb it was gone. So that repair lasted 10km going uphill where the front brake was rarely used. This made me rather annoyed that my downhill fun was going to be spoiled. Damn! Downhill with no front brake is not sensible. 

So the top of this bike climb brought us to the ridge that runs to the summit of Baldy. We had already gone up about 450m, which left about another 400m vertical distance to gain. The summit couldn't be far, after all, it looks like the ridge is only a few hundred metres when you see it from the field centre...

The first part of the ridge is downhill, and then uphill for about 200m and is pretty steep. The you reach a

At the cut off to the ridge. That is NOT the summit in the middle!

level bit, after which there is another steep climb for maybe 50m. This looked like the summit. Damn! It wasn't. There was another bit on top which was the summit. Jeff decided not to go on here, as the climb looked a bit sketchy, what with the steep drop on either side. Not to be denied while so close, I scramble up, only to see the top was another 50m along and up. So I shouted to Jeff that I was going to the top and started climbing again. By this time my legs were burning. A combination of higher altitude and not being a climber. I was looking forward to getting to the top and tucking into my Subway Italian BMT that I'd brought for sustenance. I duly reached the top, with dead legs. I got a great view from there, of the 400 or so metres to the actual summit. Damn! It was down and up 50m ish again, and getting rather rocky. Still, the end was in sight and

Is that the top?! No.

Nearly there. Lets get a photo...

I am stubborn, so I thought, I can get there and back in about half an hour and Jeff wont be waiting too long. So off I scrambled, legs more tired than they have been in a long time, and started coming over the rise to the top. I could see a cairn this time so I even cheered as I headed towards it.

Looking back the way we came.

And guess what I saw from

Is that the top!? No.

there? Damn! Another 400m or so of even sketchier looking ridge followed by an almost vertical climb to what surely must be the summit! At this point my legs were really gone, shaky to stand on, and I would have turned back. That is I would have if I hadn't posted on facebook that I was going to go and climb this easy looking hill, and if I didn't know that my sister

There it is, I'm sure of it!

had already climbed it (presumably with much less difficulty than me).

So again, off I went on my summit hunt. I was hoping that Jeff wasn't getting worried and didn't think about calling mountain rescue, and also wasn't still waiting for me. It had taken me about 45 mins to get this far. After another 15 mins I made it to the base of what looked to me like a rock climbers dream. Damn! A nice vertical chunk of rock. I paused to eat my Sub, and considered the sensibility of trying to climb this on shaky legs. Of course I had to do it. I found a route which scaled around and up a bit, leaving just a 5m or so rock climb. Then I heaved myself up it, thankfully getting to rely on my arms for a bit.
As I popped my head over the top, a man was there staring

DAMMIT

quizzically at this guy who had just come up a cliff face dressed in a football top, biking shorts and carrying a helmet. I'm guessing Canadian, because he was very polite and asked me how I was enjoying the hike. He and his hiking friends then proceeded to walk in the direction I came from, but along the nice easy path down that I somehow didn't see on my way across. Ah well, I like rock climbing at 2192 metres.

Umm, are you really meant to go this way?

Objective - Achieved.

This time it actually was the top!
Apart from the facebook boasting and the sibling rivalry, part of the reason this climb was following a more recent tradition I have started when close relatives have died. I like to climb something and toast them when I get to the top. This one was for my dad, and it was nice to know I was doing it somewhere my sister has been too. Unfortunate that I forgot the whisky, but probably apposite! Also, might not have been good to try the return journey on my thoroughly wrecked legs after a dram. I would have done this near Saskatoon somewhere, except that there are certain geological limitations with that! After a quick phone call to Amanda, who got worried when she thought I said I was in the hospital, when what I said was “I'm at the top of a hill”, and a few photos, it was time to head back. It was 5pm by this time, so I was a bit out in my 3 hour estimate! Going back along the ridge was a quite painful experience. Sore knees, burning legs, getting scratched by the obscenely sharp rocks. The downhill parts were worse I think! I had the same false summit issue as well, having forgotten how many times it happened on the way out. But after about two hours of starting on the ridge I got back to my bike. Jeff was kind enough to leave a note scratched on a stone to say he had gone back to the field centre.

Some okay views up here

Nice.

Look, there's where I started, in the centre right.

Downhill on the bike should be nice and quick, but not without a front brake. I went for it as much as I

The way back down from the summit was tricky...

could anyway, getting the back brake on early for turns, which was working okay. Then gradually my front brake started working again, and I got to go fast down some pretty nice single track (not too challenging for the well practiced bikers, so good for me!). The trail that took 2 hours to cycle up took me half an hour to go back down. And I found a nice narrow steep shortcut track that literally led down to 20m from the back of our cabin. A good end to the trip. Two and a half hours longer than I expected, and I haven't been that physically tired for a long time. Although I think a lot of that must have been not being used to the altitude, because I didn't have the normal stiffness and pain the day after hard exercise.

But not as tricky as the way I went up.

I was going to go into this weeks trials and tribulations, but I may leave it till tomorrow, or later tonight. It's raining again which leaves not much to do, so maybe good to spread out the writing!