Visitors!

Alex (Tom's sister) & Franco (soon to be bro-in-law) came for a visit at the end of July. We all had an awesome time! I think Alex & Franco walked the entire City and even found a new cupcake shop for Tom. We headed up to Whistler for a day.

Here are some photos.

Skaha rocks

We spent this past Labour day weekend in Penticton climbing in Skaha Provincial Park with friends, Nathan & Katie. We had a great time.

Tom lead his first sport climb on a 5.8 on day 1 and then, finally, on the 3rd and last day, Marie lead her first sport climb on a short 5.6 - Big weekend all around!

Here are some PHOTOS of our trip.

Canada Day Kayaking Trip

Tom & I, along with 5 other friends, went on a 4 day kayaking trip from Quadra Island, up Okisollo Channle, through Surge Narrows and Hole in the Wall, down Calm Channel and then back across Sutil Channel - an 80km adventure!

We had great weather, the first weekend that really felt like summer. Tom made a last minute purchase at WalMart - a kiddy fishing pole kit for $17.95. It turned out to be a great purchase - the boys caught about 6 fish (we ate 2 and put the rest of them back). Somehow we started naming the fish: Roger, Ronald, Rupert, Rodriguez, Richard and finally Renfrew (we ate Richard and Renfrew). We had no idea what kind of fish they were until we were back at the kayak rental office where they had a poster: it was rock fish. We somehow managed to scrounge together a pretty awesome meal with it though, thanks to Karina for the lemon and Libby for the spices! Tom did cooked it perfectly. It tasted like halibut.

Travelling through the narrows was fun but not too tricky, we managed to time the tides perfectly. The crazy paddle day was our last day within our last hour. As we crossed Sutil Channel (from Read Island to Heriot Bay on Quadra Island) the wind was really blowing and the water was pretty rough. We made it across, all wet, tired and looking forward to not using our arms for a long time...!

Enjoy the PICTURES.

Mountains & Ruins

It's been a long time since our last post!

We did a 3 week trip this past May to Bolivia and Peru.

Bolivia: We did a 4 day mountaineering course with 2 summits: Tariha at 5300m and Huyana Potosi at 6088m. We arrived in La Paz after 2 days of traveling and the altitude hit us right away, it definitely defined the theme of our trip. We met our super awesome guide, Gaspar, from Mountain Madness. We spent 2 days in La Paz adjusting to the altitude, then we visited Tiwanaku ruins, Copacabana and Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca. We had a wonderful cultural guide, Eldy, who taught us so much about the history, the culture and the landscape. We ate really well, had some llama and alpaca, chicken, saltenas, humitas and lots of potatoes. Our 4 day mountaineering course started in the Condoriri range where we camped at the base of the glacier to Tariha. Gaspar showed us some many great tips, he was patient, thorough and safe. He knew when to push us but also recognized our limits and respected them. The best guide we've ever had!!! We practiced walking on a glacier, ice anchors, roping systems, ice climbing (in a crevasse), assisted rescue (out of a crevasse) and prusiking (how to get out of a crevasse). The final day we summitted Tariha!
The next part of our trip was to summit Huyana Potosi at 6,088m (19,974ft). It was the toughest thing we did. Day 1 was climbing up to high camp at 5,300m and then Day 2 was up at 3am, breakfast and then our climb up the glacier began at 4am. We crossed the entire glacier in the dark and it took us a total of 7hrs to summit (and of course 2hrs to get down!). The altitude was very challenging and this was the toughest climb we've done because of that. In the end we got to the summit, sat down, recovered a bit and took some photos. Our Bolivia trip was over.

Peru: We spent our trip in the Sacred Valley where we visited Inca ruins. We started in Cusco where we visited the ruins of Saqsaywaman (or "sexy-woman") and Tipon. After Cusco we went to Ollantaytambo, which we thought was the best kept secret in the valley! It's a town of 700 and we stumbled upon the biggest celebration, their patron saints birthday. It was a 6 day fiesta complete with bull fight, partying and massive amounts of drinking. It was a great experience. The ruins in Ollantaytambo are also very impressive. Finally, we were off to Macchu Picchu - this was an adventure! We took a 6hr mini bus to a hydro electric station where we took a tyrolean traverse across the roaring river, hiked for 1hr through the jungle in light and then 2hrs in the dark(!), then at 4am the next morning we got up and hiked the 500m trek from Aguas Calientes (worst town in the world by the way!) to the gate of Machu Picchu. We were about #30 in line out of 100's. We were lucky to get in and see the site sans tourists. It was peaceful and beautiful. We then hiked up Wayna Picchu (they only allow 400 people/day vs. Machu Picchu that has about 2500 people/day).

We had an amazing experience, learned a lot about the culture, the language and history. Highly recommended to all!

Enjoy our PICTURES!

Mountaineering Course

Tom & I signed up for a mountaineering course with Canada West Mountain School in June. When we mentioned this to our California friend, Michaela, whom we met when traveling in Nepal, she jumped at the opportunity to join us! The course was a 4 day intense introduction to mountaineering basics.

Here are some PICTURES from our course.

Wedmount Lake and Mt. Cook

We went on our first climb and weekend camping trip May 23-24th with our friends Libby & Bill. It was a success but with A LOT of work!

On Saturday morning, around 12pm, we started climbing up to Wedmount lake. Note - this climb has been given the name: The Stairway of Hell...! It was a grueling and steep hike up to the lake. We arrived at the camp site at 6:30pm, a 6.5hr hike.

On Sunday morning we left camp for Mt. Weirt at 7:30am. We attempted to climb it but the snow and the conditions were just not on our side; there were some obvious avalanche zones which we felt would be problematic on our return. We turned around and set our sites on Mt. Cook instead. We summitted that mountain successfully but with a lot of work. There was a lot of snow on the way up so we were post holing most of the way. The good thing about the snow though, is that on the way down - you can slide down!

Check out our PICTURES - Enjoy!

Spring is in the air

Here are a few pictures of spring time in Vancouver. Enjoy!