Spring Season: Skiing, Climbing, and Ultimate

All the Updates

I haven't had any big interesting adventures lately, so I haven't felt inspired to write anything. Here's a roundup of all the mini adventures I've had since February.

Skied DOA. This is a beautiful couloir on Blackcomb near the 7th Heaven lift. It sadly does not stand for "Dead on Arrival" but "Down, Over, and Around". This is incredibly lame and I would like to lodge a formal appeal. The approach with Gab's fit friends was much worse than the actual couloir.

Skied Chief Pascal. This was my second expedition to Chief Pascal and I somehow managed to get equally lost this time.

Skied a bunch of drops. There were two amazing snow weekends in March and I destroyed my body on both weekends by wiping out catastrophically. Picture Gandalf watching Denethor on fire running off the end of that plinth in Minas Tirith and apply that to my ski season.

Climbed Star Chek. I forgot how to top belay on a multipitch and almost killed Gabs. Oops! This is a just punishment, though, because he didn't get the aesthetic photo of me sending the first pitch for instagram.

Climbed a bunch in general. I think I've climbed more in the past month than the entire year last year. Repeated some trusty 5.9s and 5.10a in Murrin and Area 44.

Hiked the Chief (with my out of town friends). My favourite coworker came to visit Vancouver and we biked the Seawall and hiked the Chief. This rates the special mention because it was so much fun.

Got my motorcycle L. I literally barely passed the test (why were there so many questions about passengers when you're not even allowed to have passengers with the 6L license??) but now I have it. Watch out Vancouver!

Toe Updates

I've decided to go for the surgery to fix my toe since I can't run anymore and apparently my toe joint is necrotic (gross). I initially wanted to wait and see what would happen, but there's been no improvement over the past six months and I was starting to feel insane jealousy watching joggers on the seawall, which is no way to live. Actually getting a date for the consult and subsequent surgery is more difficult and I'm still waiting to hear back from the foot clinic. So no ultimate for me this year.

Vikes at Regionals

One of the many delightful things this year has been connecting with the current iteration of the University of Victoria's women's ultimate team, the Vikes (formerly known as the UVixens; in retrospect, someone should have really stopped us from using that name). I've previously played with both the coaches and they invited me to come out to some training camps and scrimmages with the team over the year.

When they invited me to come watch regionals I immediately jettisoned all my morals and qualms about going to the states and trotted down to Burlington to join them. It was a sunny weekend on the familiar Skagit River Valley park fields near the chicken processing plant and the railway. There were five tickets to nationals up for grabs, and six teams with a fighting chance to get there.

On Sunday the Vikes came back from being down at half to break twice to punch their ticket for nationals. Can I just say it was fucking awesome. The current roster is so talented. It was incredible to see their fortitude and focus as they came back from the deficit to win going away after such a tough weekend; to see so many solid fundamentals and highlight reel plays; and then to see the love and appreciation and care they have for each other afterwards when they came together as a team.

I had a tough fourth year on the team when I played and it always felt like a bit of a dangling thread, that this massively important part of my life just got snipped off when I left Victoria. I'm going to continue my insufferable analogy since this is my insufferable blog, but getting to connect with the current players on the team and the coaches and see what they've built and the culture that they've been building and the incredible results that they've achieved (this is their third year qualifying for nationals in a row) -- it's been this really unexpected blessing, like those loose threads of mine are getting tucked back into the fabric that makes up the team. I love watching them play and feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to support them.

Nationals start on the 23rd and hopefully by then I'll have some more interesting adventures to share!