Apr 2, 2013

SUNNY SPRING LONG WEEKEND: PNW= do any outdoor sport your heart desires: good Molokai cross training days

About to hit some groomers for the last stretch of in bound skiing to the bottom of Whistler: happy couple!



WOW! What a weekend... First off I always assumed everyone got 4 days.... but have since discovered and learned that that is not the case. Andrew has to work on Monday and so do many other people....hmmm

There were a couple of different friends doing or not doing different things.... None really suited our situation... Andrew had to work on Monday and I really wanted to beable to get some SUP training in.... SO, we were on our own to cause some chaos and explore this wonderful little piece of sunny paradise...

Thursday night it happened to be a good friend's birthday so we joined him on a mtn bike ride and drinks and bbq aftewards.... we socialized a little later than usual which caused us to have a lazy Friday morning... Luckily that was in our plans... we eventually got ourselves packed and headed out towards Pemberton for some mtn biking... It is not that often that so many trails are ready to ride in March.... So we were pumped! We rode Happy trail and then trails around Mosquito Lake some that I remember the names of are radiotower, cream puff,.... FUN!  We also ran into a crowd of Steed Cycles rippin it up...
I think mtn biking is great crosstraining for MOLOKAI.... long, hard, pretty full body fun workout.... especially trying to keep up with Andrew (which I can't... just on the easier climbs...maybe)....

Andrew getting some air with Mt Currie in the background


We camped at the Owl Creek Forest Recreation Area... no people, no money, and beautiful! We slept in the Blue Elephant, which again proved to be comfy and easy! We are loving our Element!

Saturday morning we had to wake up nice and early to make some breaky, coffee and get backcountry tickets in Whistler... We were planning to ski the Spearhead Traverse in a day...  I had never done this traverse, which is  classic in this area.. Andrew did it about 5 years ago... so was a little fuzzy on the exact route sometimes... The cool thing is you can get a backcountry ticket and ride the lifts up to the glacier... the pooey thing about all that: it is still expensive and you have to wait for the lifts to open....

Andrew skinning up...


I didnt really check when we started to ski but I am guessing somewhere around 9:45/10am.... We started to make our way around and UP... from the start Andrew's memory was a little wonky and we managed to take a slightly longer and different route, which involved an interesting boot pack BUT all was good.... we eventually came back onto the regular route and then got hit with our first real tough climb... the sun, the length, kind of everything about it was tough.... at the top we gathered ourselves again, had some food, water, and got each other re-motivated... we still had a long way to go,...luckily, the sun was shining, and it was GORGEOUS up there.... We kept moving, we could see a group of two ahead of us and until a certain point a group of two behind us but we were fairly spaced out and it really wasn't as busy as we thought it might be.... actually the whole way round we only ran into one group of 4 going down as we were going up.... kind of amazing for a sunny long weekend...
As the day was getting hotter moving along the snow was getting softer and softer... we skied over an old crown slide.... and had at least one more brutal sunny climb.... on the whole we were feeling good, especially after our redbull (our secret weapon on these long days of skiing, paddling, mtn biking, etc)... We managed to catch the group in front of us.... but they headed out Singing Pass.... we however went over the musical bumps.... The Oboe climb always seems to be longer than it should... but we made it, had our last devouring of food and then headed over to Flute and back n bounds in Whistler.... The icing on the cake for this one was...... we managed to score free (well I guess technically not free as we paid for the backcountry lift) FRESH groomers ALL the way down to village bottom... it was pretty amazing actually. We were loving life for a bit there....We celebrated with  Splitz burger, fries, and coke.... We were nowhere near the new record of 3 hours something... but luckily we weren't trying for it:)... What a great way to test my mental, and endurance skills.... it was about a 9 hour day of ski touring.... I have to say after a week of paddling in Maui my legs were on fire....
Andrew skiing a glacier: Spearhead

bootpack: spearhead



We managed to make it to a friend's house in Squamish for the night, enjoyed good company and then crashed hard...

Sunset slackline

Sunset Vancouver slackline


The legs were sore the next day but we managed to get out for a ride in Squamish... Credit Line area...
Somehow managed to slackline that evening with the setting sun... Out for a SUP and back to SUP specific training....
a little solo training in the SUN

yeah self shot!


A wonderful long weekend composed of mtn biking, ski touring, slacklining, and SUPin.... Total Pacific Northwest Love right now.... Can it be sunny spring forever?!? And truly good motivation for training.... MOLOKAI you are always on my mind....

live, love, laugh,...DREAM!
lina

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