Serendipitous Day

The Grouse Grind has been on my "to do" list for three summers now. Yesterday I finally got my butt to Grouse Mtn. I do the Chief in Squamish quite often, but the Grind is 1km longer and I found it steeper than the Chief. The Chief has a few "breaks", the Grind is just straight up the entire way. It was busy as I heard it would be, but everyones going the same direction so it doesn't seem so bad. People smell nicer on The Grind vs. The Chief. A lot of cologne wearing. The last 1/4 of the climb was busy with mozzies! Sure made you climb that last bit faster-I literally ran into the lodge to escape them! Final time: 55mins. Now I have a time to beat-I'll be back.

The Grind actually became a very small part of my day that I had totally forgot about when I discovered that the top of Grouse has tons going on! I went over to the Grizzly habit, and got there for the breakfast feeding (apples).

Then I headed up the free chairlift towards the wind turbine. Great views of the city. Ziptrecks and paragliders taking off all the time. I slog back down the hill and go to the loggers show. Yup at this point I'm wondering A)"Where the heck am I?" and B) "How did I not know about all this?" So the loggers show was absolutely hilarious. I was laughing out loud the whole time. The tourists were eating it up. So different from the big Squamish show. Then I went to the pub for a beer while I waited for the bird show to start. This beer is the first money I've spent all day. Gotta like that. The bird show had this beautiful owl. We all know how fascinated I am with owls since the owl attacked me, saving me from the bear. (see older blog entry about that one) I start to head to the lodge when I hear a helicopter and there you have it, my top three favorite things: Wind turbines, helicopters, and owls. The gondola (sky ride) trip down was fun! That was a crazy ride. Saw some white wolves from the gondola, yes apparently there are white wolves, so I went to see those guys before heading home! So in total I spent 15$(beer+gondola). Thought I would do the hike and go home, and in the end I was up there for 8 hours. What a pleasant and unexpected day!

Warrior Dash 2011

Everyone knows what a firm believer I am in signs. That's how I ended up running across Costa Rica for 6 days, to many signs led me in that direction. A few months ago I had two friends post the Warrior Dash link on my facebook wall stating that I should do it. Then I was at a trail race and someone handed me a Warrior Dash race flier. Well that's three signs....so I signed up. Tammy said if I did she would, and she did. That Saturday morning I woke up not so excited for today. Had no idea what to expect. I put a little baileys in my extra strong coffee, and decided I should dress up! Most people do dress up for this race. I got my pirate kit on, met Tammy and Jose who put together costumes last minute as well.

WHAT A DAY! It was like Pemberton Fest meets Halloween! 4,500 racers, wave starts of 500 leaving every half hour. Good looking dressed up people everywhere. Very happy we picked the first race wave as we never knew what was next. The Warrior website hinted about certain obstacles been in the race, but they weren't. Surprise! Race started up Blackcomb Mtn. Big climb. Then we proceeded to hurdle walls, crawl under barb wire-REPEAT. Ran down grassy mountain as snow blowers sprayed ice cold water on us. Then crawled through a pitch black tunnel over rocks. Slid down a giant slip n' slide. Laughing all the way-ha ha ha ha. Then horizontal cargo net climb thing, cargo net climb(which was high), balance beams, fire jumping, and the forced mud crawl. Forced as you had to crawl under barbwire, through the mud towards the finish. 37min was my time, 5ish km was the distance. For 50$ we got a t-shirt, finishers medal, furry hat with horns, and a beer. Plus a concert, the atmosphere and a crazy fun obstacle course! Pictures were priceless, we were covered in mud, drinking beer, eating turkey legs, wearing furry horn hats! Hilarious. Costumes were fantastic, mood was amazing! Worst part was the ice cold fire hose spray down to get clean. Torture! In the end I can't wait to do this again next year!