This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Backtrack

Posted by ehren

After breakfast Sean and I drove to the metal shop to buy flat stock to complete the wheel mount, and stopped at McDonalds to bring back breakfast (a moment of weakness). I don't want to make rash generalizations here, but I'm fairly certain that everybody who works in steel yards is crazy. Our man today had a Bobcat Goldthwait aire about him and in the middle of dropping the giant bandsaw onto our 9" piece of flat stock (for the second time, owing to his miscalculation) he growled "Gotta god DAMN measure it NEXT TIME, GORD!" I should've used the time today and yesterday to patch the leak in our power steering pump, but it's just more fun to solve other people's problems.

Today's climbing went much better, but I'm trying not to let that in the way of being crabby about how badly it went a few days ago. Arin and Sam (the guy with the other bus (and the only other member of the 'dudes named Aaron with weird spelling' club), and the guy answering Sean's bulletin board note, respectively) came with us to the rocks (Burgers & Fries, an in-town bluff overlooking McDonalds) and brought an immense amount of gear. Soon our shared ropes were all over the place, and everyone found all the climbing they could stand. Everybody (even ME!) finished a legitimate 5.7 and 5.9, and Miro, Rana, and I were able to complete the 5.10c with a little "belay assist" (Sean heaving on the rope to get us through the nasty part). Halfway up the 5.9 I turned around to tell everybody "Just in case anyone was wondering I RULE" and then I slipped and used my forehead as a hold until I could get my hands back in the crack.

In typical northwest fashion, there was rain, then sun, then sun AND rain, but eventually it broke into a truly beautiful early summer's day. I made it a point to get sunburned (Mom, this is the part you're supposed to worry about for this week), and finally around 6 everybody started showing signs of flagging energy and lack of ambition concerning the remaining unclimbed routes. I read through Sam's guidebook of Squamish rockclimbing looking for the little anecdotes in the margin about "Highest survived fall" or "Trees not to tie your rope to." Apparently one dramatic rescue involved a hiker who got lost and started climbing the main face of the Chief hoping to find the trail again. The author survived a hundred foot fall onto a thin ledge halfway up the cliff when a falling tree branch severed both of his ropes, and one of his friends ran out of rope while self-rappelling and tumbled a few hundred feet to the bottom and walked away twice. Statistically, rock climbing is safer than driving a car, but there's no such thing as a "fender bender."

In the evening we drove into town to Tim Horton's (Canada's Double-D) to use their electricity and buy dinner. We transferred our pictures onto one another's computers, Sean stocked up on my music collection for the long drives ahead, and then we stared at each other for a while because we were tired and didn't have anything to say.

In the morning Sean and Rana woke up earliest to begin packing Sean's car to the gills. Only with precise planning and persistence will everything fit (and also allow them to sleep in the car), and knowing Sean, they're still working on it as I sit here in North Vancouver. On our European cycling trip Sean was notorious for taking a half hour to put on his shoes and helmet.

The drive back to Vancouver was smooth, except for several construction delays. Now that we have a taste of the Canadian wilds it's almost a downer to head back to a metropolis, but it's my understanding that Vancouver is not to be missed.

We found the downtown area in North Vancouver, then looked up the WalMart location, and I think as of now I've spent 3 hours looking for a solid source of internet. My trusty R40 refused to connect to the one Miro found, and I drove the bus around for a half hour (after our 2 hours of parking expired) looking for a residential connection. I found several, but as soon as I shut the bus off they faltered and went away. It's a gray day, my body is sore, and I didn't want to spend 3 hours looking for WiFi. I considered abandoning the bus in North Vancouver to spend the night in a hostel near downtown (there is such a thing as Bus Insanity and I feel it coming on, but on my walk to ScotiaBank (Bank of America's Canadian arm, no transaction fees) I found this place. I can use the web but the latency is so horrendous even PING times out 50% of the packets. Thus, no sweet new pictures.

Grumble.