Look mom, I joined a gang!

I got forced to miss Festivus in Whistler last weekend. Bummer, I know.

Instead, I got dragged up to Tofino (Canadian surfer's paradise) for the weekend. I had to be there for class on Monday and Tuesday, so my surfer friend Logan picked me up in his VW camper van and we hit the road. I'm not a surfer and only really like to be cold when I'm in my ski gear, so I stayed on dry land and shot for five days straight. It was fun. Tofino is cool. The swell was virtually nonexistant and I sadly don't have a 600mm telephoto lens:

Logan... action sucks but the colors are nice.


In our camping spot in Bella Pacifica Campground, we couldn't help but notice the amazing tunes going down at the camp just across from ours. We could hear a plethora of instruments and a song about Silence of the Lambs. Intrigued, and a bit creeped out, we headed across to introduce ourselves to these guys (and their friends.)

Eric and Mark. Members of Deathpedal the bicycle gang. Three nights of uproarious campfireage ensued.



Logan making the best of a bad situation



... and finally in class on Tuesday morning I had to shoot some tide pools at rosie bay. It was interesting I guess.

Best day of my life. Basically.

So today I woke up at the leisurely hour of 9:30am. I peered outside of the Batcave and saw some absolutely disgusting weather outside. Batman, however, was somewhat optimistic about the snow report. He told me there were 7cms of fresh waiting up there to be skied. I saw rain. I dawdled. I missed out on some decent turns first thing in the morning, I think.

Batman and I headed up Blackcomb and ran into Jenn and Hojo on lap 1. I skied Diamond while the others had a delightful time skiing down Ruby. We lapped it again, this time Jenn and I skied one of our favorite chutes into Diamond. It was delicious, kinda like Diamond Shreddies probably are.

Unfortunately on the ski out Jenn hit a gap to flat (or something,) tweaked her back, and they had to head down. By that time, however, Batman and I had met up with the littlest Treadways and the owner of Biglines.com so we had a fantastic shred posse for the rest of the afternoon. Tessa and I got some tasty turns in Secret Chute and Purple Haze, and then it was time for lunch.

I enjoyed a yummy cod fajita. Cod, odd, I know. Next we headed up to catch the Horstman t-bar. All this time it was puking. Magically the clouds parted right as we arrived at the top, so we all headed over to Chainsaw Ridge to see what was waiting for us. There was maybe one track in the entire bowl. Tim pulled out his video camera and we dropped in- the snow was perfection. Since we couldn't go into the high alpine anymore, the day was finished off with some cafe cliffs to Jersey Cream lift line laps!

Erica and I went for sushi at the new restaurant at the Blackcomb base, and it was AWESOME. Then, all that blathering above is leading to this... we had a very quick photo shoot outside her house, cause that's what the cool kids do on Friday nights.

Springtime at Lake Lousy.

Last week I headed home to AB for the 2009 Lake Louise Big Mountain Challenge. I picked a line where I could charge all my drops but alas, on drop #2 there was a sizable dent in the snow I was planning to land in and it chucked me onto my hip. I carried on my merry way but the little hiccup in my run was enough to knock me out of qualifiers since the other girls skied more cautiously (a good idea since the conditions weren't very desirable.)

I was stoked though, because it meant I got to shoot photos the rest of the time!

Slideshow of my images:


Lake Louise Big Mountain Challenge 2009 from Amy McDermid on Vimeo.

Enjoy. The song is 'Walking on a Dream' by Empire of the Sun.

First, survive. Next, take people on an adventure.

This coming July, I will be going on a 13 day adventure from Calgary down to SE Oregon to kayak the Owyhee River. The trip is organized by Mikey and Bonnie Lang, founders of Survive and Thrive Adventures Inc. Mikey has just finished treatment for Hodgkin's stage 3 Lymphoma, which manifested itself as a grapefruit-sized tumor in the middle of his chest. Interestingly enough, it was when a doctor asked Mikey if he was feeling itchy, that cancer became a possible diagnosis for the asthma-like symptoms he was suffering from.

Mikey and Bonnie are really positive and optimistic people, and they want to expose the struggles of young adults with cancer, so they are taking 7 other young adult cancer survivors kayaking for the first time. The challenge of kayaking in whitewater needs to be faced in the same way that cancer should be: with optimism and courage.

I'm really excited to photograph this journey, and just today I got a sweet new pelican case to keep my camera gear dry while kayaking down the river. I met up with Mikey and Bonnie today to take some photos, here they are:

Gnomely.

Done the project, uploaded it on youtube... and it looks like garbage. The photos are now not in time with the music... but you'll get the idea, nonetheless.

Enjoy:



Many thanks to the gnome in my kitchen for being such a good sport. He's in a better place now.