Rolling in the Deep

Like an amoeba, the bike gang multiplied on Sunday. We had nine eager folks, all dudes except for me, loading the 9:40am ferry over to the Sunshine Coast. Riding from the terminal up an impossibly long hill, we finally arrived at Sprockids forest to enjoy the flowy trails that had recently been ridden by participants in the BC Bike Race.

Despite the weather forecast saying temps wouldn't break into the double digits on Sunday, Mother Nature proved us wrong and we climbed forever through a muggy 20C forest.

I hauled my camera for all 40kms of riding but wrangling a group of 9 for photos is kind of like herding cats. Here are some b-roll shots of what I did get:











And one for good luck, my man Ryan took this one of me!

Good Decisions

GPS is the best thing to happen to mankind since sliced bread. Seriously, without GPS, yesterday my bike gang and I would have either a) died in the mountains or b) turned around and missed out on a fantastic bike ride.

We didn't have GPS of course. It was the hapless or helpful pair of geniuses who decided to ride Tenquille early season as well... thankfully earlier than us, otherwise we wouldn't have had any tracks to follow in the insane amounts of snow we hike-a-biked through.

Not gonna lie, by the time I post-holed to my thigh for the third time I was pretty done. Really, really ready to call it a day and call a helicopter right out of that godforsaken forest.

Within all this lies the importance of a bike gang. Gangs take care of their own, and in our case, makes sure our own eats even when we think we don't need to. It was pouring rain down on us the entire time we hiked through snow, which was about 2 miles of the toughest traversing of my life. I can barely move today.

In 7 hours of travel, only 2 was spent actually biking. The rest was spent slogging through snow, over creeks, and around tree wells. Tree wells in July! Seriously!

Anyway, here are some photos of the mayhem... I love my bike gang.

Bralorne. A Veritable Gold Mine of Biking Radness.

Hopped in a truck with a hungover Dave and super keen Kyle for one of the longest, and yet most amazing, bike days of my life. As a newly incorporated Team Adventure Bike Gang, we lived up to the gang mentality of doing gnarly stuff.

I'm tired, so I'll let my b shots speak for themselves:

Whip it, whip it good

I'm a photo blogger for the Whistler Bike park now. It's fun, took some shots:

Trading Wax and Edges for Rubber and Brake Pads.

It's getting really, really difficult to drag myself up the mountain this month. It isn't so difficult to get talked into a road ride with Kyle Long. Good thing for our start-of-season ride he chose the Duffey hill climb for a friendly warmup to a hopefully long and glorious bike season. The Duffey only rises about 1000m in a 14km stretch of two-lane highway beginning at the Northern end of Lillooet Lake and reaching it's highest point shortly after the Joffre Lakes parking area:



Being the immaculately prepared and exceptionally bright individuals that we are, we set off on the journey with a water bottle each, and very little clothing. I had on chamois underneath my long(ish, not long enough) Sombrio biking shorts, and a long-sleeved Lifa shirt and a rather thin nylon cycling vest to top it all off. No leggings, short socks, you know, prepared for hours of climbing uphill. Kyle had about the same, man version. And, by the way, we took off from his car at 6:12pm.

Things started off great for the first few switchbacks. We had a quick stop so layers could be removed, and from that point onward I kept going and going and going and going kind of like the energizer bunny or Tina the Tank Engine. Nothing could stop me, because I'm fairly certain I would have turned around and/or died right on the spot if I stopped moving my legs for even a moment. Finally, after a number of lonely kilometers (Kyle had vanished around corner #5,000,000) I found him waiting for me at the Joffre Lakes parking lot. It took everything I had to continue to the top even though we had cycled from spring right back through time into winter. (Take that Michael J. Fox!)

We stopped at the top for a few quick snaps to show how blue I mean excited we were to have accomplished such an... interesting endeavour:






After these photos, I went from blue to purple. Believe.

I've never been closer to hypothermia in my life. I had convulsive shakes the entire ride down and had to pull over multiple times to try to jumping-jack some life back into my fingers. Hands were numb all the way to my wrists, and I'm shocked I was even able to brake. I arrived back at Kyle's truck at about 8:40, and my shins were actually purple and my lips were blue. How does Lance Armstrong do it in the Alps? Seriously? Thank goodness for Kyle's seat heaters in his truck, and for the epic Minestrone soup at the Pony in Pemberton.

I think I'll wait till July before I do that ride again! See ya on the road/trails/ski hill/pumptrack tomorrow.

Epic Saturdays

Today I had an absolutely fabulous day with my homie in crime Sophie. It all began with a simple text saying "Let's hike and bike." There's really no arguing with such a clean and concise statement, I couldn't resist.

We headed up Blackcomb for some teeth-shatteringly awesome turns in the morning, then regrouped and packed up my car for a quick trip down to Squamish for some mountain biking on the loamy trails. The conditions down there seem like winter never happened, and it's a welcome respite from the endless ice age we have experienced in Whistler since November.



For the ride we did Jack's Trail to Alice Lake, 4 Lakes Trail to Edith Lake, Bob McIntosh Memorial Trail to Rock n Roll to the Corners trails below the power lines, then we hit up Don't Tell Jude and carried on to Tracks from Hell. From there we rode back down 4 Lakes Trail and over the Wonderland to finish up. Following that we had some sushi at Sushi Sen and called it a day!

Renegade Heli Club

The other day I got the chance to join a wicked crew of 3 AK-trained guides, my buddy Dustin, and another guy on a heli touring excursion up the Duffy. We got picked up at the Pemberton airport and flown to a nice little spot on Mt. Matier. We skied a couloir on Matier, then skinned up the col toward Mt. Hertzell, skirted around it and bootpacked up Spetch for a nice long ski to Mt. Slalock, where we skinned once again for a final ski all the way down to upper Joffre Lake. It. Was. AWESOME.

I know where all my money is going next season......!

Renegade Heli Club from Amy McDermid on Vimeo.

Winning like Charlie Sheen

This has been the year for zero visibility. It's okay though, because that usually means that it has been snowing a lot, and I like snow. Much.

Over the past week, however, the sun poked it's fiery face out from behind the fog and clouds and hung around for a while. With only mornings to work with, I took advantage of the light and hiked a few times, dragging along my friends Chanel and Kyle.

Here's a winning video of it all:

Girls Movie. And Kyle. from Amy McDermid on Vimeo.

Serious Behind the Scenes Snaps.

I love photojournalism because it's not set up and as a photographer you're capturing what's actually happening. In the cases of these photos, what's happening is that I've asked the girls to hang out in a snowy field where every step you take you're post holing past your knees.

My flashes and I had some minor/major technical difficulties but here are some candid snaps from the evening:

Ladies in the Backcountry.

This past week and a bit was 9 days full of powder, girls, skiing, shooting, chai-drinking, and eating. Lots of eating.

We had two weekends of Rossignol's Girls Day Out flanking a week of shredding with the other coaches in Revelstoke and Golden. Here are some B shots from our adventure up the Fingers on Mt. McPherson in Revy. Starring Izzy Lynch, Leah Evans, Tessa Treadway, and Tatum Monod. Thanks girls for the good times.