Seattlest Was Definitely Not Lost in Canadian Wilderness

Our postings have been light (OK, nonexistent) this summer as we gallivanted about the western US and Canada teaching people how to ride mountain bikes. We were most excited about a trip in late August to Blue River, BC, the spot of legendary Mike Wiegele's heli-skiing outfit. The plan was to get dropped at 9,000 feet via helicopter and escort about 40 people back down through fields of granite rock slabs and unending alpine meadows. We scouted the route two days in advance on a Friday, in gorgeous sunny weather. Having never been in a helicopter before, much less over untouched Canadian wilderness, we'll notch that as a top 5 event in the life of a meager Seattlest contributor.

The weekend arrived, along with all 40 of our bike clinic clients. Everyone was giddy at the thought of a heli-drop bike ride on Sunday, and the bike clinic was going off without a hitch. Until Sunday, when we ended up again at 9,000 feet, with the sun replaced by snow. Blowing snow, to be precise. And we had a freelance journalist writing for the London Sunday Times riding with us. You know, something like the second largest paper...in the world. We were supposed to show him a fantastic time, and once the flakes started falling we knew everyone was in for an adventure, but not the kind they had signed up for. We'll let our intrepid journalist tell the rest of the story, in the meantime we'll revel in the glory of going down in print as the mountain biking guide who led him astray. And yet we will continue to insist that you're only truly lost if you don't know where you are--we knew where we were, it just wasn't where we wanted to be.

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By Courtney in Miscellaneous, News on September 18, 2007 1:00 PM

Comments [rss]

cattv

droooooooooooooooooooooool....

great flickr pix too courtney! please post something on seattlest when the next round of dirt series workshops roll around...

dennyt

Sooooo jealous!

Courtney

Ah, yeah, I did really say that. It was an expression from my high school chemistry teacher that has always stuck in my head. So that was not an embellishment on the part of said journalist. After 5 hours spent pushing your bike around in snow/rain in the middle of nowhere, you'd be surprised the things you'll say.

The bit about me not being convincing, however? Anyone who knows me but a little bit is well aware that if I want you to understand something, eventually YOU WILL BE CONVINCED. There was some cooking up of drama there on his part, methinks...

Dan

Nash decided we had taken a wrong turn at “the big tree” (Er, right, like, which one?) and that we should dismount to retrace our steps. “Be careful,” she said, “the snow has made this trail slicker than a gopher’s guts.”

Slicker than a gopher's guts? You didn't really say that, did you? To an English journalist? That's gotta be some kind of misremembering on his part... Were you doing some kind of Appalachian shtick for the foreigners? If I ever heard my guide say "slicker than a gopher's guts" on the mountain I'd be expecting "squeal like a pig" at any moment.

Sounds like an awesome trip.