Scenery

North face of Bonney, Ann-Marie did a traverse last weekend that goes behind this beauty.

Swanzy and Bonney and Parsons in the distance. She skied off the shoulder of Parsons on the traverse. At the bottom of this photo you can see the army of skiers about to pound the track we just put in to the Dome. Count them. There's 14.

Swanzy and another tiny group of skiers. What a beauty, many ambitious ski lines off here. The beginning of the Bonney traverse ascends the south slopes of this peak.

Child Labour is Awesome Labour

I knew having kids would pay off one day...

Mt Smart

Every good day starts with a wade across a creek

Heading towards the highest col on Smart, the summit is the high point, right of center.

I had my old lady legs on and couldn't break trail without cramping and wailing like a cat in heat. So of course Travis, the manimal, took the lead most of the day.

Almost there. It's STEEP here, well over 45deg, maybe more, I don't know.

Looong way down! At the far end of the slide path in the center of the picture were trees piled up in the forest and branches broken 50' above the ground. That's almost 3km from where we are! Must have been a huge avalanche! It was pretty white when we started down, which made the steep skiing pretty exciting!

Fine fellows

I don't know what it is about these pictures of Nick that make me think he's just a little frenchman.

Mais oui, le jus de pamplemous!


Awww...

Awwwww....

AAagh!!

These guys have been such stars these days, especially Tobin. I'm not sure what the change is, perhaps because he can now make it through the day without requiring a nap. But he's suddenly turned into this engaging, happy outgoing little man. He has some funny things to say as well, very observant things. Like "you like awesome things, dad." (this, of course, refers to me pointing out monster trucks and huge airplanes or diggers or anything destructive or powerful.)

I got to go flying around in my helicopter, sightseeing on Kinbasket lake this past week as well. I guess it was work, but it was pretty fun. We were looking for moose....

But we saw these instead:

It's not often you get such a good view of six fat, blood covered wolves lounging around in the middle of the ice. It was an amazing, stunning sight. Very lucky to see these wild, beautiful animals.

However, much of the time was spent doing this:

Tobin's Birthday... a Week Later

Somehow I forgot to do a post about Tobin's 4th birthday! I'm sure he won't mind, but you know, you've got to keep track of these things. He's pretty proud of being 4, marching around telling everyone how old he is. Very cool. He was most excited to have Coen come out for a visit and ski. Those two are great little buddies, it's fun to watch.

C-C-C-C-CAKE!

Mon frere. Moi? J'aime gâteau!

Presents. The best thing about this photo is Nick with his ball

I helped out again with the annual wolf census. Basically this means riding high powered snowmobiles up beautiful, rugged valleys as far as you can go, looking for wildlife. Way awesome. One exciting moment came when we were sledding along a packed trail and I ran into a moose. As soon as she saw me her ears went back and she started running at me! I jammed the sled in reverse and gunned it back down the trail as fast as an 800cc, two stroke sled can go (which is ridiculous crazy fast...) , I ran out of options so gunned it into the side of the cat track hoping that I could get out of her way, but luckily she dodged off the other side and ran into the trees. Moments later a friend that works at one of the heli-ski lodges came around the corner in his cat, laughing at me. He'd pushed her towards me and she ran at the least dangerous looking beast!

Hibernating Digger

The Abyss glacier. How cool is that name?

Not sure what this peak is, at the end of the Goldstream.

More awesome massiveness. Seeing the place makes me want a sled so I can go skiing here...

Corey is a sledhead.

We're still here, loving each other in the midst of the chaos. We got out for a ski together in Roger's Pass earlier this week. A nice date with my date.

Drawring

Here are a couple of sweet drawings Tobin and I did. Tobin's is of 'Robinson', from a Beatrix Potter book. Mine was commissioned by Tobin: he wanted a "monster truck doing a huge jump over a huge tree and a pig with a man laughing". I'd always hoped the future of the planet was safe in our children's hands, but now I'm not so sure.

Robinson

Dominion. Over. EVERYTHING!

Dude, where's my house?

Heavy Snowfall Warning: words that bring joy to our hearts.

I just checked in the yard and there's 120cm of settled snow! Houses are starting to disappear, and we're running out of places to put snow from the driveway and sidewalk. It just keeps dumping. We're in the middle of a snowfall warning tonight, then it's forecast to snow again by the end of the week...

The modified catapult technique: Step 1

Step 2: Uuuughhhhh!!

Mr. walkin' down the walkway...

Enjoying the fruits of his labour.

No swinging these days.

A recent sunny ski tour. Finally a day to get out of the trees after our recent mega-avalanche cycle. 100 year climax avalanches wiping out forests and closing highways for a week at a time. Awesome.