whataweekend!

i am ex-hausted!

but the last few days have been absolutely packed with adventuring and exploring and fun and/or free stuff. woohoo!


on friday evening i called sandra after work to find out if she was up for hanging out... the conversation went something like this:

"hi sandra, it's shannon. how's it going?"

"hi shannon! it's going well. hey... i'm going to the night market in chinatown tonight. want to come?"


seriously. how perfect!

so we went and tried all kinds of cheap asian food and i purchased a few cheap knock-offs (i'm especially excited about the headlamp. i understand that it probably won't survive longer than the summer -- but it is a super-bright LED head lamp and it was only $6.)

that was friday.


saturday...

i went to some training for festival planning which was very helpful. made some neat connections there and now have some people with waaay more experience than me offering to help me get this ball rolling over the next couple of days. hurray!

oh. and i learned how to make flowers and turtles out of balloons.

after that i headed over to brian's place and we hung out for the rest of the afternoon/evening. went to see UP at the 'dolphin theatre' which totally made me cry. i'm such a girl.



sunday afternoon i met up with my breakfast buddies for lunch! we decided to check out some cute cafe or something on commercial drive and discovered that there was a HUGE community festival taking place! so i bought a beautiful journal with hand-made paper for $10, sandra bought a scarf and sarah bought a dress. so pretty! anyway. it was all very hippy-esque and reminded me of the weekend markets in australia. good times, good times. i'm still a little sad that i didn't buy the wrap around reversible blue skirt that i found. it was be-aut-iful.

in any case. it was good to catch up with the girls and they bought me a present!! that hilarious frog-prince that i posted about way back in the fall... they found one at a dollar store here!! and wrapped it up all pretty-like and gave it to me. because they're wonderful. so if brian doesn't work out, apparently all i have to do is add water and this frog will turn into a new prince for me.


after that i met up with brian, scott, anthony and rob and the four of us went to squamish for some EXCELLENT climbing. best part... i totally made it up a 5.10b!!!! which is waaaay higher a rating than any other climb i've ever done (i'm usually challenged by but mostly able to do 5.8-5.9s at the most). my knee is pretty scratched up (i may have fallen and hit the wall a few times...) but man. it was fun to be really challenged. progress is good.

today has been good too.

i went and volunteered for the day at a golf tournament / fundraiser for "Caring for Kids" (or something) which i think gives money to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation -- that's who I heard about the volunteering from anyway.

It was so relaxing -- my job was as a hole-in-one attendant. That means that for the whole day, all i was supposed to do was watch hole #16 and be prepared to be a 'witness' if anyone was able to get a hole in one. i spent the day getting to know my co-volunteer, adrian and his co-workers who were there to relieve us (for bathroom breaks, etc. since there has to be two witnesses there at all times).

it got boring so i took off with one of them to drive around the course in golf cart for a half or so and let Kinder (that's her name) watch the hole for a while.

anyway. for that... i got a sweet jacket (except it's mens so it's a little big) and an even better shirt. plus lunch. yum. oh. and a tan. *grin*


aaaanyway.

that's it for now. my apologies for the lack of updating lately. life's been too busy to be able to write about it! Mostly the busy is pretty predictable though... there's a lot of climbing or hiking and Brian. i love summers in BC.

later friends! much love!

more spontaneous adventuring

last night i received a facebook message just after midnight (it was probably sent earlier, but that happened to be the first time i checked facebook since the day before) which proposed that i join a few others who were going to spend the day transiting to Bowen Island and then hiking up Mt. Gardner. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare myself (or sleep), but figured it sounded like too good an idea to pass up.


my feet hurt.

but i think it was worth it.



we walked 17 km in total. 3 km each way between the ferry terminal and the trail head, plus 11km for the hike itself. The elevation gain is 719 metres. That's almost 3/4 of a kilometre.

the views from the summit were incredible. there were almost no clouds in the sky which meant that we could see EVERYTHING. west was vancouver island, north was keat's island, gambier, gibsons and the mainland that juts out beyond it. to the south-east was the whole of the lower mainland. we could even see as far as mount baker!

beautiful.


jeff, scott's friend, hiked up carrying half a watermelon (really) which was mostly funny but also kind of fun.

in any case. my feet hurt. but it was a stellar hike and i'm glad that i went! and now... i'm too tired to think of anthing else to say. good night!

bliss.

i'm having a good week.

explored sfu's roof on sunday, went biking on monday, to the outdoors club social on tuesday, climbing on wednesday, moved my stuff on thursday (then went to see 'x-men: wolverine' at midnight), helped brian move on friday and went for a short-but-sweet walk on saturday. and now it's sunday again and christine's coming to visit.


this week could not be any more perfect.

climbing... real rocks!

on wednesday this week brian and i went climbing in deep cove with dave, jen, matt and three more of jen's friends whose names i can't remember.


we'd found this spot when we went hiking with scott last weekend at deep cove so it was exciting to go back with some gear and actually give the climbing a try!


it was my very first time climbing anything outdoors and so i really really really didn't think i'd make it up the wall. not to mention the climb that we (brian, jen, matt and i) ended up doing was a crack climb -- i've neve done anything like that even in a gym!


anyhoo.

so we started off by rapelling down the wall...


it's incredible when you know that the only thing stopping you from just falling is the rope and the person at the bottom holding on in case you let go...



in any case. we all made it down safely and then promptly set up to make our way back up the wall!

matt went first and then it was my turn... man. i've only been climbing a handful of times in the gym so attempting an outdoor climb made me SO anxious!

it was fantastic though!!!


the whole thing.

the fact that we found the spot by accident when we were hiking, the fact that we hiked back to it (nature, trees, scenery -- all things that i love PLUS climbing and adventure!) the fact that I MADE IT TO THE TOP of the climb even though, going down it, i was skeptical that i'd even make it past the start!


ahh fun times, fun times!

easter weekend continues!

after our climb up and down the chief and spent an hour or so recovering at my place, we decided to go hiking at lynn canyon... in the dark. not my idea.

it was pretty cool though. it was nice to be there without so many people, and the waterfall looked and sounded just so much more... incredible. it's like the night just makes things different. anyway.

we hiked around for a bit, took some pictures (that i can't post because matt has them...) and then wandered back toward the car.



i'm a bit afraid of the dark. i'm a lot afraid of heights. crossing the lynn canyon suspension bridge at night... so not my favourite thing in the world to do!

i warned the guys that i wanted to cross the bridge on my own and that if either of them started to run on it while i was still crossing -- i would kill him. alex either didn't hear or didn't believe me. he crossed first and when i was about half-way, decided to run back towards me. so i called him a jerk and when he got close enough, i punched him.

alex doesn't know me well... so he wasn't expecting that. some people just like to learn things the hard way.


we were all pretty awake after our evening hike so we stopped at mcdonald's for some ice cream before dropping alex off at his place and heading home for some much-needed sleep!


that was saturday.


sunday was pretty much just spent at church and chris' (my professor) house to celebrate easter with her family, another student or two, and friends from her catholic group. so much food!! so many italians... :) we played charades -- i had no idea that chris was so competitive! i did well, but i don't think it had anything to do with my non-existant charade-ing skills.


oh, and matt spent the afternoon with alex. so after chris' party, i headed downtown to meet them and matt and i borrowed alex's bike for monday...


...when we biked around stanley park!

before that though... i woke up at 8:30 to discover that matt had already gone to the store and bought some bacon, eggs and milk for our breakfast! i'd invited my friends, jen and dave, for breakfast because i wanted jen to meet matt before he left.

in addition to the breakfast food, i also found a trail of chocolate eggs leading all around my house! at the end of the trail was a little package of said chocolate eggs! there was also a giant toblerone bar but i totally didn't even see that until matt told me that i wasn't done. oops. anyway. the chocolate easter egg hunt was very sweet and probably one of the highlights of the weekend for me!

back to stanley park... where we found a cool tree with branches all around it that made a perfect ladder for climbing! and then it was like... flat! there was a whole level of flat space that the rest of the tree just branched out of. definitely worth going back to -- you could have a picnic up there!! i can't explain it well with words, but i'll post pictures soon. remind me if i forget...


what else?

after stanley park (which was fabulous!!! talk about a PERFECT day!), matt and i met alex at his place and we all went back to my place for some lasagna dinner and to grab all matt's stuff and then... it was off to the airport!

definitely a crazy-busy weekend, but SO worth the pain and exhaustion that stayed with me through most of the week that followed!

Easter Weekend!

SO.

it's been a week since last weekend and I haven't really had time to slow down since -- my apologies to those of you who have been patiently waiting for all of the fabulous details!

thursday night -- brian came with alex and i to the airport to pick up matt and several bags + 1 box (with a bike for alex and feather mattress cover for me). alex and matt crashed at my place so we could get an early-ish start so by the time we were settled and ready for sleep it was right around 2am!

the rental car people picked us up at 9am (we may have kept him waiting for a few minutes while we finished packing...) and we were on the road by 9:45am! woot.

and then... the stawamus chief. (aka the chief)

the chief is a mountain located beside the town of squamish -- about an hour past north vancouver on the sea-to-sky highway heading toward whistler.

there are 3 peaks.

we went to the second peak which is the highest. it's a 1.7 km trail (what!?) with a 700m elevation gain.

1.7 km makes it sound like a stroll-in-the-park. but it's not. i mean, it's totally do-able. but there are chains and ladders and tons of stairs along the way and we did it while carrying 45-50lbs on our backs -- we moved slowly. oh and by "we" i mean... matt, alex and myself as well as josh and dave, two of my other friends from here who came just for the hiking bit.

we left the parking lot around 11am and made it to the peak right around 1:30-2pm i think. just in time for lunch :)

(this is a view of the first peak from the second peak -- above;
and our view of Squamish -- below)

there was snow at the top... and wind. lots of wind. but the sun was shining and the views were spectacular! alex and matt decided that we should camp on the ledge that we could see about 30ft below us so they hiked around looking for a way to get there. unfortunately the way we got there led me through a giant puddle that had been covered with snow until i stepped on it... and one soaking wet shoe.

all was well though... matt let me wear his super-thick wool socks and we made some waterproofing to put on my feet outside of the wool with the storm blanket (i think that's what they called it) he'd brought along. in any case... alex's shoes got pretty much just as wet with all the digging in the snow we did to prepare places to put up tents.

so much for not going winter-camping this year. it may have been slightly warmer, but i still spent the night sleeping in a tent on the snow.

we had hot chocolate and some instant meal food stuff (purchased at mec) for dinner. mmmm. i think that i could have heated up just about anything at that point and found it delicious simply because it was warm...

we built a fire (shhh don't tell!) to try to dry our shoes but all that it did was make them smell like smoke. it was fun to have a fire anyway though... what's camping without a fire??

and then it was time for bed. oh the warmth of sleeping bags. it was a beautiful thing.

i'm not sure what time we woke up... it wasn't with the sun because the sun didn't really come out on saturday...


we opened the fly on my solo-tent (matt brought it from ontario for me to use) and squished in there together to make and eat breakfast (oatmeal). by that time my sleeping bag wasn't keeping me warm anymore so squishing 3-people into a one person tent and having hot oatmeal and hot chocolate together was like enjoying a bit of heaven. oh the warmth.




after breakfast we packed everything up in the mist and started the descent!

we fully expected that the rain would make going down much more difficult to navigate and so we'd move much slower, but it was actually MUCH easier than going up (both the section of chains AND the regular hiking section).

after we were safely on solid (non-mountain) ground, we packed up the car, I changed into cleaner and drying clothes (good thing I'd brought sandals for the drive home!) and we headed straight to North Van for some lunch at this cute place called "The Tomahawk" mmm. Then... it was back to my place for a nap, and out again for more adventuring -- to be continued!