Last night I had an interesting driver moment - I was very fortunate to get out of it like I did.

I’ve mentioned before that the city of Calgary has some interesting ideas about marking their roads. They also don’t plow the roads when it snows, except for the very well travelled ones, and even that’s done infrequently. It doesn’t help that they have ridiculously complicated intersections, either. Can you tell that I fucked up and am trying to blame the city for my stupidity yet? Nah, I screwed up pretty large last night, and this is how it went down …

So, it’s been snowing here for a few days. It’s awesome, I love it. It’s winter, and the world should be covered in snow. I have snow tires on my car now, and have been waiting for a good snowfall ’cause the +15 degree weather just wasn’t making me feel good about spending the cash for the tires and rims. Last night I was driving around running some errands - it was dark, around 8pm. I was in WestHills at the Indigo there, and leaving back to my place. So, I came to an intersection, which I must show you before I continue:

Now, that’s an interesting place to be. Note the two median’s where the turning lane is. But what I did, just isn’t right. I was turning East on Richmond from the North side of Stewart Green. It was really snowing and I couldn’t really see lanes or anything much on the road. There are 2 turning lanes, and there was a van beside me I didn’t really want to hit. So, I turned into the left lane right after the median. Oh. Wait. That’s actually the turning lane for oncoming traffic. In fact, now I’m in the North lane of the Westbound Richmond traffic - going east, and there’s a car right beside me and another car coming right at me. So, I dodge around the car beside me, drive over the median to my side of the road, and continue on Richmond road as if life is perfect. Here’s the graphical version of what I did:

I drove the red line. I wanted to drive the green line.

I have totally never done anything that ridiculous before. Well, not that I didn’t mean to do, anyway. I sure as hell am lucky I didn’t end up hurting anyone, or myself. Kudo’s go to the dude for taking it all in stride - reason number 3 why Subaru’s rule, right there. Also, I’m pretty damn happy I had winter tires then, I doubt I would have been able to stop or jump the median quite so well with my bald all-seasons.

Some may know that I now have the pleasure of owning my first car. Don’t let that fool you - I’m still an ancient 28 years old, I’ve just been very successful at bike riding and borrowing cars . But, as I use the automobile in strange and wonderful places, I have come to realise that there are things I must maintain. Tires are one of those things. Actually, I think that other than oil changes, tires are the only thing. Do you need them? That depends on what you do with your car, and what the weather is like where you drive. Blizzards, ice and snow? Yeah, I think it might be a good idea.

I’ve been learning some neat things while owning cars, but really, I’m not much of a car person. I don’t use diapers to wipe the car down. In fact, I’ve washed my car twice in 3 years. I don’t use vaseline on all the rubber places of my car to keep them nice a supple. I don’t understand anything about my car’s complex inner workings. Washer fluid? Opening the hood? I’m all over that. To be honest, I’m pretty proud of my ability to successfully pay companies to give me oil changes. “Synthetic Oil”, I’ll say, with a knowing wink to the mechanic. I’ll usually get a blank stare in return, which plainly says: “We both know I could put fish oil in here and you’d still tell me I do a great job and give me a tip - so just shut up and give me money.”

So, last year, I was driving around in the city at a rapid speed of 15 km/h and I decided that I would like to reduce my velocity, and perhaps cease motion altogether. Unfortunately, I decided to do that on ice, and after 20 feet of graceful gliding to outsiders, and panicked brake stamping and useless steering to me, I slid into a tree. This particular tree had no roots, had been stripped of it’s bark, and had wires sticking out of the top, which joined it to other nearby trees. Anyway, the point was that I smacked it and bent up my bumper pretty well. Ridiculously well, you could say, but you wouldn’t ’cause it would reduce me to tears. That incident impressed upon me that my tires weren’t what I once thought they were.

Please note that I have a Subaru. I love it. I have very bald tires, but I can take off on sheer ice, corner in snow, and control my car in most conditions just fine. I can’t, however, stop very well … or at all … in those conditions. As I consider stopping to be one of the best parts of the driving experience, I decided to remedy the situation. Also, I drive in the mountains quite a bit - those are usually snow covered roads, at the edge of which is a few hundred foot drop, at the bottom of which are usually sharks with lazer beams attached to the heads, or polar bears, or martians with science labs I’d rather not think about. <kip>That’s what I’m talking about</kip>

What to get?

1 - New All Season Tires
This was my 2nd place finalist - it’s what I have now, is cost effective (being less than new tires and rims) and gives me a few years on the life of my tires. If I get Nokian all weather tires, I even manage to get some tires that “Meets Rubber Association of Canada severe snow performance requirements.” The problem is that the tires won’t last as long, and really don’t have as good grip, as dedicated winter tires. I’ll have to go through this again shortly. But my aunt Laurey has these tires and she just loves them, they’ve done her very well.

2 - Just keep the tires I have, and be more careful
Well, I like to think that I’m fairly careful, and I wasn’t going that fast when I smashed up my bumper. And yes, I will admit that just about every driver in existence thinks they’re a great driver and I very possibly suck ass. Either way, this option is completely unacceptable and really means I’m too lazy to pay attention to my safety. That might be true, but I can’t use that argument for the passengers I have in my car, or the other drivers on the road. The commitment I made when I bought the car compelled me to buy something better - I am responsible for my car - personally I think people forget what they’re really doing when they get in the car and direct a +1 tonne mass of metal and flesh randomly accross the planet. This was rated #4.

3 - Throw some winter tires on my rims
Winters on my rims wasn’t a bad idea, but then I’d have to switch my tires on and off alloys every spring/fall. That can actually hurt the alloys over time, and more importantly costs about 90$ every time you feel like doing that. So, better tires is a good thing, but the maintenance costs threw this option to a #3.

4 - Get new rims and throw winter tires on them
The obvious 1st Place Winner of the “What the hell should I do about my inability to stop” contest. Turns out that if you buy some rims and get the tires put on them, you get free tire installation, rotation, balancing and all that good stuff for the life of the tires. So, all of a sudden it costs nothing to switch between winters and summer tires. I got some good rims at about 80$ a rim (heavy steel so I can continue to off-road) which is great ’cause I can destroy them and not hurt my pretty alloy rims. After much profound brain things going on deep in my head, I decided that most cost effective solution over time was winter tires and new rims.

At the end of the day, I spent less on my new tires and rims than it would to fix my bumper, and that was just a little dent. Considering the winters will last at least a good 4-5 seasons of heavy use, I really think winter tires are a must-have for all us hosers who enjoy being out in nature during the winter. For the record, I went with Michellin X-Ice tires from Kal-Tire. They were excellent to deal with, and very helpful. I highly recommend them.

From the 21st to the 25th of July, Eric, Jeff and I did the Rockwall trip in Kootenay Park, BC.

It was an amazing trip. Fantastic people, great weather, amazing views, great hikes, and a difficult terrain all made this a trip to remember.

A note on the terrain. This was a 55Km trek, with a 1490m (4887 ft) gain, and a 1440m (4730 ft) loss. Every day involved climbing up a pass, and then coming down the other side to a nice campsite. Just to clarify - that’s climbing over a mountain every day.

The trek was hard. I’ve done some long backpacks, and this is the hardest I’ve done. It’s just unending. For example, the first day is over 700m elevation gain in about 12Kms - 600m of which is in the last 2Km (think about it, that’s pretty damn steep). It continues like that every day. But despite how hard it was, I would do it again this weekend, if I could. The sense of accomplishment, of being in nature, of getting great excercise, and just everything you get from being out in the wilderness are so worth the effort. I absolutely love backpacking, and trips like this, or Killarney back in Ontario - are just amazing.

If you can make the time, I highly recommend doing the hike and spending some time in this amazing Canadian wilderness.

I think we all had a great time. There were some great glaciers we hiked beside, numerous blood-thirsty mosquitos, amazing fellow hikers, a wicked smoked salmon lunch sitting accross from the Rockwall (you’d capitalize that word too, if you saw it), a 700m waterfall, beautiful campsites, great food, awesome sleeps, clean air, amazing fields of wildflowers, etc, etc.

I will fill out a more detailed explanation of the hike in my comments …

So, this is mist creek 2005

First, a disclaimer. I’ll do my best to explain my weekend, but I just can’t relate to you the entire atmosphere that was around the trip. I will do my best to arrange the following words to tell the story as best I can.

Being out in the mountains with those people is such a relaxing and peaceful experience. The trip was from Saturday morning to Sunday night, but it really felt like quite a bit longer … kinda like I stepped outside of time for a bit. There were 20 of us, and through all the things I describe below, just imagine groups of people sitting around and laughing. ‘Cause we laughed. A lot.

Our destination was a nice area on the Mist Creek Trail, which will take you into the Sheep River Valley (and on towards Tombstone) if you cross the Mist Ridge. It’s a great hike, we camped just south-west of where the mist creek trail crosses the mist ridge into Sheep River Valley. This’ll all make sense to those who love maps (read: Jeff) Picture a big open field, a river running through one end, the other side being the start of Storm Mountain, and then directly opposite Storm is Mist Ridge, with trees boxing us in all around, and you’ve got a great idea of what we were in. No stalls, no sites, no campgrounds, no washrooms - just wilderness and what we brought.

On the way there, I was slowed down by the K100, which is a huge rally race. Kudos for those hundreds of people who were out running at 6am on those roads, by the time I got there it looked like they were having a great time … well the people that were done their leg, anyway :)

So, we pull into the staging area and setup the 3 pack horses and Bryan’s horse. He rode and led the 3 pack horses. It was fun helping him setup ’cause horses are pretty interesting animals, and you really have to respect them - they can kick pretty damn hard. We tied all the packs to the horses, then tarps over it all with double-diamond knots. That’s a tricky knot, and I still don’t know how to tie it, but I hope to learn a bit more about knots. They looked cool, and I guess it’s a good thing that all the gear would stay up on the horses the whole ride.

Anyway, so while we’re setting up, I meet a guy staying with Bryan and Tina, and that’s Ed Brown. Here’s a quick description: http://www.seniorscope.com/spotlight_5.html#brown. Ed and Bryan are cowboys who I think would have been comfortable living about 100 years ago as easily as today. Sometimes I like to think I know lots about backpacking and living out in the wilderness, but I really know nothing next to those guys. Anyone who can survive out in the wilderness and live off the land for weeks at a time is pretty impressive by me.

So, the weather was nice enough to hold out while we all got ready and gave the horses all our heavy stuff, and we shortly took off up the trail, and after a few hours we made it to the site. I was with 2 kids who kept calling me Van Helsing due to the overcoat and hat, and the 3 of us were the next on the trail after Bryan and the horses (who went quite a bit ahead.) It was a perfect hike, the sun was alternately out and hidden, and the temps were perfect for the walk. It was a great way to spend Saturday morning.

To anyone who’s been camping when there’s rain threatening, you’ll know your first order of business is to setup the camp, setup your tent and get a fire going. We setup a few huge tarps to kick back under and Bill got the fire up and running nice and quickly with some of his magic. The tarps were setup, and then we set ourselves to build our tent city, which looked great. I had a great spot, and with the tarp extending my tent and all my gear under that, I was ready for the rain. As soon as the last tent was up, it rained for about 10 minutes, just to prove it could, then cleared back up. I think I’d have to give the best setup to Ed who found two big pine trees about 10 feet apart, cleared a little area for himself in the ground, tied a rope about 2 feet over the ground, and then a tarp over that over each side of him. With all the branches over him, the tarp, and the canvas bag he was in, I’d say it would have had to be a really really big storm before he would have felt any water.

What kind of food do you eat when you have pack horses to take the weight?! How about 30 nice big steaks, 3 loaves of garlic bread, 30 potatoes in tin foil, boiled carrots, lots of bread, coffee, cake, rice crispy squares, and hot chocolate?! Yeah, it was a glorious supper, alright. Turns out the best place to throw out your food scraps is into the river, just fyi. The bears can still smell food after it’s been burnt.

With that out of the way, we all sat around the fire and chatted. Occasionally Bryan or Ed would break out with a poem, and Ed entertained us with some songs as well. There were some great stories too - Edgar had a great one of a renegade bull that ran loose in Calgary just a week ago, and had to be shot.

Turns out Ed’s a cowboy poet like Uncle Bryan and has a few CDs out. He and Bryan are recording one together now, with Bryan telling his stories. He’s been a trapper and seen more of wilderness than I could ever describe. A really great guy and sang some awesome songs, particularly the bluesy ones that he played after everyone went to bed. We had some awesome philosophical discussions and figured out the worlds problems.

The river rushing right by the camp, the sound of the fire, and the horses bells clanking as they wandered around was all fantastic background noise. We listened to scores of stories, and had some great discussions ranging from neat backpacking trips in the NWT to the internet, the government, and just about anything else we could think of. At the same time we did our best to lighten the load the horses would have to take the next day and drank as much port and whiskey as we could.

That took us until about 2 in the morning - it was a beautiful night, went to lots of stars in the sky. It got quite cold, but I kept warm with my coat over my sleeping bag. Woke up to sausages, scrambled eggs, potatoes and ham, with some left over steak. Yeah, pretty rough, alright :)

Then we packed up and went for a walk, which was really a 4 hour hike up Mist Ridge, from which you had a great view of the Sheep River Valley, as well as the one we were just in. There wasn’t too much snow up there, but there was some, which was awesome to slide down. The Ridge isn’t that high compared to the ranges around them, though. From there, Bryan led us down some old unmarked sheep trails back to camp. It was bushwacking and Bryan brought us out right by our camp, quite cool. Most of us were thoroughly lost about an hour into the trip … and I reminded myself that’s why I definitely do not want to get lost in the woods :)

At thus begins the end of my tale - we packed up the horses and our gear, hiked back to the cars, and drove off into the sunset. Honestly, a trip like that deserves the term legendary.