YETI SEASON IS HERE - and what a great start to the season!

The Yeti Snowshoe Season had a glorious start today with over 215 shoe'ers coming out to bask in the sun at the Mt.Washington Event.  It was amazingly warm up there and people were snowshoeing in shorts and even some braved it without shirts!  

It was awesome to start the pre-race with big hugs from our HH sponsor/supporter Mark Campbell and then head into the lodge to register and find ourselves surrounded by friends - what a great atmosphere at the Yeti's!  The race course was great and the shortage of new snow didn't seem to matter, Dave Howells put together a challenging route with lots of variation.  And the sun... how could we ask for a better race day gift than beautiful glorious sunshine!  What a day!

Team HHVI (Justin Mark, Carey Sather, Jeff Riemer, Kristenn Magnusson and Jay Latiff) had a great day and finished 1st in the team 10km catergory!

Biggest and Best News of the Day:

The Snow Queen is back!!  Carey raced her first Yeti since 2007 today and she didn't just race it, she rocked it!!  She placed 3rd in a beautifully consistent race, making it look easy!  Here's the podium picture post-race at Raven Lodge.

Jeff and Justin both also landed on the podium with Jeff in 2nd and Justin in 3rd.  Awesome work out there!!  

Here they are cooling down after the race:

 Here's what most of the field got to look at during the race... 

Here they are post-race after hitting the podium and getting their Sleeman sponsored prizes!

It was a really great start to the series - next race Jan 31st at Mt.Seymour!

Skiing had started!!

We've been waiting for snow to arrive so that we can get our ski's on and hit the hill... well mother nature decided to deliver it all at once... we've had a HUGE amount of snow in the last week and it just keeps on coming!  Usually it's only up on the mountains, but this time it's blanketing the entire island!  wow!  We can even snowshoe from the yard!

Today we travelled up to Mt. Washington for some nordic skiing, our youngest team member, baby Chase joined us too, although due to some serious wind chill he was best kept indoors!  

We hit the hills and had an awesome view of Mt. Albert Edward.

Justin looks way underdressed in this pic - it was frigid!

Jeff's set the pace and was wishing for some extra windbreak over the valuables.

This next shot was actually from Thursday, the boys were testing out the telemark gear!

Hiking up Mt. Arrowsmith DEC 14th, 08

The snow started Friday here on the island and it's been coming down pretty heavy all weekend - we're pretty excited about that because we're all dying to get out skiing and snowshoeing (it's only a month until the first Yeti race!).

Today myself, Jeff and Justin decided to head up Mt. Arrowsmith with our friend Jamie. There was tonnes of snow even at home in Parksville so we were certain there would be lots on the mountain too... and we were not disappointed! Our crampons and ice axes helped us up the scrambly route, our Helly Hansen gear kept us warm and dry, and the victorious picture of Jeff is exactly how we all felt when we got up there. It was a pretty beauty day (okay, so admittedly we are easy to please, as long as the day includes snow and a mountain it qualifies as a beauty in our books!).
Playing in the snow with your friends is fun.

Jeff, Justin and I all had different HH outer shells in use today... Jeff in the Volt, Justin in the Verglas and me in the Numa... we were all totally dry and cozy, tells you that HellyTech XP material in any size or shape is an awesome choice for these types of adventures!

Cross on the Rock Finals

Nov 22nd wrapped up the 'Cross on the Rock' cyclocross series for 2009.  The conditions were perfect in Nanaimo that day - a bit of mud on the ground but nothing wet from the sky - in fact it was bright and sunny, a classic fall day.  The Beban Park course was unrelenting, there were so many features it seemed like there was no end to the mental run down each lap of 'what's coming up next?'.  The run-up was life-sucking, the mud pits zapped all power from your legs, and the tight sandy turns in the whirly whirl section nearly put each of us on the ground I'm sure.  My lungs were burning and my legs were doing a Winehouse repetition of 'no, no, no'.  In the end I was fourth in the expert women's race, and clinched a second place result for overall series points... by the seat of my pants.   

Big thanks to everyone who turns up at the events to cheer and for all the women who raced the series - they really make it what it is & it's fun to ride with them!

Huge thanks to Norm Thibault and Wendy Simms for organizing the series and for being the fantastic cyclocross ambassadors that they are - truly awesome!!  

This weekend was the first time this season that Arrowsmith got a significant amount of snow.   was pumped because of my new backcountry skis.  I was bumming around town, making breakfast and walking the dogs.  I was all geared up to go for a bike ride and around 12:30 I was thinking that I could go for a quick trip to the summit and back before dark via the Judges route.  I through on my mountaineering boots, backpack and Katie into the car and headed for the hills.  I started up at 1:30 and made it up in about 1.5 hrs.  IT was amazing up there like a winter wonderland.   I met a guy near the summit who was from Mount Washington Mtn Tek, Noel Sharpe.  He was a nice guy to talk to and it turns out that he is a telemark ski instructor and since I am getting into telemark skiing, he gave me his number at work.  I plan on taking a lesson or two so I am going to look him up at the ski hill.

Last weekend Justin and I made it out to Strathcona Park on a super early mission to climb King's peak.  The weather was total crap, but we made it all the way in some blistering winds.  This area is awesome and definitely warrants a return trip.  King's peak is one of the higher mountains on Vancouver Island at over 2000m.

Double Cross Weekend

The 4th and 5th races in the 'Cross on the Rock' series were held last weekend in Cumberland and Errington (both close to home! yay for local racing!).  

The weekend was wet, wet, wet.  The courses were mud, mud & more mud.  It was fun, tough, messy and rewarding.  :)  It was also a fantastic example of grassroots racing at it's finest, good competition, relaxed and exciting atmosphere, lots of laughs, lots of cheers and lots of support for the series.  Check out the Cross on the Rock website for race reports and full results.

I managed 3rd in both races and am motivated to figure out some way to close the gap between myself and the faster women over the next 12 months.  (This season isn't even over yet and I'm thinking about next... ahh, yes, that's how it works!).  

Jeff raced on Sunday but suffered a flat mid-way on one of the laps & had to run part of a lap and then jump on Chris Birch's Jake to finish the race.

Next up = Island Champs Cyclocross Nov 22nd in Nanaimo!