The last days

Hey hey...

The last few days have been amazing. I went to the Okanagan Valley which is famous for it's wine region with MPD (dad) and my stepmom. We had a blast touring the beautiful wineries of Mission Hill, Burrowing Owl, Iniskilin and IN'Kip (the first native winery).

Mission Hill - dinner night 1


We had a fantastic time, I learned all about the wine creating proces... and most importantly I got to drink ALOT of wine!! YAY!

We had 2 days of amazing wine tasting and even better food. The Mission Hill winery is the most beautiful winery I have ever seen, their roman inspired terrace is one of Canada's top five rated restaurants... We had a spectacular meal there on Thursday. I had to laugh as the one meal cost more than Al and I spent in an entire month on food.

Day 2 was more wine - and we had another amazing dinner at the Borrowing Owl (they have a cult following on their wine).

Burrowing Owl - Dinner Day 2




I had a fun day of cragging in Squamish on Sat followed by a little beach action at Wreck Beach today (famous nude beach in Vancouver)...

Tomorrow I drive to Calgary to start my new life!! Weeee!

Zoom zoom

Kev

Seattle

My Dad and step-mom are in town for business so I am down in Seattle with them till Wednesday. After that we're hitting up Kelowna for 2 days of wine tasting and bed and breakfasts... I continue to lower the bar on how much of a dirtbag I can be ;)

This weekend I'm actually becoming neighbours with Todd and Nicole - their neighbour asked me to house-sit, she even promised me payment via baked goods! Mmmmmmmmm :)

Sunday will be my last climbing day and my last day in Vancouver - I head off to Calgary on Monday to end my Pilgrimage and begin my new life.

Thats my update for now.... get back to work now slackers!

K-Unit

The worst kept secret

So this week has been bananas... With the pillar on Wedneday and a full day of sick Trad climbing with Wolfang yesterday.For those that know Squamish I climbed Arrowroot (10b) Rutabega - 2 beautiful pitches of 11a,





















Seasoned in the Sun (10b)




















Jingus the Cat(10b).





Wolfie was an amazing guide - putting me on one beautiful lead after another - really showing me some of the best that Squamish has to offer.

Anyways - time for the big news (though I'm sure most of you have heard the gossip already).

I've decided to make Calgary home. As much as I love Vancouver (and I really do) my gut has been telling me that this isn't the time for me to be in Van. Here is text from an email I wrote to my buddy Bill regarding why I chose the C-dot.

"Bill,

How are you my friend?

I decided on Sunday that I was going to stay in Vancouver.... As I made sunday the deadline for my decision making re: my next home.

I went for a long walk on kits beach which was filled with beautiful girls and mountains in the background.... The thought of living in such a beautiful and temperate climate seemed to appeal to me.

However - something surfaced in me when I was at MEC. I was going through the ice guide for SW BC and looked through it with dispair... The climbs looked bunk. The ice season here runs maybe 2 months - and with no real dependable ice... Then I looked at the scrambles book and wasn't horribly impressed with what I saw...

Ontop of that - I read an article in the business section of the paper about how short calgary is of workers... Even at places like tim horton's they can't find enough people to fill all the empty jobs slots.

I came back to where I'm staying and finally realized (for real this time) the I am meant to be in calgary... I think in order to really believe it I needed to actually look around at vancouver as home. I tried and I really liked what I saw but there was something missing - the real mountains of the rockies... As much as I love squamish I love the rockies more, I love the 2 hour approaches, I LOVE the alpine settings and I love that it is a year round outdoor playground.

I love that calgary is gonna be home!

Sorry for the late email - just wanted to share my update with you!

Over and out

Kev"

This decision is especially hard as it means I will have to say good bye to my new West coast family Todd and Nicole - there are no words to describe how amazing they have been: allowing me to stay with them for as long as needed, they've showed me what a wonderful city Vancouver is - and more importantly they've showed me what genuinely amazing people they really are, starting a new life with them as support and good friends would of been a very easy decision.






Moving to Calgary with no friends to hug me is a very hard choice...

There is something calming knowing that my resolve remains unfetered dispite all the objectives hazards against me moving to calgary. There will be periods of stress, sadness and lonliness - however all that will hopefully be minimized by the fact that I made a decision that was solely made based on what I felt was best for me... I've never made such a big decision without weighing what others thought I should do. I feel a little taller today as a result.

So that's it kiddies - the K-Bomb is gonna be a fuckin cowboy!

Come visit and let me show you what a killer city Calgary is!

The SPLIT PILLAR

So i went bouldering with my new friend Adam - whom I met through Wolfang (a buddy who moved out here from Toronto). Adam and I went bouldering yesterday (sadly I forgot my camera as we did some amazing problems). Anyways, we made plans to climb today. Vancouver got nailed with the firsst rain in 27 days last night so we made it a late start to let things dry out.

We met at Big D's and I asked Adam what he wanted to climb - "how about the Pillar?"


I nearly choked on my food and jumped for joy all at the same time! The Split pillar is the most famous single pitch of climbing in Sqaumish - its over a hundred feet of absolutely perfect crack with 2 totally blanks walls on either side. If you look into the crack in sections you can see daylight on the other side... the pillar you are climbing on is actually detached from the wall!! OMG

The Pillar is actually 5 pitches up... I led up Apron Strings which is an amazing 10b finger crack, layback sorta pitch... (for non climbers basically you have a crack for your hands that you can just barely get your fingers into while your feet are pasted on slabby blank rock.

After that Adam ran up a cool chimney. The it was my turn... for the 'scary' pitches I ran together two slabby pitches which both had only 3 protection bolts (and no natural gear) in 200 feet of climbing... (yes for you who did the math that meant we had to do some simul-climbing). Climbing 30 feet over my last bolt was the norm... I only looked down once to see my bolt way too far away (for non climbers if you fall 30 feet above your pro you are falling atleast 70 feet before the rope stops you).







Anways falling wasn't going to happen - thank god.

So then Adam did this beautiful 10b traverse which ended up with a bolt ladder to gain the base of the split pillar (I've literally dreamt about this pitch).


I racked up with triples in my #2 camalot, doubles in my #3 and doubles in #3.5... and honestly guys - I could of used more #2 and #3's YIKES! Though the pillar is rated at a mild 10b... its no easy climb. Every single move on it is like 10b with no rests or stances to place gear. You layback and jam strenuously till you get scared - then while you are hanging on a jammed hand you stuff a cam into the rock - clip it and try to keep climbing...




I was so damn tired when I finished the climb - I couldn't believe how hard I worked on it... sweet baby jesus - it was the single best pitch of climbing I have EVER done.








Since we started very late - doing the next few pitches weren't even an option - besides we did what we had come for so with 3 long raps down to the ground and we were done! Hungry and happy we rolled to the coolest climber bar ever and ate cheap wings and good beer....

Another rockin day in paradise.

Haven't posted a blog in a while so figure I'd fill ya'll in on what I've been up to.

I'm staying with Todd and Nicole (friends from Toronto). They have been amazing - they opened up their lovely home and have done sooo much to make me feel comfortable and 'at home'.


I told Nicole when came here that I was either going to move to Calgary or Vancouver (at the time I was leaning towards Calgary). She made it a personal mission to persuade me that Vancouver was the place to be.


I made Sunday D-day. Today was the day that I was going to decide where I was to setup shop.

I woke up late - went for a great run along Kitsalano Beach. The beach was great - beautiful people everywhere, gorgeous mountains as a backdrop and great ocean. I liked it so much that I came back later and went for a 2 hour stroll down the beach.

After staring at the sailboats, beautiful woman and. The dogs playing in the water I knew... That Vancouver was where I belong.

I love Calgary - the people are incredible, the mountains are spectacular and the shot-girls at Cowboys' want to have my babies. Dispite all of this I think Vancouver is going to be where I plant my roots - for now.

I'm not sure how the next little while will go, I need to find both a job and an apartment ASAP, from there I have no idea what will happen...

Tomorrow I begin 'working' to find work and a new home. The carefree attitude I've had will be replaced by the stress of no money, no job and only a carload of posessions.

At the same time I'm excited... I closed the last chapter of my life with one of the rad'est trips ever - with the best friends I could ever ask for. I don't know what this next chapter will hold - but I'm excited as hell to find out.

To my Toronto friends and family I want to tell you all how much I love you guys, your smiles, jokes and support is what made my time in Toronto amazing. I am everything I am today because of you (not sure if that's good or bad).

I expect all of you to come visit me in my new home.

Kev

Rock On!!

So I'm sitting here at starbucks in Squamish with the big Rob. We got on Rock On(5.10a) today... FINALLY!!! This is the same climb that B, Al and I waited over an hour for and never got a chance to do it.


Here's Rob for an accout of how it went:

Ouch


Seriously...thoroughly enjoyed the 5 pitch climb...more my speed. I was so committed on the 4th pitch... My hands looked like road kill. Kudos to kev...he killed that climb without a hitch. The climb down was the scariest part...we walked down steep slab...now I need to change my underwear.

The winds of change...

So here is Tuesday... quite a bit has changed since my last post. Bryden and my 'wife' Al left on Sunday - which made me sad... Al was the best person I could ever have chosen to share my adventures with. His laidback, positive outlook on everything kept me happy and chilled out. He put up with all the quirks that is Kevin and made every day a good day. Saying goodbye to my partner in crime-fighting was the sadest thing I have done on this trip... driving with an empty passenger seat made a tear come to my eye...

We'll always have Bloc party my friend.

Al - thank you dude... you rock more than Milli-Vanilli

Now come back to the mountains my friend.... she is calling and so am I!

SMITH ROCKS!!!

Smith Rocks was amazing!! We arrived in Smith Rocks State Park, Oregon at 5:30am on Saturday morning - we had made arrangements to meet Todd and Nicole, we looked briefly for them before the sunrise forced us to crawl into our tents. 3 hours later the relentless sun forced us from our overheating sleeping bags and out to an empty campground - 'where the hell is everyone?'

So we got some breakfast, coffee and lunch we even rubbed sun-block all over each other's backs - finally around 11 we headed for the climbing area. We were super-excited to climb the beautiful Volcanic walls around us, so excited in fact that we didn't really notice the climbers walking past us and to their cars...

Being Canadians we looked for routes soaked in the beautiful sun - after one climb we all found out what it feels like to dip your feet in fire as you climb... OUCH burning rubber on your feet!

So to the shade we quickly went... thankfully we came across 4 girls climbing with no boys who were happy to squit us with water all over our sweating man chests!

Climbing that first day hurt - the sun killed us, the rock was super-duper sharp and the lack of sleep just made things hurt more. With no desire to cook we got recommendation to eat at some La Burrito place - which is actually a Mexican restaraunt in a freakin - gas station!! It was actually good!!

After dinner we finally found Todd and Nicole, who were waking up at 6am to climb - Hahahahaha noway we'd do that! Sleep that night came quick.

Day 2 - not the Smith way

9:30am - We wake up to yet another empty campground... what the hell?

We felt smart today - we made plans to head to the backside of the rocks where shade would embrace us. In the parking lot we met Brian - an older guy who races dragsters and likes to climb - he had no partner and asked to climb with us - 'of course you can - hop on the party train Brian!'

So we climbed some spectacular routes on the backside... gorgeous views and super amazing routes that went up featureless walls (all smith routes look featureless from a distance).

In the end we ended up calling it a day by5 as the heat was too much (even out of the sun) my watch said 34 in the shade. That night the 3 of us were starving so we headed to Bend for all-you-can-eat. We found Izzy's 6.99 pizza buffet - shitty pizza never tasted sooo damn good!

Day 3 - Finally the Smith Way

6am - We finally - decided to do Smith properly and woke up early. Climbing in the morning before the sun hit us was amazing. We climbed in the main area (morning glory and the dihedral walls). by our 3rd day we were beginning to understand how to climb hard at smith. The routes in this place are vertical, featureless, hard for the grade and 'minimally' bolted. So hard moves high above protection bolts was common - big clean falls were very common for us too.

By 11 the sun was on us and we called it for the morning - went to Pepe's Pizza for an all you can eat lunch buffet at the worst pizza place ever - which was still pretty good at the time!

After a relaxation period in the shade back to climbing we went. Hitting Latin Lover 12a... a beautiful vertical crimpfest... this was to become our project. Sustained, vertical crimping on smaller and smaller holds is the best way to describe the route.

Day 4. The last day..

Another 6am wakeup - back to some beautiful Smith climbs and one more attempt at Latin Lover for each of us... no sends to speak of but still happy boys all around.

Once the sun hit us we packed up our things and headed back to Vancouver.

We're staying at Todd and Nicole's beautiful place now - wow their home is spectacular.

Rob flies in this afternoon which will be great. Tomorrow Al and I are taking Bryden up the chief - on Angel's Crest a spectacular 12 pitch 10c.

Bye for now.