Monday, March 19, 2012

Surfing Again!



For this surf day Jaakko and Tyler stayed back leaving room in the truck for Andy (the president of AGON clothing). This time the surf was a bit of a gamble. The forecast for the incoming swell kept getting pushed further and further back. We were worried, it would be too darkby the time the waves came, but we figure the only way to find out for sure was to make the drive and wait.

We made our way out to Terrace Bay for around noon'ish hoping to meet the waves, but there was only just enough to make a wake boarder complain at the first beach. The second beach was worse. We got back on the highway and tried to make our way down to the third beach. This time I don't think the wake boarders would have complained much; it was glass. Down on our luck we decided to go back to the 1st beach and wait for the swell to roll in like Matthew Mcconaughey in the movie "Surfer Dude". We took our time and suited up slowly. Sure enough the swell started to build and after 2 hours of waiting, there was finally some ridable waves.

The swell ended up just being perfect for our long boards; shoulder height and nice and pushy. Nicole, Andy, Mike and I just kept catching nice ride after nice ride. I worked on my backhand drop ins (heel side), trying to get them solid for bigger short board days. There weren't too many notable things that are worth mentioning because, the whole surf session was notable. It was just a relaxed session, everyone catching waves, everyone having fun, you can't ask for more then that.

(In this picute is me just in some mush)

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Mountain Sledding In Ontario?


I forget exactly which day this was, but after it snowed 30 or so centimeters I had to show I was a man of my word. Originally I had no intention of sledding on the closed down ski hills while I was back in Tbay. There wasn't enough snow, not even a base when I got there (if you can't tell from the pic it was lean). But i did say I would go out if we got 20 to 30 and I did.

I met Ryan Jones just up the dirt road from the old Candy Mountain, 1 of 3 closed down ski hills in T Bay. We dropped the sleds off our trucks, fired them up and went looking for a way in. There isn't a staging area here and the bottom of the hill is now fenced off as it is a private residence, so we ended up bush whacking through this pseudo trail we found off the side of the road. The trail ended up leading to the old slightly over grown ski trails and we were able to crack the throttle. We bombed around trying not to hit rocks as impossible as it was. There aren't really any highlights, just a good over all time bombing around, doing some hill climbs and descents on our sleds that used to challenge me on skis once upon a time. Jones ended up bending his A arm on a rock and I'm pretty sure one of mine is a little tweak now.


(In this picture is my sled chilling near the "peak" of Candy Mountain)