Bumps, Bruises, and Mt. Begbie

I can hardly believe it is already the end of August! Where has the summer gone! After ben's race I accepted a part time job with Valhalla Pure here In revelstoke. This really ate up the spare time that Ben and I had to go on adventures. Needless to say that job only lasted 2 weeks. The breaking point was last weekend when I was going to be working all weekend and had already worked 3/5 nights that week. It was a beautiful weekend, and Ben and I were determined to take advantage of the 20 hours total that I had off all week(from 3pm Sat till 11am Sunday). At 3pm we packed up bags and headed up to camp on Mt. Begbie. It was a 6 km slough up a steep 22% grade trail with all our camping gear on our backs. There aren't any views along the way, but once you get above the treeline the view was rewarding! We could see the ski hill, the town, the setting sun, and it was a clear evening so that stars were unbelieveable that night. There is a couple of tent pads up there but they were all taken so we hiked up a little further and found a spot right below the glacier. It was unbelieveable. We had some wine, made some "dinner" (which is freeze dried astronaut food which you just add water too... yet tastes soo good after hiking)and built a fire. We hung out played cribbage and soaked in the views determined to stay awake for the stars. We camped that night without the fly on our tent and stared at them all night. Well ben literally stared at them all night because he didn't sleep at all since a spark hit his thermarest sleeping pad and created a hole.. I on the other hand slept peacefully under the stars.

We got up bright at early at 6 am because I knew I had to work. Dreading work. We started hiking down the mountain and wound up on top of a rock ledge. I was in front and kept walking trying to find a safe place to get down. Finally i found a place i thought I could do it, took a couple of steps until i felt my feet slip and fell about 10 feet. I am so lucky it was only 10 feet because I was pretty much helpless falling. My knees were pretty cut up, so ben came over with the trusty first aid kit and bandaged me up. All in all i was lucky and didn't think there was any major issues... that was until I started trying to walk down the steep mountain. My right knee that wasn't all that scraped up was really really sore, and very step made it worse. But I had no choice we had to get off that dumb mountain. It took us 3 hours. 3 hours of torture with every second step. Did I mention that we forgot the painkillers at home? whoops. Half way down I stopped trying to be tough and gave ben my backpack to carry down which made it a little easier but boy that was one of the hardest things I've done. Needless to say I didn't work that day, and proceeded to work one more shift before quitting. Working 8-5 is enough, I dont need to be working 60 hours a week. Especially since I want to do so much other things too.

This past weekend Ben and I had plans to climb Mt. cartier here in revelstoke. But it was soo smokey so we just went to the gym, had a mini triathlon, did a little hiking that was not strenous, and just hung out. I was supposed to work all weekend again so we just enjoyed having that time off together.

This coming weekend we're headed to Penticton. We decided to volunteer at Ironman Canada which will be really exciting! I'm planning on signing up for next year and we decided that since we were going so I could sign up we might as well volunteer and get involved in the whole thing! The weather is supposed to be nice and we've decided to bring our bikes.. maybe bike a portion of the route for ironman! should be a good weekend!

Ribbon Creek Falls

So the Peruvian adventure is over and I am now fully absorbed back in to my busy routine here in calgary. It's sad because I had a once in a life time experience but the busier you get in to your regular routine the more you start forgetting about the trip. Mind you I do have the occasional flash back of the amazon. But it is definitely nice to be back in calgary doing other things that I love to do, such as training and hiking. I'm not sure if i mentioned this but Ben and I signed up the the Alberta Challenge Olympic triathlon and Ben has assumed the role of training coach. He is totally awesome, has made us a day by day schedule and posted it on the fridge. He super encouraging which is amazing except at the end of a 6 mile run when I feel like I can't take another step and there he is bouncing along beside me yelling encouragements. It is at that point that I tend to yell shut up! I just need to finish this darn thing in peace! But it feels great to be back on a training program again and I love training alongside ben! it makes it so much easier because if i dont feel like going he pushes me and if he doesn't feel like going I push him.
Other than training, life has not slowed down for a minute since I got back, between working full time, training, completing my papers and catching up with friends and family it has been slightly exhuasting... Mind you somehow ben and I found time to go for a 10 km over night hike last weekend. It was friday and ben was off early so we did our usual friday training (which is a mini-triathlon), then packed up and headed to the mountains. The intention was to climb Mt. Bogart a mountain that has a 12 km hike in before you even start climbing, but that plan failed when we got to the back country camp ground and realized that the path up to the mountain was closed because there was a moose carcass and bears up there. Oh well, we still had a great night. Had a "gourmet" meal with some wine and hung out by the fire and had a peaceful sleep with the sound of the rain on the tent. We woke up the next morning to blue skies, hiked out with the intentions of finding another mountain to climb, but our energy levels were low and Ben had a random allergic reaction and his eye was swelling so we decided to pack it in and head home. We planned on having a relaxing night, but of course with us that never happens because we get to bored. So what started as a walk to get some tea turned in to another 10 km walk up to 16th ave by sait (we live on 18th ave in the south) for all you can eat sushi. We had full intentions of taking the train home, only to realize that neither of us had any change and proceeded to walk all the way home. We walked nearly 30 kms that day, ten of which I had 30 pounds on my back and 50 pounds on ben's. But it was nice to have some time together, I vowed not to even think about my course work and succeeded, I was way to tired to even crack a book open. All in all it was a great weekend. This weekend unfortuneately won't be as exciting since my paper is due on tuesday and I didn't even think about it last week I have alot of work to get done. But I figure one weekend of fun, the next for work and so on until July 15th when all my papers are handed in and ALL my weekends can be for the champs.