When chaos is a compliment

Hello Everyone,

I'm writing to you from beautiful Whistler, B.C., where the weather is cool and wet and I couldn't be happier about it. After weeks in the unrelenting shadelesss heat of the desert, it's nice to be able to put away the sunscreen.

I've been to this part of the world a lot over the last 10 years, but there are two well-known epic trails here that I have not had the chance to ride. One of them, known as Lord of the Squirrels, is closed for the season due to several encounters with an aggressive Grizzly in the area. Fair enough.

The other, Comfortably Numb, is a 13 mile cross-country trek whose first 9 miles is climbing. It is also, open for business, and on Saturday, the last nice day before a week of rain, Arthur and I took up the challenge.

To be honest, I was a little worried about it. It's a highly technical trail, meaning it's got a lot of roots and rocks in your way, and the 2 mile descent at the end is one I've actually ridden before (it's connects to another trail from the village) and had one of my nastier falls on. But I wasn't going to get a better opportunity than this, so on we went.

And I loved it. It was a great trail, one of my favourites so far for sure. It was tough, but in a difficult-but-doable kind of way, so I enjoyed the challenge. I came in just under the average time for the climb, which is 3 hours. (If you are doing the math, that means I averaged an impressive 3 miles per hour, which is about walking speed.) Add in the descent and the ride back to the parking lot, and we were out for 4 hours total. I even nailed the section of the descent where I had crashed before. I felt great, a real sense of accomplishment.

After that, it was time for turkey with Jason, his crew, their friends, and their crew. I loved that even more. It reminded me of home, as there were 7 chatty adults, 5 hyped up kids, and one very tired dog. Chaos is putting it mildly. But a good chaos.

wes

Photos

Here are some shots from my adventures on the trail. They are in somewhat chronological order, as you can tell from Arthur's bearing at the beginning and end. Unfortunately, you can't see the deep chasm that that slippery, icy bridge crosses, but it was impressively deep and filled with rushing water.