Whistler/ Van/ Arduum Epic Roadtrip

So this last week I embarked on an epic roadtrip to be spent with the best of friends. The last few have been fairly full on so when Dylan invited me to hit Whis on the 17th and 18th, a few days before the 3rd BC Cup DH in Mission, I couldn’t resist turning the week into an extended race roadtrip. With my confirmation in order I set out I spread the good word and mobilize my resources. The posse that came together under the old van consisted of myself, my old shredding and highschool buddy Steve Heron, and Limitless protégé supershredder Dexter Hook. The days before we embarked I spent Monday on a day trip to Mission to train all day for the race and Tuesday working 16 hours at Sun Peaks. I packed once I got home from work, and by 2:30am had everything together to go. The other musketeers stayed over so we could make an early escape in order to make first chairs in Whis, so by 4am we were up again and on the road after some delicious feast and packing my van to the roof. The drive consisted of caffeine, shenanigans, and then as the others decided that they had earned the right to sleep while I had to drive, lots of Slayer blasting as loud as my stereo could go. Once we got to Whis we met up with Dylan and Monty, and proceeded to shred the park until closing. I believe my final tally was 14 runs pinned with a long sesh in the DJ park in the middle. Along the way I saw a ton of old friends who we would join groups with for a run or two before going our separate ways. It was amazing. That night we stayed with an old friend of mine, Sam Daniels, who was paralyzed a number of years ago riding in town and is now living in Whistler while training for the paralymplics in sitskiing. It was super good to see him and his girlfriend Jac, who both lived in Residence with me in Uni, and are two of my best friends. Amazing hosts, super down to earth awesome friends, a multimillion dollar cabin and the atmosphere of a Whistler roadtrip; what a time. We had a massive feast and lots of beers over conversation, and then Sam, Steve and I headed into the village to a couple pubs where we reminisced about old days and discussed plans for the future. In the morning we awoke feeling the effects of the double Jagerbombs but remaining in good spirits. We headed to the park and proceeded to bang off another 9 runs before calling it around 6. I bounced around between groups of friends riding all day and got in a few runs tailing locals, which was unreal. I met up with my friend Katrina Strand, possibly the shreddingest female known to the world, and her posse for some more gnarly DH runs which was delicious feast for the soul. With her was Kenny Smith, who pins breakneck fast local lines and makes training blind an excellent adventure. Holy sh*t! Too much fun. Resorts in general and Whistler specifically are such a good place to get on your game, getting a week’s worth of riding and a month’s worth of air in two days definitely proved to get me feeling in tune with my ride and my ride in tune with the ground.