Winter in April?

For the love of Pete!!! It's been snowing fo rthe last two days! I had a buddy drive up to Good Riddance and he found 6 to 8 inches all the way up the road, so you can guess what is in the trees!
Supposed to warm up next week so we'll have to wait.
Steve

The steepest climb to............The Playground!!

I decided to ride the playground first! Good riddance is too far for my pooch to run there and back so we stuck closer to home. At the start of the trail just as you enter the single track climb, you will find..............no snow!! It's a little tacky here and there but otherwise totally dry! As the trail turns upward the only wet/snowy spots are the tiny low spots in the trail which collected more snow then the rest of the trail. For the most part the whole climb is almost dusty. Makes for a super dry forest..... I don't want to say it but we all know what happens when the powers that be see a dry forest so early on. The entire downhill section of the trail is perfect aside from the usual bits of deadfall here and there, which I cleared as much as my ragged ass could, the rest of the trees are meant for two guys at least or a nice chainsaw. Most of the trees are rideable some you have to get off and duck under. All the stunts are as sweet as ever, still rock freakin solid and i rode them all! I love my bike! So thats the PLayground as of yet, Good Riddance should be done in the next day or two, I'll probably shuttle it with Peter and do a couple of laps with the doggies!
Chris, hope you're not worked too ragged already! We have a road trip to plan. Oh yea... just so's you know I went and sold my fork and wheel together for 450.00 so you'll have to keep your eye out now for anopther good deal!
Catcha Later kids
Steve

Blair witch, how I've missed her!

Hey there you working stiffs! It was a super georgeous day here in the Pass with temps in around 22 or so and barely any wind to speak of! It was calling me all day, from when the sun came up to when that 6pm closing bell rang! The ski hill and Blair witch were looking good! The road all the way to the top is in perfect, perfect condition with only a few patches of snow remaining. The top of the trail is nice and dry and the only place where its even a little wet is the section of steep down hill quad track before the "Danger drop of death". Only reason I call it that is because it is a 6 or so foot drop to flat, unfriendly rocky landing. The rest of the trail down to the road is perfect, just the right amount of tackyness to make corners fun again! All the stunts are there and strong with no dead new dead falll to speak of. So there you have it the Blair Witch is back in business! Although they sya it's supposed to snow on Wed. I'm off to ride Good riddance tommorrow, my only day off! I'll post again tommorrow!
See ya kids!
Steve

Road Trippin

Wow is it late.... My last two exams are tommorrow morning and I have been up studying history.. Probably gonna flunk the exam but hopefully not the coarse... Saturday I have to be in Calgary for a confined space course and then monday morning I need to be in sunny Athabasca for indoc into the pulp mill. I have three weeks worth of work ahead of me. One week in Athab one week in Hinton and a week at a gass plant in Edmonton. I hope to find the same dirt jumps next to the blue berry hill camp ground in Atha b like last year and maybe I can round up the engineer that took us mountain biking in Hinton last year as well. Last year it snowed up high and hosed use on our attempt to do the trail Steve built up there. Cant remember the name of the trail. We did do a few in town that were kinda fun so we'll have to hit that one up. I hope I can get a ride in in Cow town while I am there but I may have to do family things and such. I will keep in touch while I am on the road and I will send trail reports when I can. If any one knows of any trails out there let me know and I;ll hit them up. Mean while keep your eye's open in the pass and ride on!
mo

Mom always said "check your landing"

chris drop
Originally uploaded by anteclothingcorp.

Welcome Steve and Jessica to the blog. Seems like summer might be here to stay (in Lethbridge anyways) heard it snowed a foot at home on monday. That stuff will melt in no time and on the bright side the more it rains the less likely a chance of forest fires. This picture is a few years old, it is at the mine buildings across the street from the east entrance to Bellevue (sp) Kinda a neat drop except for the six foot chunk of rusty drag chain that almost severed my spine upon landing. Lesson for today is to always walk your landing and look for rusty mining crap.

Steve-o here. testing... 

FUN FUN FUN in the Summer Sun

It is now officially summer, the ticks are out in full force and the mountain bike trails are starting to dry out. This weekend we went for a few rides, Saturday we rode Jodi's trail above Coleman, I believe it was called Jodi's nature trail? It was in really good shape, the up trail only had a touch of snow and the decent was free and clear, a little slick thru the steeps but that just added to the fun of it all. The stunts held up really well thru the winter and there was only one tree down across the trail( I told Jod's and he is going to take care of it), the new skinny in the clear cut is an awesome ride and I am looking forward to more. Someone destroyed my little off chute on the lower half of the ttrail and if any one wants to rat out the culprits I would appreciate it. Today we did a quick burn up the Nez Pierce trail and had a blast on the way down, the trails in awesome shape with only a few moist spots and a large log acress the trail near the top. I think its safe to asume that every thing will be ridable in the next few weeks, as for the new trails out there let me know whats going on and I will spread the good word.
email me at anteclothingcorp@hotmail.com
mo

spread eagle redux

spread eagle
Originally uploaded by anteclothingcorp.

This is a shot of the east face of spread eagle. Tim and I tried the central couliour and got about a third of the way up and then the sun came out and turned every thing isothermic. We had plans to head up there sunday but unfortunatly Tim tweeked his ankle during the week and rumor has it that a foot of snow fell this week in waterton, which would add a little objective hazzard.
mo

Spread Eagle part 2

Well we didnt make it to the top, we only got about a quarter to a third of the way up due to poor snow conditons. Our hi mark of about 2100m was reached at 10 am, the sun was out once and a while and the area heated up pretty quickly. There was a little rock fall, just enough to be annoying and keep you on your toes. From a sheltered spot on the side of the gully we dug a snow pit, there was about 50cm of snow, the snow pack had a few layers to it, the most noticable was an ice layer about 20cm down at the very bottom of the snow pack was about 10 cms of slush and the shovel test failed to this layer while cutting out the block. We figured that to be bad news so we split. We are heading back next weekend camping out friday night and starting real early to miss that sun effect.
ps watch out for ticks
mo

Spead Eagle or Bust

Tim and I are going to give the central coulior on spread eagle a go. It may be a little gnarly for us so we'll play it by ear.
I'll post pictures when they become available
Mo

atdavieslead1

atdavieslead1
Originally uploaded by anteclothingcorp.

Land of Mediocrity

Southern alberta is such an untapped source! There is so much to do here (Crowsnest Pass) and so few people to do it with. Mountain biking and climbing are my two pasions. The mountain biking scene is in about to start its ascent into greatness, from what I understand there used to be a very strong biking community here, it must have died or gone under ground, as for the ice climbing its kinda nice that no one from the bow valley comes down here, although its understandable with the winter that we just had.
In the last few years a few die hard riders have moved into town and it is really nice to see thier input, skills and trails. There is lots of talk of new trails and projects and it should be an awesome summer if we dont get kicked out of the woods in fire season.
Feel free to send in info about trails in the pass and area.
Mo