Kelowna!!

Where to start?!!  Last Wednesday we showed up in Tonasket and went climbing on Thursday at Burge Mtn (an area Lily's dad has been developing) and a half day Friday (w/ Dana and Monica as well).  Great times were had by all.  Lily even did her first lead on a 5.7.  I climbed a 2 pitch "cliff dweller" w/ Gary and also got turned back on "Savor the Sweetness," which Gary later made the second ascent of (solid 5.11).  After a half day on Friday I had the uncontrollable urge to head north to beautiful BC (Kelowna).  Johnny Smoke was having an early season bike party since it was a long weekend in Canada (Victoria Day).  There were a LOT of people there when I showed up (20+) with tents sprawled across the nice sized back yard.  I was hoping to have caught a ride, but customs had different plans for me (unkept guy driving a van registered to a Lily going BIKING in BC?!!).  An hour later w/ the van ripped apart they "let" me continue on my way.  Too bad the last shuttle went out before I arrived.  We partied down and BBQ'd (and I got a fast ride to the store in Dan Barham's new VW GTI).  Woke up the next AM and ripped a lap on Builder's Only w/ Colin and John.  Super fun trail w/ 3 stunted zones w/ woodwork in between.  The first had a fast medium sized double then another jump  before stepping up onto a platform (which I almost didn't make the crux corner on) then stepping down then riding a curvy bridge the shot across the road and into a jump over a boulder (table).  The second zone was Crazy Train- steep A frame to wooden table to stepdown to steep A frame to step up to double stepdown.  Great feature (and not stupid big).  The last zone split off R with a fast natural hip stepup to wooden double to drop to L hip (w/ HUGE landing).  We ripped a few laps on that throughout the day (as well as riding at _________ Creek where we had 20+ people pedaling their big bikes UP hill before raging a super fun, smooth, DH peppered w/ smaller jumps).  Good times were had by all.  I got some good shots of Brett Tippie, Smoke, Andy, etc.  Andy tried to get me drunk (as usual) but that didn't work----too determined to shred the gnar.  Sunday was off to Oliver (1 hr away) and I piled into Colin's truck.  The first lap dropped ~4000 ft w/ the top being loamy turns and half sketchy logrides/woodwork.  Then it dropped through fields of sage and Balsams (yellow flowers) before getting "spiny" and skidder trail towards the bottom.  You could even choose your own adventure at one point, raging through the sage.  Unfortunately Sarah, Brett Tippie's partner took a digger and broke/tore the ligaments in her thumb.  I played field doc and splinted her up.  Then we reset the shuttle (and chowed at the bottom in an ant farm).  Second lap was on TKO.  Should have known by the name it was going to be gnarly.  Smoke got the van momentarily stuck, but Ryan Hayes and his jacked up 4 runner pulled him out without complaint.  We trudged up a bit (and held onto the Yota) until we hit solid snow.  We pushed and pedaled as best as we could through the snow before finally hitting the trail head.  It opened up with some fast dreamy loamy turns that I could take for years before turning back R and dropping in steep.  We spaced out a bit and the precession dropped into the gnar.  First move- steep off camber sidehill with a wet rock that you had to ride over into steep chute and HARD L corner.  The dude in front of me froze up and I had to coax him along as I'm trying to negotiate the moves as well as not stop.  I quickly put the pass on him ASAP.  The trail disappeared before my very eyes at every corner.  You had to commit to a move before you could even see what was coming.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!  And it went on for nearly 4000'!!!  There were soooooo many techy sections, lots of loose pointy rocks, and some cliff edge moves to keep you honest (and your eyes on the trail).  At one point I came out of the woods and there was the group checking out a jump.  "Hit it!!" I heard so I charged into it and sent it.  Happy to be out in front i kept charging until I ran into some trail debris (which I cleared).  Still no bike sounds so I kept going.  I finally FORCED myself to stop and take some pics on one steep zone.    After a bit we ran into a road gap that didn't give a lot of pop, but you had to hit it MOVING and then it kept going steep after the landing with moondust into a FAST R hander that went off a 3' drop then back into the steep rock gnar.  Cam stepped up and just sent it at mach 10 (pedaling?!!) and was GONE into a trail of dust.  WOW was the collective thought.  A few more people stepped up and hit it (including Marcie).  I gave it a go and was surprised by just how poor of traction the moondust provides.  I was hauling ass out the bottom with a huge grin on my face.  A few fast corners spat us out into a pasture where we all let out a collective exhale.  Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!  High fives abound we were ALL charged up!!  What a rip!!  We coasted downhill to the winery where we parked the cars.  We all stood around chatting an laughing it up until our stomachs forced us to load up and head for food!!  Back at Smoke's there were fixings for everybody (meat pie, salad, etc) brought by somebody in the group.  Free is for me!!  We hung out and partied down with Ryan, Ja Smith, Marcie, Julie, etc crashing overnight as well.  Great group of people!!  We planned on hitting Postill the next AM before the planned Naramata riding (Airawanna). 

 I got up at 6:45 AM and rustled Colin and Ryan out of bed.  We headed to Postill and met up with Andrew McIntosh (Inferno builder).  We checked out his trail-in-progress and wow did it impress.  LOTS of well thought out woodwork stunts and a cool trail section down low.  We hit 3 moves that had never been ridden by anyone and got some shots.  I cased the third move pretty bad and called it good (double step up to bowl stepdown).  Ryan and Andrew nailed it pretty smooth w/ some serious body english.  Then we raged on to Addiction, the showpiece of the area.  It stared out mellow enough w/ some up and down to a hike-a-bike.   Then it got into the business.....first moves were:  getting going as fast as you could through a sweeping R w/ embedded rocks into a ~20-25' stepdown to immediate step up (15' out, 6' up) to quick turn and off a 8-10' drop (I overshot it).  Then you gap over a ridge, hit a small hip, then charge onto the woodwork with a step up gap, turn, small stepdown, into the SKI BOOTER.  I was a little nervous and hit it WAY too fast the fist time, landing front tire on flat dirt and my back tire grazed the tranny.  We moved on and hit the Addiction drop (blind 6' drop) into a stepdown table into downhill ramp and into a 120' wallride!!!!!!  It was H-u-g-e!!!  The movies don't do it justice!!  We sessioned it a bit and watched Julie come unglued and launch her bike off the top of the wallride while sliding UP the move.  Her pads got caught and she was dangling by her arm 6-10' off the ground.  Luckily she immediately shouted "I'm OK!!"  and dislodged her arm.  I was up on the ladder behind the wallride and was in awe as to what I just experienced.  What a trooper!!!  She tried to get the nerve up to hit it again but was noticeably spooked.  The last zone on Addiction gets fast and A-line like w/ jumps abound (and the ATV booter) as well as the 25-30 footer off to the R of the trail.  I followed Ryan off the big jump and overshot it by a good bit!!  Nothing quite like a 30' jump to flat I tell ya!!  There was one last techy jump section to finish that had a steep short double into a R hip into a hip stepdown to the road.  Wahoo!!!  Andrew was nice enough to give us one more lift up before he had to go to work.  WICKED!!!  

We charged back to Smoke's to try to catch them before they left but were too late.  I broke down the tent as fast as possible and jumped in the van (as did Andy in his van) and we sped off to catch the group outside of Penticton at Naramata.  We missed the first lap which was Airawanna (and had the separator drop) but hung out by the beach w/ Barb and Chiovan until the group got back.  We jumped on for the second lap and had a good rip through a maze of trails that led into the Boneyard (rock garden).  Lots of fun swoopy trail dropped us out on the road and we immediately headed for the closest winery.  Still sweating and permeating funk we meandered into a swanky winery and got lined up for some tasting.  Trying to act interested in the flavors and notes I gulped down 6 different kinds of wine and felt a little buzz coming on before I realized that I had to cross the border in an hour or two.  I bought a bottle of their reserve pinot gris and loaded up for the drive back to the states.  I arrived just in time to have some left over ribs and salad before passing out.  Ahhhhhhh...life IS good!!