Well, I'm sitting at the trailhead of Hillbilly Deluxe- a trail in William's Lake, BC. I pulled in around 4:30 this afternoon after dragging myself away from Jay and Marcie's super crib. I made them a veggie scramble for breakfast and we sat around shooting the wad for a while before peeling out at ~12:30. They are some of the coolest people I've had the pleasure of getting to know better in a while!! We rode everyday- 3 laps on Rio w/ Michelle and Toby, then 3 laps of Harper w/ Ja on Tuesday. Some trail building on Jameison w/ Ja on Wed- built a sweet jump and berm on the more established trail, then ripped it. Ja was all flustered since he was late for beer bottling and ate it into the hole we dug from!! I overshot it the first go, then hit it perfect the second time. I hit the road gap solo at the bottom (smooth), then hung out at the bottom near the stream for lunch. We were supposed to get together and ride Greenstone that evening, but Ja tried to call me (I turned it off at border), so I ended up hanging out solo for a bit at the house, jumping on their trampoline w/ the tramp bike (trying no foot cans, bar spins, and one footed flatties to both sides). Thursday we rode some more Harper (thanks for the shuttles Marcie) and got some pretty killer photos of Pimpernaut (me jumping over Marcie drinking a beer, and a sweet one of me on the wood to dirt kicker). We finished off the evening by riding w/ Metro on their trail on Greenstone. It was super fun w/ lots of berm work and flowy jumps that used the natural terrain extremely well. Only one move needed some more loving (in my opinion)- the wood to dirt hip- which seemed to have logs in the wrong part of the tranny. I ended up hitting it third lap and almost eating it off the high side of the tranny. Friday I tried to leave, but just as I was saying my goodbyes, Matt Hunter called Ja to see if he wanted to ride. He didn't, but I sure jumped on the opportunity to ride again w/ Matt. He had a bunch of buddies in town- Jon-O and Michelle from Nelson, Ben (his cousin), his GF Nikki, and another buddy from Victoria. We ripped 3 laps, the last of which they ended at a sweet camp site w/ a view of the whole valley below. I sat around w/ them for a while sipping on a beer and eating chips as they cooked some "smokies" on the grill. Just before dark I peeled out and ripped the rest of Nate's Woody. Unfortunately I mistimed my braking after hitting a wood booter and ended up stacking it into a berm below. I kind of tweeked my thumb and scraped up my shoulder and back a bit. I finished off the trail a bit more reserved and headed back to Ja's where they were having a bit of a party. I choked down a couple of cold burgers and some potato salad while hanging out w/ another Ben and his wife, plus a dude I met last year at Smoke's May Long Weekend Jam. It was a glorious week full of bike talk, bike riding, good food, and great company. Thanks guys!!
Today I timed it out pretty good. I stopped at the Laughing Loon to try to find people to shuttle w/ but no luck. Then I went to the bottom of Hillbilly Stunts and ended up running into a family that was shuttling for a couple of birthday boys!! I got 3 laps out of the deal!! We rode HS, then onto Mitch's ?, and A Flo Daddy. I hit the A Flo road gap (pretty solid) and then onto the 40 footer (probably a bit less) which I aborted on the first go (decided to actually LOOK at it a bit too late and had to launch the bike off the wood kicker and jump off, deeply bruising and cutting the back of my leg (f'n ow!!). All in all a good bit of riding for the first day- not too gnarly, but still hit a couple solid moves. Their trails seem to be a bit over-rated w/ regards to difficulty (Mitch's was fun w/ some medium tabletops and was labeled expert- so was HS?!). I ate at the Laughing Loon while talking to my mama on Skype (pretty damn cool!!!), then drove around looking for a spot to camp. No real luck, plus one aborted mission down a dirt road that turned gnarly, forcing me to turn around in a bunch of bushes/high grasses. That pretty much brings me back to where I sit, typing in the dark w/ the sounds of some birds and frogs in the background. Hopefully Gustav calls me for some ripping tomorrow!! Otherwise I think I'm off to check out Desous Mtn. and/or the Westside Trails (Snakes and Ladders, plus a number of "extreme" steep stunted trails w/ "expert" jumps. I also want to try to hook up w/ James Doerfling while I'm here so he can show me how to ride a bike!! OK.....off to bed!! I'm beat!!
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