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Pic 9To finish, a quote from the final entry in my travel journal:
So, this is it. I think this is my last entry. I don't want to end it because the end of this is really and truly the end of the trip.
But, it's time.
This is the end of the best year of my life.
Stu.
August 10 2010
After a week and a half of going insane trying to sell my van, Deckers said 'Stu, let's go hiking'.. and so we did.
Two days of glacial mayhem, sweat, port, and canned chilli. Mmmm yeah we smelled good.
Anyway, click read more for the story.
Yosemite was so rad that it needed a whole special post of its own.
Mark & I had three days of adventure (ADVENTURE!!!) in Yosemite, starting with a wicked (wicked as in awesome and wicked as in WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY THIGHS YOU EVIL PIECE OF CRAP) hike to the top of Yosemite Falls and on to North Point, some bouldering action and another sweet hike up Nevada Falls, via Mist Trail, rattlesnakes and bears.
Click read more for the story.
It was with a weird sense of excitement and relief that I crossed back into Canada. The time in the States was awesome, I had so much fun, but it never really felt like MY country - it always felt like it was a little too different to be normal.
Canada, on the other hand, feels like home, and so it was a sense of homecoming that I crossed the border back to the Great White North.
Click read more to see just how flipping rad Canada is in summer!
The recap continues!
From here we head back to San Fran and Santa Cruz, to Yosemite, and then up north through the States to Canada again.
Click read more to come along for the ride and experience my awesome ability to fit over a month of adventure into about two minutes of reading time!
Whoa heeeey time flies! Getting Stoked has been MIA for two and a half months! You know the saying.. Time flies, and all that.
So, as my epic voyage comes to a close, it's time for a quick recap of all that's happened since the last post.
Click read more for it.
** Pretty sure it's not a swan, given it a) does not look like a swan and b) does look like a goose.
This post's all about how mother nature wants to kill you. And me. She's got it in for humans, particularly Californians, and she's got some pretty sneaky weapons to get us with.
I can't really think of a better preamble to this post than that, so click read more, spare me the pain of using my brain.
I've been travelling alone for a bit over two weeks now and although it's not that long, I've been driving a looooooooot and had plenty of time to contemplate life, the universe and everything (thanks for the line Mr Adams), and I wanted to write a bit about travelling solo.
At first I was nervous, it's kinda scary to head out on your own to a place where you don't know anyone and have no plans, but at the same time it's really good because it puts you in a position where you're forced to meet new people and make friends.
The second part to it is Couchsurfing, a website that has changed the way I travel and has made this trip, and my life, so much better.
I don't want to clog up the home page so click read more if you're interested, if not, then, well, that's okay... I guess. Enter sad smiley =(
You can pretty much throw the thesaurus at Coachella.
Massive. Enormous. Awesome. Timeless. Insane. Excessive.
Okay so I planned for that to spell Meatie. I don't know why, I was bored.
Click read more, there'll be text and pictures and things..
Named after the great Barry Rd Massive, Ronnie's successor, Barry, is here to say hello.
1997 is a great vintage for the Plymouth Voyager, with subtle, fruity aromas often leaving the owner confused as to where the apple might have rolled to, and the unusually springy suspension rendering anyone who spends too long driving feeling rather intoxicated.
Like any good bottle of wine, Barry is awesome.
** I really couldn't come up with any wine/car jokes.. I shouldn't have tried to begin with.
Here's a map of the Great American Road Trip, as it stands so far. I'll update this each time I write new blogs, so those fanatics and/or stalkers out there can keep track of my every move.
Yay for you!
View Stu's Great American Road Trip in a larger map
** You can also come back to it at any time via the link at the top of the blog.. Everybody likes easy access.
The Great American Road Trip is finally underway, starting off with a whirlwind trip from Vancouver down to Indio, California, via Seattle, Portland, Mosier, Ashland and Sacramento, among others.
There'll be a map to explain, fear not.
There's also pictures and crap, click read more to see them.
Sorry about the title. That's horrible. Even I cringed and I wrote it.
For those without a mental map of Western Canada (i.e most of the Southern Hemisphere and most Americans), just off the coast of Vancouver is a big-arsed island, creatively named Vancouver Island. On Vancouver island lies the capital of BC, Victoria (oh wow, that's original). To get between the cities you need to get a ferry, and not some pansy Sydney ferry, I'm talking baby cruise ship size.
Anyway, it's an hour and a half from Vancouver Island to the mainland and the ferry winds its way through the Gulf Islands to get there, giving stoked first-time passengers (like myself) ample opportunity to waste camera batteries.
Mine are rechargeable, so ner.
Click read more to see some pics.
On a balmy (well, balmy for Canada in March), sunny day in Vancouver, Stu avoided the assortment of homeless dudes, religious zealots and the cheap pizza temptation trap, and headed out to Stanley Park to get some forest fun in the midst of the big city.
Click read more for some pics and stuff.
For those who've followed this blog since rockclimbing days back at Arapiles in Victoria, Australia, you may remember hearing about Paul Bailey, a friend of ours who had a serious fall.
Five months on and he's still doing it tough, but I believe he's finally made it back home to the U.S where he will continue his recovery.
Recently a journalist in the States recently did a story on him, which is well worth a read.
His family has also set up a blog following the accident.
All the best dude.
This blog has been overwhelmingly pro-snowboarding since its inception, with colourful pics and happy stories that paint a picture that snowboarding is a good, fun, awesome sport.
Lies. All lies.
Click read more for an enthralling journey on Why I Hate Snowboarding.
I've been reading a lot of travel writing on the net lately, and I've found some gems among the epic pile of crap that gets passed off as journalism.
Here's a link to one of my favourites, just a excerpt from a piece in Men's Journal about skiing the highest peak in Death Valley, CA, and I believe (but could well be wrong) the highest peak in the States.
Anyway, here's the link, have a read if you've got some spare time, and let me know what you think.
Slackcountry - Using resort lifts to reach a backcountry area - i.e hiking to an area outside the ski boundary from the top of the resort's lifts. As opposed to Backcountry where altitude gain is done entirely by foot and is not within a resort boundary.
As I write this, Revelstoke's out of bounds victim tally stands as follows:
* Two dead
* 13 nights spent outside
* 12 helicopter rescues
It's a haunting reminder of how easily things can go wrong outside the ski boundary, when people head out unprepared, without the right gear, or in stupid conditions.
It also weighs on your mind when you duck the rope for a hike out of bounds, even if it's just outside the controlled area.
Click read more for my perspective on hiking out of bounds.
The title says it all.
Every time I meet someone new the conversation always goes the same way:
Person: 'So, how long are you here for?'
Stu: 'Oh, I'm here for the season then doing a road trip through the US.'
Person: 'Okay, so what are you doing here?'
Stu: 'I'm snowboarding.'
Person: 'Yeah, but what sort of work are you doing?'
Stu: 'No, I'm just snowboarding.'
Person: 'I don't understand...'
Click read more to continue...
Apologies for a lack of posts, there's a whole bunch of photo-related things but they're on a memory card which does not want to share its electronic delights with my laptop...
Anyway, in better news, the snow is about to arrive, and arrive biiiiiig:
Powderrrr daaaays ahead (ignore the brutally high freezing level... damn you El Nino)
Forecast courtesy of snow-forecast.com and some awesome print screen/paint skills. Wait, no, skillz. Yeah.
Paz slaying a drop near the top of Meet the Neighbours. Fair to say the neighbours were suitably impressed.
It hasn't snowed in a while at Revelstoke, the hill is crap, moguly and hardpacked and it's about time we do something about it.
In times of crisis, there's only one person to turn to... God.
Or, more specifically, Ullr, the Nordic snow-god.
Description, courtesy of Breckenridge's website - which has a week-long festival dedicated to Ullr:
'In Norse mythology Ullr (pronounced Oool-er) was the winter god. He was the son of Sif and the stepson of Thor, the "God of Thunder." Ullr loved the cold, and delighted in traveling over the country on his skis or skates. He also delighted in the chase, and pursued his game through the Northern Forests.'
Let us pray:
* Crap video, sweet prayer
** Snow is coming tomorrow night so something must be working!
To everyone at home and travelling around the world, Happy Australia Day/Hottest 100 Day!
I spent the night listening to the Hottest 100 couped up in a hostel in Toronto with a bunch of Australians, praying the Internet connection would last long enough that we could hear who won. Props to Mumford & Sons for the win, but massive props to Bluejuice for squeezing in the top five and the Hoods for coming in third! Rad!
Yes that is an Aussie flag tattoo and a Sauv Cellars stubby holder
What do you name a post about Niagara Falls and not make it sound ultra lame? It's impossible.
On a cloudy, rainy but relatively warm day in Toronto, I jumped on a bus tour and headed towards the border to check out the ultimate in cheesy tourist destinations, and also the ultimate in radical waterfall goodness: Niagara Falls.
Click read more for a few cheesy photos, if you're into that sort of thing.
The trip to Montreal is just about over, I'm off to Toronto tomorrow morning for five days, mainly to watch the Raptors get their butts spanked by Australia's very own Andrew Bogut (that's a basketball reference for those non-sporting kids) when they take on Milwaukee, maybe squeeze in some Niagra Falls and possibly a few bar fights, Canadian-style.
Montreal has been a wicked city with everything, from the beautiful Mont Royal with outdoor ice skating on a frozen lake at the top to the hustle and bustle of downtown to the snow-covered parks to the shady sights of dudes breaking into houses out in the 'burbs.
One of the cool things about Montreal is that it's a city built on two languages - French and English. It doesn't sound that strange, but it really is. French, being the official language, rules the signage around the place, but walk into a shop and the assistant will always greet you with a very weird 'Bonjour Hello' - and will roll with however you reply.
Everyone is bilingual in Montreal, but as soon as you cross into Ontario the French disappears, and barely anyone speaks it fluently, and even less do in public.
I've been hanging with a bunch of international students so it's been a very multi-cultural trip, to the point that I've barely had a chat with a Canadian the whole time. We've been to Irish pubs, Mexican restaurants, Chinese ones, hunted for a closed Chilean place, danced our arses off at overpriced, skanky nightclubs, listened to middle-aged dudes in a cover band play Oasis songs, seen taxi drivers punch on, walked for hours on a hunt for the perfect bagel, spent days searching for Montreal's greatest thrift store/op shop/friperie (that's some French/culture for you) and it's all been rad fun.
If anyone gets the chance, visit Montreal. It's such an amazing place and it's so bizarre to have a French-speaking city in North America, it's definitely a must-see.
I may be in Montreal, but it's hard to not want to be back in Revelstoke, pulling out radical bird impersonations:
T'was a cloudy day in Montreal and our protagonist for this story, Stu, was working off a hangover when he decided to head up Mont Royal, the hill and park in the heart of the city.
What started out as a nice stroll quickly became a test of character, a journey for redemption and, ultimately, a fight for survival.
Click read more to discover a fable for the ages!
We happened across a group of paragliders at the end of a day out near Jalapeno, and with Paz on camera duties, picked up some sweet shots of a seriously awesome activity.
These shots are actually of the second dude who took off, the first guy cocked up royally and crashed on the takeoff. He was okay, his friends laughed at him.
Click read more to see the rest.
Part two of the Freeskiing World Tour event from Revelstoke, click read more to check out the rest of the pics.
We headed out to Greely Bowl today to check out the final of the Freeskiing Tour event at Revelstoke, and the journey was worth it with some ridiculous skiing on show.
We settled in with a couple of beers, made some mini snow-caves and cheered our hearts out from the ridge looking into the competition area, alongside a big crowd that turned out to watch the event.
The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the monster 100ft (we judged it to be anyways) cliff drop that one of the competitors did - we were too far away from the finishing area to hear the names, but I was told later it was the second place-getter.
Click read more to see some shots of that drop, and a host of other cool stuff.
I'm splitting this post in two because there's lots of pics so it'll save some loading time. Enjoy!
Dec had his camera out today, it was a bit foggy so the shots aren't that clear, but they show pretty well the sorta stuff we were riding.
With a fresh dusting overnight (somewhere around 5cms I'd guess, the actual snow report is always wrong...) we rode Conifers of Gnarnia (skiers' right of the Gondola) for most of the day, which consisted of small drops, big drops, trees and more drops.
Oh, and Stu and Dec had a wicked crash... but no pics of that. Click read more to see the pics of the day.
On the second run of the day we found a pre-made jump on the hike past Jalapeno, over the ridge.
After a quick glance to make sure no one was going to kick our butts for stealing their jump, we sessioned it for more than an hour, with Croz on camera duties early and everyone else sharing the load towards the end.
Click read more to check out the pics, they're pretty sweeeeet.
It hadn't snowed in three or four days, so we all slept in anticipating icy crap on the mountain, and eventually set off on what we assumed would be a short and average day some time after 11am.
Little did we know, it would turn out to be one of the most freakin radical days in the history of the universe.
Bluebird skies, waist deep powder, a pre-made kicker and a seriously awesome nutella sandwich all contributed to some insane fun.
Click read more to see the pics from the day, and apologies about the length (I'm splitting this post in two, check back for pt. 2), but it was really fun!
There's been some big changes at Getting Stoked over the last week and plenty more to come, so it's time for a bit of an update on what's going on.
The house welcomed a new member, Declan, on New Years Eve, the crew finally got off their arses and rode Greely Bowl, as well as hiking the sub-peak and dropping into the North Bowl from way higher up.
Click read more if you're bored, and get some detail.
If Powderfinger can do a best-of album, then hell, so can I.
The blog may only be a few months old, but with the new year rolling around it is time to do the Bit Of The Year In Review.
The idea behind this post was that it would be a cleverly written piece of literary gold, reflecting on the trip so far in a humourous way that would make people giggle.
Then laziness took hold, and it became a 'best pics of the Bit Of The Year' compilation.
Click read more to see Stu's picks for the best of the best so far.
The beers are chilling in the fridge as the decade edges ever closer to a close, so within the hour Getting Stoked will raise its ice-cold beverages in a cheers to 2009, the 2000s and an all-round radical decade.
A lot has happened in 2009 to make it a fantastic year, though looking back 12 months I don't think I could have come close to imagining how this year would turn out.
From slaving away in an office writing sports stories to climbing at Araps to mountain biking in NZ to shouting 'I CAN'T MAKE IT STOP' mid-nightmare on a plane to smashing margaritas in LA to riding amazing powder through the Snorkel Glades at Revelstoke, it's been a very fun ride.
I hope everyone has an amazing new year's eve and makes a great start to 2010. Who knows what you'll be looking back on in 12 months time!
