Traveling Sick

Headed to Boston last Sunday with a head cold.

Not fun.

Didn’t get better of course.

Lost my voice by Tuesday night.

Still kind of yuck.

Probably made some choices/decisions that weren’t the best while in Boston, but oh well.

– b

Too Late Now

Pretty sure the 200lb+ guy that sold me the Honda 50cc saying it was his son’s was lying. It was his.

The mechanic at my shop suspects so too.

The rear shock was shot. The forks blown and slightly bent.

It’s all good now and won’t make a difference to the kids, but geeze.

Oh well.

The kids love the bikes and I love watching them rip around the yard.

Abigail keeps doing multiple 30 minute sessions. She’ll ride in circles and circles until her hands get cold. Each time around she’s faster and faster. Dad removing whatever obstacle that’s slowing her down (currently a sticky throttle, which I think is my fault).

– b

It’s Faster!

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty big day, but a little background first.

Some friends of ours over the course of the last 9 months got divorced. Their daughters (Willa & Norah) are good friends with our girls, and now that their dad lives closer to us, we’ve had more opportunities to play together. Yesterday was such a day.

They knew we got some dirt bikes, and really wanted to come over and try them.

Willa (she’s 9) took to it pretty quickly. Here she is on the Honda riding around with Lauren on the Suzuki.

By the way, our yard is obviously going to be a complete mess this year.

Norah took more guidance and support, but appeared to really like it. She kept asking to try again and again.

Then Abigail got on and took to racing with Willa. You could see each one trying to hold the throttle open longer and taking the corners faster each time. They went all over the yard in all kinds of different configurations. Meanwhile the other kids (our neighbor Robby included) were zipping around on the electric vehicles and bikes and what-not. We thought for sure a catastrophe was imminent, but made it through the day with only a single crash between Willa and Abigail. Both were fine, but the fender on the Suzuki didn’t fare so well.

The Suzuki is definitely faster with the 1/32″ change I made to the restrictor plate. Abigail had no problem getting up any of the hills in the yard. Whether it’s faster than the Honda and it’s current performance tune I couldn’t tell, but it’s certainly zippy enough now. At this point niether bike will get faster until the girls reliably use the brakes to slow down and stop.

After a bunch of morning riding/playing the girls decided to head to the park to play and have a picnic lunch.

Lunch was awesome with sandwiches and Victory root beer.

Then some swing time.

And back to the house to play with the Wubble Ball.

But Willa couldn’t get enough of the dirt bike and jumped back on for some more hot laps. Abigail too took the opportunity to rip around again.

It even started to rain, but they kept going. It wasn’t until the lightening and thunder got too close, that we pulled them in for the day.

As I said, a big day. All had fun and probably slept very well that night.

Needless to say I see a few dirt bikes in Chris’s garage soon.

– b

February ADK 2017

Headed up to the ADK this weekend for what’s probably the last ice adventure of 2017.

While everyone back home was running around in shirt sleeves, Craig and I were playing in the ice and snow. The week prior saw some fairly low temperatures and got a decent amount of snow. Though the forecast for the weekend was unseasonably warm, the winter weather prior to that set things up for a great weekend. When we arrived Friday night the temperature was 16° F. By Saturday afternoon it was 50°+.

For Saturday we planned to head back along the North Fork of the Bouquet river like we did in January, but actually find the ice we set out to find last time. Now knowing where the trail was, we made decent time despite the 2’+ of snow on the ground.

We definitely found ice. Not sure if it was THE ice as described by the guide book, but it was enough to keep us entertained for a few hours.

There were three distinct lines we could climb. We setup a top rope, so that all three were safely climbable. After a few runs I decided to lead the shortest of the three. I was contemplating leading the second, but after top roping the spicy route you see above (it was very thin and delaminating as I climbed), I’d lost all nerve/energy to lead the second tallest of the bunch.

As you can see the ice we were climbing looks more like snow than ice. It was definitely soft, but not so soft that you couldn’t climb it. It was also fairly thick easily taking 16cm screws.

Before we left and headed back to civilization, we had ourselves a fire and cooked some lunch.

As you saw last month, we’ve started a bit of an initiative to start backwoods fires by different means in different conditions. Considering the snow they’d recently had in the ADK, our first issue was finding a spot that wouldn’t melt 2′ down (though not sure that would have been a total problem). It didn’t take long to find this clear spot next to an erratic to start our fire. We used Vaseline soaked cotton balls and flint & steel to get it started. It was hot and flaming in no time. Craig brought some sausages, and lunch was delicious.

On the way out we passed a lot of dead standing trees. We wondered if it was at all possible to break off a chunk of a dead tree above the “wet line” and light it with flint & steel. Sure enough it worked. We’ll have to keep practicing that one to see what kinds of trees and conditions we’re actually able to consistently do that.

Sunday we wanted to do something closer to the road, so that we could easily head out and get home at a reasonable time. The weather was warmer still, but knowing places like Chapel Pond Canyon had super fat ice we weren’t worried. We decided to try Midnight Cruiser. We’ve eyed it up every time that we’ve climbed Quinn the Eskimo. Today was the day to finally give it a go.

Not my photo and not me

I’m only using it for reference/description. As you can see the beginning is a little hairy with the chimney (narrow area in which to climb) and the log. The snow for us covered nearly half of the log from the bottom. The tricky part is that the ice next to the log at the top of the chimney is vertical or near vertical. Not too big of a deal considering it’s shorter than I am. The issue yesterday was the water. Because of the warm temperatures, there was a flow of water over the entire flow of ice. At the chimney at the bottom, it obviously concentrated into what felt like a faucet. As I tried to climb up and through and set a screw, water was pouring over my arm and leg. I had hoped that Craig got a picture of the spectacle considering I wasn’t actually on belay at that point and there was nothing he could do if I fell, but he said he couldn’t for being so freaked out by the scene.

What-evs. It was just water.

I soon got past that point and to the first belay station where I dried out belaying him up.

The entire route is 180′ – 185′ tall depending on snow conditions at the bottom I think. Considering where I setup the second pitch belay, I didn’t expect our 60m rope to be long enough to get me to the tippy top and be lowered down safely. To be lowered or rappel safely from the top, you’d want to avoid going past the half way point in the rope. Regardless I ascended anyway with a plan to deal with the issue when it arose. Indeed the top was just out of my reach by about 10′. Luckily there was a (permanent) belay point off to the right that was just about perfect for a 60m rope (we’re obvsiously not the only ones who have gambled with a 60m on this route.) If you look close you can see Craig rappelling in the photo above. He’s about 2 body lengths below were I got to. The crux of this route is the top. It is the most sustained vertical section of the route and the exposure is pretty silly (I was sure to never look over my shoulder). I’d say I made it about about halfway through the crux before running out of rope. At first I wasn’t sure I’d make any of the last vertical section. There was a small ledge before doing the final bit of climbing that I had to rest on. Who knew 100′ of ice would be so tiring, but indeed my calves were screaming and felt pretty weak for the final push. After the respite I was able to continue, backup the in place anchor, and be safely lowered to Craig’s position.

All in all a good day. We hadn’t expected to have so much fun before leaving, but glad we did.

– b

Totally Consumed

Since the kids mentioned the dirt bike camping it’s all I can think about.

Where will we go?

How will we haul our gear?

Who else wants to go?

The “where” will be somewhere around Thorpe. The “how” at first was mostly me carrying a giant backpack, but I’ve refined that a bit.

Obviously a rack like this would be super useful, as well as saddle bags like this.

The kids can strap their sleeping pads to their handlebars. That’s super effective and will look super cool as they ride down the trail. Backpacks aren’t too practical for them, but maybe some kind of rack option is. They don’t make racks for bikes of their size, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make them. Both bikes have pseudo attachment points where I could affix a rack big enough and sturdy enough to carry their sleeping bags. Between their pads and bags, that’s the bulk of their stuff.

Now if this shameful mess of a winter would end, I could get started on these projects and get us all out there camping with our bikes.

– b

Lu Sick Too

I think Lauren caught whatever I had last week. She’s been running a fever and threw up yesterday.

She had a little more spirit today, but she’s still pretty wiped. Hopefully the worst is over.

– b

Got Her Sword

Abigail’s samurai sword showed up for winning first place at her last competition.

It’s definitely a sword, but thankfully not sharpened.

We’ll just have to see if this is the first and last or the first of many?

– b

Cute Weekend Shots

Both from skiing.

We stopped and got donuts along the way. Lauren picked a special valentines version.

We had an afternoon snack of french fries. With a little ketchup, Abigail became a saber-tooth tiger.

– b

Summer Grace Camp

Booked a long weekend in the back country ADK cabin Grace Camp this summer.

The girls (mostly me) will have to haul gear three and a half miles in for two whole days of back country play.

Should be awesome.

– b

Went Skiing

We actually had winter enough for a few days to go skiing this weekend.

Big deal of the day was taking Lauren’s tip clip off. It was obviously harder work for her, but she kept at it and did very well throughout the day.

Abigail had a couple of advancements as well. She’s now able to duck walk up small slopes if she gets in a pinch. That’s been a serious struggle till now. Still a lot of work for her, but she’s got the concept now. She was also working on her jumps. Nothing crazy, but she was zipping down the mountain and hopping her skis up into the air. Getting your edges into the air and landing them comfortably without catching them is a great first step.

Not sure if we’ll get out again this year. Forecast for next weekend is in the high 50’s.

We’re going to have to start traveling farther north to ski, or just move.

– b