The psych

I really wasn’t nervous about the 24 hours of sunlight race till the other night when Tracey started to question me on what my goal was. Till then it was a daydream of things to come. But at that moment it became a reality that is about to happen.

And now it is 8 days away and I am beginning the real psych up. Trying to amp myself up, increase my mental levels so that they will pull me through the race. ” Breathe and Believe” has always been the mantra and now I must really believe.

Over the season I have tried to make 10 000 feet feel less and less challenging, so that I can make 50+ feasible. If 10 starts to feel easy than doing over 5 times it should be challenging but achievable. Some times its hard to imagine what 50 000 feet was like last year and how I plan on doing more this year. Such a large number it almost seems like a dream. To climb up 15 km vertically and ski it down seems ludicrous.

But this lunacy is about to happen again and I must channel everything I have to make it seem feasible.

The energy levels are building and my being is excited about the challenge. Soon I will be challenged to dig as deep as I can.

Looking forward to it………

Race set up!

I went out early this morning on my racing set up and it felt great. The F1′s have such a natural gait to them, the bellowed toe makes walking so natural. My small little race skis, (165 cm 64mm waisted goode skis} felt light and fast beneath my feet. But I had some serious trail breaking to get my track set up. But once I had 3000 feet of skin track set up I began lapping the upper 1400 feet of it. Great snow that billowed up to my shoulders as I straightlined down the mellow slope. 10 200 feet in 4hrs 43min. I am finally 33% of the way there!

I have also finally gotten my website up and running. It will be eventually be accessed by greghill.ca but right now it can be accessed by clicking here
Comments are encouraged as I just set it up and some criticism is enjoyed.

And I am off to Sol mountain guiding for a few days and will hopefully pull in 2 more 10 000 footers before relaxing till the 24hoursofsunlight race on Feb 3.
All for now.

Mt-Afton

Aaron, Ian and I had a fantastic day in the loop brook area of Roger’s Pass yesterday. It was my fifth 10 000 footer in a row so needless to say I was a little tired last night and didn’t have any energy left to blog.

Somehow yesterday was the first time I had toured into the loop brook this year, its amazing because I am usually there a bunch in the early season. I love this drainage, it hosts some great 2000-3500 foot runs surrounded by cascading glaciers and overshadowed by the immense walls of Mt-Bonney. An impressive area to be on a clear day, although today wasn’t clear.

We gained elevation quickly by touring up Mt-Afton. By touring up this side of the drainage it would set us up for a fantastic 3500 foot west facing run that puts us into the Bonney trees; and it also gives us a summit. It took just over three hours for us to summit and then we had a fantastic run down to valley bottom. A run Aaron was claiming as “one of the best of the year”.

From there we aimed our skins up towards the Bonney trees and further up the moraines till we were just onto the glacier. At this point I did a couple of laps to make sure I gained my goal and finally caught up to them at the top of the run. The whole aspect is north facing and very protected in here so the snow quality was amazing. Easily 40 cm of light snow overlying a well settled base. Perfect powder skiing. Although the light was not great so I didn’t get any good photos.

It was great to be back in this drainage, good things are worth waiting for and our tour today was worth the wait! Day 32- 10 300ft