Filling in the Gaps

A lot happened this summer. Obviously there was a lot of ski training being done but I tried to jam as many other things in between as I could. Working carpentry to pay the bills, going to music festivals, building sheds, hiking mountains, canoeing rivers, cutting wood, picking berries, and hunting, lots and lots of hunting.

 building stuff

training on the Eagle Glacier

I caught up on training during the Anchorage camp (which was a sweet camp btw), now it was time to catch up on hunting season. We already missed the first two weeks! I helped Colin get this beauty 39” ram on the 3^rd day of our hunt after hellish hush-whacks/ridge-walks/multiple-steep-ass-mountain climbs. In the final stalk, Colin dressed up as a sheep (turning his white Yukon Elites Squad race suit inside-out) and crawled for 4 hours on his hands and knees up a mountain to get into position.

Colin's sheep

A couple weeks later I was back at it. My girlfriend and I went to an area we had scouted earlier in the summer. We were looking for sheep but a caribou popped out in front of us and spoiled our sheep hunt. Soon after, the sky started puking on us. We packed up and drove home. Successful… at least in regards to bringing back some meat.

before it started raining/snowing

Then I went out to get my own sheep. I left with 2 friends. After winching our quad and dirt bike out of a few waist deep mud holes we finally started hiking. I got my 38” ram on the 2^nd day of our hunt.

My Sheep

My last hunt was for moose and goat. After a really long drive to the opposite edge of the Yukon border, we lined our canoe upriver 20km. It was cloudy and snowy the whole time but I managed to spot some goats up on the mountain. We hiked up a big old gnarly mountain face, stalked up on the goats, only to find it was a nanny and a kid, no billies. We did bag a moose though.

Our tastey little moose

Now with part of 2 sheep, a caribou and half a moose, I’m pretty set for meat. I eat an astounding amount of wild game, which I believe to be extremely good for an athletes diet. I’ll be bringing much of it down to any races/competitions as long as I can confirm there’s a freezer where we’ll be staying.

I love October in the Yukon, but I’ll admit sometimes the training can be marginal: too much snow for roller skiing, not enough for the real thing. And so, my next big adventure began in Arizona to avoid the awkward transition period of the changing seasons, and to get some quality altitude training in.

roller skiing in Arizona

I got an early start on snow, skiing on Frozen Thunder in Canmore, Alberta. The 2km loop made out of last years stockpiled snow under mountains of sawdust did pretty well. The skiing was awesome but really I was just waiting until the snow finally came back home. When it finally did, I was home in a jiffy.

time trial at frozen thunder- photo cred. Julien Locke

The skiing in Whitehorse is top notch now and I’m itching to start the racing season off in Silverstar.