Rattlesnake

Hah - no climbing for most of the season, but now I am back! I went with some motivated folks to Rattlesnake again in mid-october. A great and sunny day, we started up setting two top ropes on supposedly 'easy' climbs. Our first route was 'cobwebs' - a popular 5.6ish climb in a corner - popular=very polished. At least it was not overhanging, as the rest of the climbs for the day.

Cobwebs

Clem's first outdoor climb!

James on the 5.8

Next route was a 5.8, with some pumpy overhanging moves high up. Outside climbing feels so much harder. I seem to forget simply me technique and use my arms too much...And overhangs are so pumpy, hanging on one hand, looking for the next hold for feet and hands. Where's the coloured tape ;)

Perfect rest position :)

An awesome day outside - thanks guys!

Algonquin Thanksgiving weekend

And there I was back again to Algonquin, one week later...This time, I went on a trip with Clemence, Charline and James. Skipping work on friday, we left eastwards, had lunch at Bancroft and stocked up on booze and food before heading to the Algonquin Backpacker's Hostel - the 'wrong' place, but it was still nice, situated in a one cross-road village with one store, gas station, breakfast-lunch-restaurant and LCBO at the south side of the park. We went for a short hike that afternoon, to a small waterfall in the south of the park. There was no one except us, we didn't even notice when the trail ended and went a little further along the river. Driving back to the hostel, the colours of the setting sun and the surrounding forest were great. Charline cooked great oven baked mushrooms with bacon and blue cheese, and pasta with lots of veggies and meat for us. We also had pumpkin pie, and lots of wine and beer to celebrate the night.

The next morning, I woke up early (as usual), and went for a coffee at the breakfast place. It was so American: mostly farmers, everyone knew everybody, free-refill coffee, and folks driving from the place to the grocer, which was two houses away with their pick-up truck... The hostel had no space for us the next night, so we had to pack up, and drove to highway 60 into Algonquin park, where we did Charline's favourite hike 'Centennial Ridges' - 10km long with great look-outs from rocky ridges over a wide part of the park (no Moose, though). The hike was beautiful, the weather awesome, blue sky, the forest was golden-yellow coloured. I had a good time walking, chatting and taking lots of pictures. We still had to find a place to stay over night, which turned out to be harder than expected as any motel even in Huntsville was booked. We finally found a spot in Bracebridge, got some Thai food for dinner, and had a lazy night.

The next day, we drove north-west to Massasauga Park at Georgian Bay, hoping to find some good hiking spots there. It turned out to be more of a marine park, where you could reach hikes by boat or canoe. We started bush waking along a lake, and ended up at the other end of the parking lot...We then took the easier way along the road to the end of the bay, where we spend some good time sunbathing and drinking wine.

And, yes: Moose do exists! we saw two right at the roadside driving out of Algonquin.

Blue Jays vs Yankees

You can't be in Canada without having seen a baseball game, so there we went. Thanks to Max, who explained the rules to Clemence and me on our last visit, we were able to follow it sort of - and able to explain to the guys what was happening :) We even recognized some of the players, like Bautista, who had the record of home runs so far in the season (52 or so).

It started off quite well for the Jays, lots of points, home runs, and action in the first four innings, but then nothing happened anymore. The Yankees made a few points so that it got tight in the end, but the Jays still won. Apparently the next day, the Jays would put up their better team...There are a lot of breaks in this game - somehow they have to fit in commercials every five minutes on TV! In the stadium, there's then lots of lotteries, and animations, funny at first but it gets quite annoying after a while.

Homerun!

My verdict on baseball - it would be a great game in 4-5 innings, but nine is a bit long and boring...

Algonquin camping trip

The first weekend in October, I went on the maybe last camping trip of the year to Algonquin Park with Amy and Damien. Leaving Toronto after work, we hit the road be 6pm, dinner at McDonalds and a night drive (no Moose) to the campsite. Setting up camp in the dark is a bit more challenging, especially when my tent is still new (2nd time use now). With some great help, it got up well and fast, as it was only slightly below freezing. Most importantly, camp fire and beer and chips were also out fast! Getting up in the morning was hard, it was nice and cozy warm in my sleeping bag, wish I hadn't drunk that many beers at night....I got up quite early, and got some nice shots of the steaming lake.

We made a small fire for breakfast, and heating up the Nutella for our sandwiches...It was still chilly. We drove out at noon to go for the 11km 'Mizzy Lake' hike - along lots of lakes and ponds with 'the best chances to see wildlife' in the park - do squirrels, chipmonks, and birds count??? I start to believe that Moose are only a legend....It drizzled a bit at the start, but then the sun came out, and the fall colours looked even more beautiful. There were a ton of mushrooms in every colour in the forest, awesome for pictures! The path was kind of muddy, wish I had worn my boots...this way, I had to look down at the path the whole time, and my neck started hurting. We did the hike in around 4h (I guess they write 6h to scare people away!), and then drove slowly back to the campsite, where Damien made us a great fire, lasting from 5pm to midnight. We had some hotdogs on sticks, beers, more beers, wine, whiskey, Mr. Creamy and chips. As soon as you moved away from the fire, you could feel the temperature dropping rapidly. It went almost down to freezing that night, but we weren't cold, thanks to booze, tents and fleece pants!

Getting up the next day was even harder...thank you to men's addiction to fire!!! After taking down the camp, we went off for the stiletto-women hike, a very short hike on a 'highway' path up to a lookout. Our next hike was much nicer, walking down to the Whiskey rapids (too bad we forgot the bottle) - the weather was awesome, sunny, the colours came out beautifully! Back on the road (no Moose), we had a great burger at the 'Moose Cafe' - sounds sketchy, but is actually a really nice place, with home made food, and great sugar rich desserts.

Thanks guys for a great weekend!

Back to Toronto, taking out the tent to dry, and falling into bed to sleep early.... one question remains, is there any (big) wildlife in Canada, or are Moose just a myth?

back to the rock

Finally, I made it to climb outside!!! no accidents or rain to stop us this time. On thanksgiving monday, I went out with my friends Alex and Aaron to Rattlesnake Point, just outside Toronto in the Escarpment. We started out with an 'easy' route, Alex leading up on gear. It didn't feel that easy, and I wasn't even on the sharp end. The next climb was another trad route led by Alex, very nice...I don't have it in me to lead (on gear) right now, getting back slowly, no risks. It feels strange to climb without Mike - I think, he'd be happy to see us out there. We top-roped two more routes. Unfortunately, it's kinda polished, but I won't complain. The feeling of real rock under your fingers, your skin painful on the touch of the rock - I missed it! Thanks guys for taking me out!

still looking good...didn't get much further...picture taken by Aaron

Hopefully, back next weekend!