If you're getting rad and there's nobody there to see it, are you really getting rad?*

*title and most of content stolen directly from G.N.A.R. (Get used to it. I plan to steal the rest of my life from G.N.A.R.)  For those of you unfamiliar with this ski sensation, get familiar with it!


G.N.A.R. - movie trailer from UnofficialNetworks.com on Vimeo.

I just spent 10 days with 10 people in 2 RVs (Again, stealing from the movie/movement because it's way cooler, we nicknamed our motor homes The GnaRVs).  We drank 5 cups of coffee per day, slept for 3 hours less than we should have and shot off 2 roman candles each night. 

For a full run-down on snow, conditions and galleries of hot photos - see www.snow-reports.ca (my new fave website!).  Our trip stories are there for Castle, Whitewater and Red Mountain.  It is very helpful to have a new friend who can not only forecast weather (and make a killer cup of coffee!), but who pays attention to the lifts we ride and the direction we turn when we get off the chair (and then writes it all down for us!)  I actually only ever care about people, and about what I'm experiencing in any given moment.  (This may be why I am lost most of my life, feel shocked everytime I land in an unsavoury situation and am perpetually having to think on my feet).  Hopefully the above reporting will help to make sense of the garble below for anyone who doesn't think the way I do.

If someone from another planet happened to drop onto the Powder Highway** and directly into our GnaRVs this past week, they would have discovered that the most commonly used words in Canadian english are (in order):
Rad, and bro. 
Oh, and gnar.
This interplanetary interloper would also discover that:
60% of people are engineers.
Events only really matter if they're captured on camera (ideally video).
The best way to communicate is through 2-way radio. 
And avoiding face to face communication is key to maintaining good relations.

Now, back to the title of this post.  It's not what you do.  It's who you do it with.  (Or who's there to see you do it.)  I just experienced one of the most amazing trips of my life.  The mountains beckoned, the snow was deep and the food was taste (thanks Mikey F! You've seriously upgraded my vocab this week).  What made the trip sensational were my travelling companions.  They kept their eyes out for me as we skied between tight trees.  We laughed from the moment we opened our eyes in the morning until we fell exhausted into our bunks at night.  We skied and rode as hard and as fast as anyone I've ever met, and on our one rainy day, we rolled out onto the hill (literally) and pulled all our park tricks out of the bag.  

Here is the crew, one by one.  The new wolfpack.  I'd go with them anywhere.  But only in a GnaRV.



K Sesh Freaky Fresh

Trip organizer, rad rider, and...alpha male of our wolf pack?  Debata-bro! Likelihood of visibility on the slopes behind him = zero %  (You'll be buried alive in his powder slash)  Luckily, he's very fast and nobody can keep up with the guy anyway.


Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!
 



K-Tron 

Alpha female of the aforementioned wolfpack?  Awooooooo! Skis with perfect form at all times and can rattle off a retort or debate on any topic.  Even mid-line.  Just try her on The Spanish Inquisition.


K-Tron, doubled over laughing.  As usual.

 

Mikey F
 

King of the hill.  Grows the best 'stache west of Moosejaw.  Spits rhymes like a genius. Fond of the gratuitous use of 2-way radios, huge air, bathroom breaks and the word gratuitous.  See:

gra·tu·i·tous

/grəˈtuɪtəs, -ˈtyu-/ Show Spelled [gruh-too-i-tuhs, -tyoo-]

adjective 
 

1. being without apparent reason, cause, or justification: a gratuitous face shot.



Yet another gratuitous sponsor shot by Mikey F

 



J Chip

Breaker, breaker.

J Chip, one of two Turner siblings to rock the GnaRVs.  Their ability to shred the gnar on snowboards one day and huck trees on skis the next labelled them the 'AmbiTurners'. Why does J Chip get more photos than anybody else?  Obviously because I like her the best.  Get over it.


J Chip on a ski day.



AmbiTurning



Ghost?  Nope.  Just one of the AmbiTurners....Big B getting rad.  Again.

Big B being kind and hanging out with his weird cousin.

So Big B can not only shred anything, huck anything and ride anything, he can also build whatever he wants to ride (ie. Skis, snowboards, skateboards, wooden horses...).  Also, he's nice.  See above.  I love the guy.  But then again, I'm biased.  He's family. 


C-Tine

The nicest gal you'll ever meet on skis.  Check it out.  She's even smiling mid-photo.  Getting rad with a smile.  And she teaches yoga.  Siiiiiick!



 

True love.  Ski hill style.

 

Up there is M.Ski.B.  He's too cool for a caption.  I mean look at the guy! I almost hate him.  But he has that same super power that all the ridiculously talented people have - the epically nice gene that keeps them alive.  He's the sickest skier I've ever seen. He built my fave website (have I mentioned?? www.snow-reports.ca??)  I could go on.  But I can't stand it.



K Tine

Then there's K Tine.  She gets rad (see above).  I'd add in another photo here.  And I really, really want to....but then she'd have to explain it to her parents.  You can thank me later K Tine.



Lil B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I left Lil B til last.  That guy is up for ANYTHING!  He's the champion of the face shot (see above).  He also penguin slides like no other.  And that guy can FLY!  I can't include another shot of him.  You'll all just be too jealous.

 

This is me.  I like to get rad.

 

Posse out!

 **Powder Highway = Highway #3 as it winds through interior British Columbia, flanked by amazing resorts and some of the dreamiest skiing you'll experience in a lifetime.  Sometimes (like this past week) very deep snow falls in the area.  Hence the term 'powder' in Powder Highway.  Sometimes the temperature heats up (like this past week).  Hence the terms 'rain' and 'snow-like-hardening-concrete' in Powder Highway (the terms 'rain' and 'snow-like-hardening-concrete' are silent)

Crickets! Crrrrikey!

So...there is a cricket in my house.
Which is not really my house, given that I am living in my car.
But that's another story.

Cricket. In house. In winter. Not ok.

The cricket made itself known last night.
(Oh - and if you're wondering, NO! I am not one of those people that keep scary pets that eat live crickets.  There was no chance of escapees in this case. This was a completely random cricketing.)
I was alone in the house trying to eat dinner.  'Chirp!' came the sound, high-pitched and irritating.  I ate a bite of my sandwich, hoping it was a one-time, random chirping. 
'Chirp!'
I had to leave the house. 

Hours later I returned.
This time I was with Paula.  We'd been in the house mere moments when the cricket made itself known.  I set about making a snack.  Paula, on the other hand, could do NOTHING but seek out the insect.  Against my will, I was drawn into the hunt.  Two hours later, after unplugging the microwave, fridge, stove, modem, smoke detector, doorbell and every other remotely electrical device in our home, we still had not found him.  We opened every bag of grain, flour and carb-product and Paula didn't even stop at the coffee beans.  I turned off my phone.  The cricket went silent.  For a moment.  Paula shot daggers at me with her eyes.
And then, 'chirp'!



Exhausted and emotionally drained, we lay down on the kitchen floor.  For some reason Paula looked up.  She noticed something under the counter.  We got close to it, and heard the offending noise:

I sighed with relief and said, 'Oh, it's a carbon monoxide detector'. Paula backed away from the thing as though terrified. She said, 'I've never seen that thing before'. And then she did the strangest thing.  She put her mouth close to the small machine and said, 'Chris, are you listening?'  She was clearly convinced that our house had been bugged.  By our own room-mate!  Honestly, who would go so far as to do that?  I told Paula she was crazy. Chris was out of the house at the time.  He's always out of the house.  He's here from Germany doing medical research and the mice in his lab must be tended to every four hours.  He's so often out of the house in fact that he has had to purchase this in order to sleep in his lab:


Chris' Ostrich Sleeping Pillow

Anyway, I digress. Given our difference of opinion on the device, Paula and I figured that it was time to call in expert help. A one am phone call to our favourite instrumentation specialist assured us that we were not likely in immiment danger.  Still, to be safe, we opened all the windows and crawled into bed together (better to die together than alone, I always say).

After a fitful sleep, I stumbled into the kitchen.  I found Chris there making coffee. I regaled him with the cricket episode.  He brought his hand to his face and began to giggle. 
'WHAT????????????!!!' I screamed, waking Paula and all the neigbourhood cats. 'It worked exactly like the testimonials said it would,' gasped Chris, now doubled over in the kitchen.  As he wiped tears of laughter from his eyes, he reached under the counter for the offending device.  Tucking it into the box he pulled from his pocket he said, 'Have a nice day!' and headed back to his lab.


Chris likes to emphasize that he purchased not just the Annoy-a-Tron, but the Annoy-a-Tron 2.0

Epilogue:
I giggled all day long.  Something about this premeditated prank by my 26 or 27 year old (he's not sure) self-appointed younger brother makes me feel loved.  (I mean he was thoughtful enough to order the thing online for goodness' sake!)  For Paula two different things have happened.  One:  Chris is now to be known as 'The Annoy-a-Tron'.  And Two: we are busily plotting revenge....

Lifts of Love: High Speed Quad to the Heart!



All photo credits to Max Losee

So...it started with an innocent little idea. 
I was just riding the chairlift with a friend.  We began to laugh about the 'Singles' line at the base of the chair.  And, oh, if only it were that easy in life....Wait a second....YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! And thus, Lifts of Love was born.  Speed-dating at a ski hill.  Each lift ride up is a speed date with some other eligible snow rider.  And if you don't like how it goes, well, you schuss off into the distance.



By the next day, Cupid (aka Jeff Siddle) was on the slopes of Mt Norquay for his photo shoot.

 

A couple weeks later, 100 singles were lined up to ski and shred for the evening.  Connections were made, numbers were exchanged.  And the rest, as they say, is sweet ski hill history.  Until the next Lifts of Love event, that is!

Thanks to CJSW's Charmer's Almanac and Mountain FM for radio interviews, and a host of others (including but not limited to the Canmore Leader, Rocky Mountain Outlook, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Virgin Radio) for great stories and coverage!

Footnote:  The added hilarity here is that I grew up skiing at a very small, intimate ski hill. When skiing alone, at the base of the hill you were to raise a pole in the air, tilt your head back and belt out a mighty 'SIIIIINGLE!'  I always thought this was how one should operate in pubs and such.  Finally, I now have an outlet.  And for those of you who are thinking that I launched this entire event as a  campaign to uncover my next mountain man.  Well....so what if I did???

What are you grateful for?

My first American Thanksgiving took place two weeks ago.  In Cusco, Peru.

This is Tal.

In his own words Tal can, 'Piss a dinner party for 20'.  As such, an American Thanksgiving on a day´s notice was no big deal.  What we forgot to take into account was that I was helping.

This is me with Tal.

In everyone's words, all I touch turns to disaster (or adventure - it all just depends how you look at it!)

As such, because I was involved...

The turkeys that we purchased at noon on the day of our Thanksgiving dinner for 20 were obviously frozen.  We had to wade through a reeking room of poultry blood to get them.  Tal´s loudly proclaimed Peruvian swear words shocked all within earshot.  Fortunately for him, he oozes charm and can get anything he wants when he bats his big blue eyes.

Below is a portrait of our turkeys, en route home from the 'All things poultry' warehouse in Cusco.  (This seems to be the only place a turkey is available outside of Christmas.  Apparently all the other turkeys are too skinny at this time of year.  Or too tired from having flown in from Lima?)  Here we are giving our turkeys a break from their long Lima flight and sharing a ride home in our taxi.

Our turkeys were frozen and our oven is the size of a shoebox.  Rather than stuffing the fowl into the shoebox, we decided to outsource the problem.

This is Don Julio.  With our broken spanish, we think we´ve agreed to have him thaw and cook the birds at warp speed.  He does, after all, run a chicken roastery.  He must have an oven or two.  Or so we thought.

The photo is fuzzy because the boys are working so fast.

Believing that the turkeys were successfully outsourced, we were now free to toast to our brilliance with a Bloody Mary overlooking Cusco´s main plaza.

Unfortunately, due to our poor grip of the Spanish language, our turkeys were not in fact being cooked.  We arrived hours later to Don Julio´s, only to learn that his favour to us had been to leave the turkeys thawing on his counter.  Perhaps he thought we didn´t have counter space?

In true Backroads leader form (clearly the type of people who've pulled off gourmet picnics in 20 minutes in developing nations with hurricane warnings blaring and rabid dogs at our heels....) we showed our creative brilliance, took a deep breath, and threw more money at the problem.

This time we ran/hauled our fowl up the street to a special ´horno´.  This incredible wood oven down a back alley was surely the answer.  Twenty steaming cuy (guinea pigs) had to moved out of the way to accomodate our birds.  Because the guinea pigs were nearly cooked through, they couldn't even squeal their protest.

 At 9pm, we heaved steaming, delicious turkeys up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment.

Tal is sideways after all the effort.  And because I can't figure out how to turn him around...

Mmmmm!

Somehow Tal pulled this off in spite of my support - what a team!

McKay, Diego, and a whole lot of food...

It's odd that a Canadian and an Aussie should choose to throw an American Thanksgiving meal, but throw one we did.  Our home overflowed with new friends from Peru, Japan, Ireland, and even a few token Americans.  We played music, sang and shared our gratitude for food to eat and friends to share it with.

This day full of misadventures led to my first American Thanksgiving meal, and I am so grateful for it.  Of course, things never quite seem to go the way that you expect (ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE ME).  And thank goodness for that!  Because of it, I have been blessed by beautiful people who leap into my life to link arms and ensure that everything turns out better than expected (yeah Tal! thanks Emma! And Don Julio and countless others...).  Anyway, with a few misadventures under our shared belts, yes there are moments of panic - and a whole heck of a lot of fun along the way!

Of course we don't have to eat turkey to profess our gratitude.  How wonderful that we can practice being grateful anywhere in the world, on any day of the week.

*

*This phrase and image is borrowed from my all-time favourite restaurant, Cafe Gratitude.  Check it out next time you're in San Francisco!  Order up a serving of, 'I am adventurous'. Share a little, 'I am vivacious'.  Then wash it all down with a big gulp of, 'I am courageous'.  Yum!  A tasty serving of inspiration and gratitude...

It's shocking, really

how much privilege I have experienced growing up in an upper middle class home in North America.

For example, I have not once been shocked in the shower.  Until now.  My hair is still dripping wet as I type this.  Had my hair not already been frizzy, it certainly would be now.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. My landlady did warn me not to touch anything metal as I showered.  This cautionary warning actually kept me out of our shower until recently.  Finally though, I tired of my own scent.

Seriously - would YOU trust this shower?

In the end, the morals I take from this story are:

 A) electricity and water should not mix, unless at a hydroelectricity plant (even then I have my doubts),  and

 B) it's okay to be dirty and smelly.  Better dirty than dead, I always say. 

(Which is likely how I earned my 'Dirty Girl' nickname in university.  But that's a story for another time.)

My visiting friend from Canada was horrified when I explained Peruvian bathroom procedures to him over a very classy dinner last night.  As a former wastewater treatment plant tour guide, I am used to speaking of such things over meals.  I should try to remember that not everyone is so comfortable.  I told Keith that the convenient wastebasket next to each Peruvian toilet is a receptacle for used toilet paper (for cases when you are lucky enough to be provided with such a luxury as toilet paper).  The pipes and systems in Peru (and most of Latin America for that matter) are not able to handle anything that isn't produced directly by one's body.  I get so used to this that I often find myself seeking out a wastebasket next to the toilet upon return to Canada.  (To my mother's obvious horror).

Oh, and of course there's no toilet seat.  I would develop strong quads here in Peru, if only I did a bit of exercise.

One commonly used word here for a toilet is an inodoro.  For some reason I find this hilarious...An odourless?  I suppose it beats the alternative, an odourful.  And really, what luxury!  A system IN the home that uses water to rush our wastes away to the nearest river?  Or if we are very lucky, to a nearby wastewater treatment plant?  These days, we are so lucky to use inodoros - a water closet being far less odoursome than the alternative outhouse.  Interesting.  The language here fascinates me.  More on this later.  Stay tuned for an upcoming post in which I shall address the issue of: 'V bersus B'.

I take so much for granted at home.  How much I can flush for example, and the fact that I can drink my tap water (or could even safely drink my toilet or shower water if I were that thirsty).  Stay tuned for another upcoming post addressing my recent tour of Cusco's water treatment plant.  I believe I shall call it:  'At Your Service...??'

On the topic of privilege, please excuse my somewhat light take above on this subject.  If I were to really dive into the fact that most of my friends here have nearly no preventative health care, have never seen a dentist, make less than my lunch money each week and can't travel to my country even for a visit, well, it steps outside of the lighthearted, silly and self-indulgent nature of LittleMissAdventure.com.  So, that's all for now folks.

Til next time!

Love,
Little Misadventure

Awooooo-sangate!

Five days trekking around Cusco's most sacred mountain...
Pure heaven!  Need I say more?

I think this video will do more than I ever could to tell the story of my new favourite place in Peru.

Ausangate Trek, October 2012

Thanks to our friend Alex Estrada for his brilliant photography, cinematography, and non stop high altitude comedy act.  His one man show began each day at 5 am and ran through til tent time every night.  His numerous talents include (but are not limited to) climbing every boulder in his path, screeching Peruvian slang curse words at the top of his lungs, filling the world with his boundless energetic presence and teaching mountain yoga classes, which to my delight, ended with the sacrilegious shouted prayer,
'Namaste....bitches!'

Alex in action - walking a very thin line, as usual!

My mom told me not to fall in love in Peru...

...but of course, a daughter never does as a mother says, does she?

I went one better and have fallen in love with not one, but TWELVE people in Peru (thus far!)  And Mom, it's okay, they aren't Peruvians! (I know you fear I may move far away and stay in Cusco forever.  For the love of the city I still may, but for now at least, my heart still lives in Canada.)

My Backroads trekking trip in Peru this fall introduced me to a group of special strangers.  As they supported one another on one of the area's toughest high-altitude treks, they made a pilgrimmage towards Machu Picchu.  It only took days for them to become amigos, dancing together on tables, laughing late into the night and rising for magical mountain sunrises.  Their special Journey reminds me of a song that we sang all week that goes on and on and on and on....And I LOVED the way that even on the hardest of days, our team didn't stop believin'!

So Mom, since I know you're worried, allow me to introduce you to the dozen who have filled my heart so far:

There's Debbie - an intrepid traveller, spin teacher and Silicon Valley powerhouse who took Peru (and our collective hearts) by storm.  We have all decided that we want to adopt her into our lives.  Here she is on the right with Marlena, rewriting (and belting out!) an old favourite song:

Which brings me of course to Marlena, a gorgeous jazz singer (and lyricist, as above!) and her Esteban (or Steve) who kept us healthy at high altitudes and well-hydrated with the best wines South America has to offer. (Perhaps my favourite high altitude tidbit from Steve is that as people age and their brains 'rot', they are less susceptible to cerebral edema because there is more room in their skulls for their shrunken brains to expand.  Mom and Dad, you're perfectly suited to a high altitude adventure!  Now aren't I a nice girl to have learned that for you?):

Don and Shelly led the charge to the hot tub every night.  They were ever ready with their camera for all the perfect shots and look so perfect together that its impossible not to photograph them too!  Clearly still so in love after raising their two beautiful daughters, it would be impossible not to love this couple.  And wow, you should see that Senor Don ride a horse!  Here they are, smiling as always, featured in front of Mount Salkantay:

Tammy and Scott (or, esScott, as we say in Peru) really got us off on the right foot with their excellent combined lyrical and dancing abilities.  Their endless energy has me working hard to recruit them away from their stable jobs into The Leader Lifestyle as Backroads' next staff dream team:

Sabine and Steffi stole everybody's hearts with their beautiful and supportive relationship.  Aunt and niece, though more like soul sisters, they made their way over Salkantay pass through hell and high altitude to the enigmatic Machu Picchu:

And as we were all falling in love as a group, a certain couple were falling even more deeply in love with one another.  They chose to commit to a life together during this pilgrimmage!  All our very best to Severin and Silvana as they dance forth into a life together that is at once as adventuresome, as supportive and as magical as their shared journey to Machu Picchu:

Finally, with her signature pink lipstick on display here in Machu Picchu Mountain's registration book, Conni danced from Long Island and New York City all the way to Machu Picchu and into the hearts of every Peruvian and traveller who chanced upon her:

 

Dancing every step of the way!

I can't forget to mention our trusted horse guide or 'Arriero' named Teofilo, whom we playfully nicknamed 'Senor T'  (Pity da foo' who doesn't get to work with Senor T!).  Like some 'Where's Waldo' character, Senor T seemed to show up unexpectedly at every turn:

Our journey would never have been the same without the expert guidance of the indomitable Javier Bello:

Or Whilder's incredible support on ALL fronts from dawn until well past dusk:

I've learned so much from my new friends.  I will never forget our magical journey together over the Salkantay pass en route to Machu Picchu.  Nor will I forget the lesson we learned on one of our first days together.  When it rains, link arms to make a rainbow!

Post Script

Mom:  I had numerous misadventures on this trip, most notably the bottle of champagne that shattered in my backpack, tearing holes in my clothes in all the most inopportune places.  (Though I am still striving hard to maintain my dignity in this somewhat reserved area of the country)  This incident occured when our horse spooked and galloped down the Salkantay Pass, throwing its load as it went.  (In all likelihood, the poor horse spooked at the sight of a shock of flaming red curls in its normally brown and grey environment.  But I prefer to stick with Javier's explanation - that a backpack - mine of course - fell off the horse and scared the poor creature into a full tilt gallop.)  But breathe a sigh of relief Mom, because none of the near daily misadventures yet include my meeting a man who shall steal me even further away from you.  Remain ever vigilant, but for now I am happy to report that I am yours, as always,

Heather