Geocaching
Today, I had a meeting on the outskirts of the city. In the case of Ottawa this means a heavily wooded area. I decided to pack my GPS and to do some a href=”http://www.geocaching.com”geocaching /aafter the meeting. Over the course of a couple of hours I found five geocaches. The forth find was the most memorable. I had hiked down to the end of the trail to find my third cache and noticed that the next one was 1,500 meters away in a southerly direction. This is where the fun begins! I set a reference point for the next cache and started walking through the woods. Along my trek south I spotted a couple of a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer”cotton-tail /adeer, I navigated around a a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver”beaver /abog, hiked through a couple of (cedar) a href=”http://www.sportingjournal.com/main12.shtml”deer-feeding yards/a, spotted a couple of deer hunting platforms and finally forded a couple of streams by walking across downed trees. It was a fun afternoon.
Ottawa Spring Mystery
Today, I was heading along a trail that I take to the train and noticed a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Spring2008_Ottawa/photo#5191511901804105170″something /athat made me stop. It is a spring-like phenomena common in Ottawa. I came back later in the day and took two more pictures (a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Spring2008_Ottawa/photo#5191511923278941666″2,/a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.ca/moulec/Spring2008_Ottawa/photo#5191511949048745458″3/a). The challenge is to try and figure out what want the pictures represents.
Hills and more hills
Tonight, I did my first hill workout of the year. It was six repeats of 400 yards up a gradual incline. The rest of the team did eight but I opted to slack off a bit as my legs are still recovering from the race. Over the next couple of weeks, the number of intervals with increase as well as the length of each intervals. It felt good to be running with the team again.
Hamock
First off, I want to start off this entry by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. 2007 was a good year for me and I am looking forward to a better one in 2008. My Christmas holiday has been a good one this year. I was pleased with my Boxing Day 10 mile race which suggests that I will have a good half-marathon race laster this month in Arizona. I have cross-trained over Christmas, swimming every second day at my alma mater. The break from running will ensured my legs are well rested for the race. I was excited when I got a a href=”http://www.eaglesnestoutfittersinc.com/”hammock /aas a Christmas/birthday present. a href=”http://jasonplancaster.com”Jason /agot one a couple of years ago and loves his so it was a must-have piece of hiking/outdoor gear. I want to thank Jason for his a href=”http://www.giftlistit.com”giftlistit /a website as it made the Christmas present buying process really easy and fun this year. As well, it was a lot of fun doing some end-user testing of giftlistit. My parents were able to purchase the hammock without me knowing using the wonders of giftlistit. My relatives were able to use the website as well, simplifying the process of buying 10 Christmas gifts.
Home for the holidays
Late last week, my holiday plans were uncertain. I had a couple of modes of transportation for getting home for the holidays. While surfing I was able to locate a cheap flight to Toronto at an incredibly low price. It bought the ticket as quickly as I could. The past couple of days at my folks place have been relaxing and given me chance to get some much needed rest. I’ve read two books over the last little while. The first, “Cold Mountain,” by Charles Frazier and the other is “Replay,” by Ken Grimwood. Both books are a good read. I am glad that I had a chance to read “Cold Mountain” as it answered many questions that remained unanswered when I saw the movie. a href=”http://jasonplancaster.com”Jason’s/a father gave me a list of recommended books to read over the holidays and “Cold Mountain” and “Replay” were highly recommended.br /br /Yesterday, I decided to check some of my local geocaches and will head back to them over the next couple of days with a camera. There are some bouldering faces that I want to get Jason’s opinion on as they could be climbable once the weather improves.
Ants and Pillows
The UOttawa fitness center is located in the basement of one of the large complexes. Tonight, as I was heading out for my run I had to walk upstairs counter to traffic flow. A massive herd of students/ants (so many) were heading down the stairs to write their final exam in the gym. They all looked worked up/agitated. It became clear quickly as they were clutching third year accounting textbooks. The conditions outside were equally as challenging, a fresh bed of 2″ of snow had fallen over the afternoon and was still coming down quite hard. The main purpose of the run was to get some exercise with the hope of relieving a migraine that I have had for the past couple of days. Running in the snow was a unique experience as it felt as if I had pillows on my feet as the compression of the snow underfoot had a springy feeling to it. As the run progressed the conditions go worse and I cut back at the earliest chance (6.6km).
Badlands of Cheltenham
span lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”One of the many highlights of my recent trip to span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1195493755_1″Toronto/span was a drive by of the a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluelotus/tags/cheltenhambadlands/”Badlands of span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1195493755_2″Cheltenham/span/a. On the drive up to the retreat the bus driver made a point of driving very slowly along the road to give us an amazing view of this a href=”http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/locations/umd/digital/images/Badlands.html”geological phenomenon/a. She said that it was one of the main tourist attractions in the area. From the road they looked really cool. I’m hoping to convince my father at the end of the month or over the Christmas holidays that we should drive up and see the undulations first hand.br /br /a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJk_o4j4Fk”Youtube video of the badlands/abr //span/span
Golden Key Leadership Retreat
p class=”MsoNormal”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;”span style=”font-size: 12pt;”On the weekend I headed down to /span/spanspan style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1195062743_0″Toronto/span for a leadership retreat associated with the a href=”http://www.goldenkey.org”Golden Key Honor Society./a We met at a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/GoldenKey_HartHouseFarm_Nov2007/photo#5132450952709709234″Hart House /aon the University of Toronto campus and then took the bus up to the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/GoldenKey_HartHouseFarm_Nov2007/photo#5132451356436635314″Hart House farm/a which is about an 45 minute drive north. I came representing the Ottawa chapter, and a couple of people came from Alberta with the majority of the people coming from span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1195062743_1″Toronto/span. Over the weekend we went hiking, played capture the flag in the dark and did a couple of leadership exercises. Our first task was to split into two teams and come up with a team name and chant. My team was called “Mas cash” which was based on the first letter in our given name while the other team was called “the Wonka Nerds.” During one of our breaks we hiked around the property and explored the caves/a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/GoldenKey_HartHouseFarm_Nov2007/photo#5132451158868139602″cliffs /aas well as take some novel pictures (a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/GoldenKey_HartHouseFarm_Nov2007/photo#5132451249062452866″people arranged by height/a). We each took the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator”Myers-Brigg personality test/a and determined our leadership styles. It was fun adventure and gave me a chance to network with people from different chapters./p p class=”MsoNormal”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;”span style=”font-size: 12pt;” (a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/GoldenKey_HartHouseFarm_Nov2007″main photo gallery)/abr //span/span/p
Noonmark and Hopkins Peaks
Late on Friday night I got a call from Chris MacDonald to say that he was organizing a last-minute weekend hiking trip to the the Adirondacks. The plan was to climb Noonmark (3491 feet) and Hopkins (3150 feet). This would be my third hiking trip with Chris Mc this year so I knew what to expect. After catching my breath, I replied that I was eager to go. The plan was to meet at 7:00 am on Saturday morning. I headed over to the 24 hour grocery store to get some last minute supplies.br /br /On Saturday morning, we met at John Galbraith’s house and headed over to meet Kerry McDaniels at her house along the way out of town. Our next stop would be Lake Placid where we bought lunch for Saturday and Sunday. We registered at the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524377802857938″Adirondack Loj /aand then drove south to Keene Valley to a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129523866701749378″start our trek/a up Noonmark. Before heading out we registered at the sign out box a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129523892471553170″a/a, a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524309083381138″b/a. As we started to climb the temperature started to drop. a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524042795408610″Ice crystals/a were visible in the soil and we would find a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524201709198674″ice /aat the summit. Along the way we had to climb a couple of neat a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524141579656466″ladders/a. I was the first to reach the summit which was a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524163054492978″cold and windy/a. I was under-dressed for the conditions having left my polar fleece jacket, gloves and hat in the car. Before we heading back down the trail we took a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524244658871666″picture /ain the lee of the wind. It would take about 30 minutes before my hand warmed up. Chris Mc, Kerry and I were the first to reach the trailhead and I took a picture of the a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524339148152242″sunset /awhile waiting for John to finish the hike. Once we were all together we headed into Lake Placid for a meal and headed back to the Loj.br /br /I was up at 6:30 am on Sunday and had a quick shower. The cook would bang his breakfast gong at 7:15 am and I wanted to hit the shower before the masses did so. Breakfast took the form of all-you-can-eat pancakes and oatmeal which were a welcome sight. After checking out we headed back down into the Keene Valley to summit Hopkins. Along the trail I snapped a picture of a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524407867629026″myself /awhile catching my breath. As I was getting closer I noticed a rock face off the trail and wondered if a href=”http://jasonplancaster.com”Jason /awould climb it if he was a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524467997171202″here/a or a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Adir_Nov2007_Noonmark_Hopkins/photo#5129524506651876882″here/a. Chris Mc, Kerry and I had lunch on the summit of Hopkins and I showed Kerry how to sight a bearing with her compass. When the sun was out it was pleasant to sit out on the rocks and catch the rays. Once the food has settled in our stomach we started our reluctant slow descent back to the car. As the sun was setting we bid the Adirondacks goodbye and started our trek north.
Ts’yl-os (pronounced sigh-loss)
a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_5w5ZZWchEd4/RyvN1IWlXFI/AAAAAAAAChc/YOMptAdjCLE/s1600-h/chilkolake1_4.jpg”img style=”margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_5w5ZZWchEd4/RyvN1IWlXFI/AAAAAAAAChc/YOMptAdjCLE/s320/chilkolake1_4.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5128418913350409298″ border=”0″ //abr /br /When I was growing up the premier of British Columbia announced that he was forming a new provincial park called Ts’yl-os. The newspaper gave the subscribers a chance to request a poster of hikers at a href=”http://www.britishcolumbia.com/parks/?id=42″Chilko Lake/a with the mountains in the background. I took up the offer and the poster is on the wall I pass by each morning. Ts’yl-os is located 250 km North of Vancouver. The url of the park is a href=”http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/ts.html”http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/ts.html/a. One of my goals over the next couple of years is to camp, and hike in Ts’yl-os park as well as to hike up one of the peaks.
