Pixmin

We left Road 1 to take Road 36 direction East and turned left on Road 48 and left again on Road 461. We stopped to picnic and pick up blueberries but too many people have come before us.

We managed to find a good spot full of blueberries but although they are great for the jam they would still need a bit more sun. There wasn’t any real summer this year so many of them are still green. And in the night the tent was covered with frost so I’m not sure if they will have much more time to ripen…

Hvalfjörður – There were a few other cars filled with berry picker (I’m referring to both the people picking berries and their horrible tool that ruins the plants) – anyways – so we walked by the river until we find a nice spot to set up camp. The sky cleared a little for a great sunset (which we enjoyed with the sheeps from the other side of the river)

Maybe it will inspire some of those who, when told about raw food, ask “But what do you eat then?!”

So simple yet so delicious:

• spinach
• sun-dried tomatoes
• a tomato
• chickpeas and various beans’ sprouts
• goji berries
• parsley
• olive oil
• salt / pepper
• paprika and curry for taste and colors
• walnuts and chestnuts for crunchiness

More photos on my flickr page http://www.flickr.com/pixmin

A few weeks ago, Adrian and I went for a hike in the backcountry to ride some powder. I didn’t take any photos that day (except for the one of Adrian walking up which wasn’t good anyway). So today I decided to walk around that same mountain to try to capture how much of a hike it was (I think we left before 10am and only came back by 8pm).

This time I didn’t have snowshoes, which was quite stupid really knowing how much snow there was. I sometimes had to walk on my knees, putting some of the weight on the front leg to be able to keep going as I was sinking into the powder.

A few days ago, Adrian and I went to the beach and tried to start a fire before going for a swim. Unfortunately the lighter melted before the fire got fully started and we had to do without it. I then realized that the tools you have are not worth much if you don’t know how to use them. Using a lighter is easy enough, and so is starting a fire in the fireplace, but doing it on the beach with wet wood and wind is another story.

So today, willing to gain some experience, I stopped a couple of times to start a little fire (small as a bowl, just enough to warm up my hands and make sure it was properly started). The first one took me three trials, as the wood was wet by the melting snow but I took more time to prepare the second one and used the “green hair” from the trees and it started very easily from the first time.

Anyway, enough fire talk, I went back just in time for the big air competition and tried to take some photos but there wasn’t much light, so I doubt anything good will come out of it.

Photos from my hike around Mt Alan Brooks »

Not many places where one can:

• Hitchhike to go snowboarding in the morning (I failed, but I could have been snowboarding in the morning and got back by lunch time…)
• Take a bike and be in the forest in a few minutes, where it smells so good of pine trees that you forget that a few minutes ago you were cycling through a town
• Take a relaxing walk by the river
• Have a break and sunbath on a sandy beach (ok, it’s mostly pebbles but there are sandy spots)
• Watch eagles and all other sorts of wild animals

All in a day… I do *love* British Columbia.

I’ve been giving away so many of my Moo Mini Cards recently that I’m about to run out. Some of them were not correctly printed so I sent an email to Moo to make sure the next batch would be correctly printed. As a reply I received a gift code for a free set of cards. Now that’s what I call good customer service!

I also love the email confirmation:

Hello,

I’m Little MOO – the bit of software that will be managing your order
with us. It will shortly be sent to Big MOO, our print machine who will
print it for you in the next few days. I’ll let you know when it’s done
and on its way to you.

The new cards will be using parts of the following photos:

Everyday we have the chance to see beautiful mountains so it was just a question of time before we would want to go and explore them.

Yesterday Adrian and I packed some lunch and left the groomed runs for the unspoiled powder. Walking through the powder in the quiet back country was such a bliss. We first exchanged the snowshoes for skis/snowboard after a few hours from the top of a hill and had our first run down, then back on the snowshoes to get to the top of the mountain.

We reached the top at about 15h/15h30, both totally exhausted. We knew we should stay on the left side on our way down, to avoid being stuck, but the powder was so deep and the riding it so exhilarating that we forgot about it and once down had to walk way more than needed. That rookie mistake cost us a few hours and we only came back to the lodge by night, past 19h, guided by the lights of Mount Washington night skying.

PS: I know the photo is crap but I was way too tired at that point to take more time than just point and shoot. Next time we’ll be more prepared!