Getting there is half the fun

Welcoming the new AMS president! LINK

Posted by Evan at 11:43 PM

Instead of Studying...

Sudan man marrys a goat!! LINK

STOP!

Make sure you tighten them bolts! LINK

Posted by Evan at 11:05 PM

Avy School: Day 3

Day 3 of Avalanche School took us up to Whistler at a bright and early 5:30am! The roads were covered in snow so we were only a small 15 minutes late due to Clint and his Impreza Turbo (the others were an hour late). Another hour long setback later, due to losing someone on the mountain, brought us to the 2 hour late premeeting, where we discussed today's conditions. We then skinned up Flute Bowl into the backcountry to go over route finding and other junk. It wasn't the easiest task with over a foot of fresh powder. The day was spent skiing up, doing more snow tests, and doing a multiple barrial simulation. We got one bomber run in on untracked waist deep powder before heading back in bounds. Going down the runs after the mountain had closed was an eerie feeling. After a long summarizing sessions over at Base 2, followed by a TEST we got our certificates and quickly headed down to Squamish for a round and burgers at the Brew Pub! 17 hours later I am home and still haven't started studying for my nuclear midterm tomorrow!

Bram doing the shovel shear test on a column of snow:


Me doing the Rutschblock test:


Skiing back into the resort area:

Posted by Evan at 11:08 PM

Avy School: Day 2

After the classroom session Thursday night Avalanche School took us to Mt. Seymour for day 2. We met early (7:30) at a coffee shop at the base of Seymour going over the day's objectives and plan. Gear check revealed that one person (name not mentioned) forgot her skins, and another his trasceiver, oy! After sorting gear out we thankfully took Mystery chair up, saving us a long hike, and then continued to ski up to around First Pump Peak. We spent the day learning about what slopes to avoid in what conditions, safest route finding, trasceiver locations and how to evaluate the snowpack through various tests. After 8 or so hours it was back to the coffee shop for some debriefing.

The group digging a pit to test the snow layers:

Posted by Evan at 8:12 PM

Here's a really cool adaption of google maps. You can zoom in on a location and see what pictures people have uploaded. Interesting, but needs more photos.

Posted by Evan at 9:44 PM

It's a sad day in Canadian hockey...

Posted by Evan at 9:35 PM

Word of the Day: Sastruga

Today's word of the day is Sastruga:
A sastruga or zastruga (collective noun: sastrugi or zastrugi) is a member of a body of sharp irregular grooves or ridges formed on a snow surface by wind erosion and depostion, and found in polar regions. Recent spottings of Sastruga have been on the Garibaldi Neve and surrounding snowpacks, where the phenomema is ubiquitous and can be described as "a bitch to ski".

Posted by Evan at 11:12 PM

Breaking News...

I just got my letter of offer from PBA Engineering confirming my job for this summer, and it will indeed be in Vancouver afterall!! Whoohoo! It's been over 2 years since I've had a summer at home, so it's going to be really nice. And as an added bonus the letter stated that "Should you be required to work in the Victoria office, the cost of accomodation, meals and travelling expenses would be covered"!

Posted by Evan at 12:14 PM

Loads of pictures from the Neve are posted here!

Posted by Evan at 10:59 PM

Garibaldi Neve Traverse

To cap off an unproductive reading break I went with the VOC to ski the Garibaldi Neve for 4 days. The ski traverse is over 45 km long up over high alpine lakes and across massive glaciers in the mountains between Squamish and Whistler. It was definitely one of the best trips I've ever done!

We started Thursday at 6am, but after shuttling cars to the other end of the trail we didn't get started until 10am. Snow on the unplowed road meant that we had to start skiing almost 2km from the trailhead proper, which added almost an hour. To make things worse, most of the trail up to Garibaldi Lake had patchy icy snow, so we had to carry our skis for a few hours up the 36 switchbacks! This part of the trip almost ruined me and I was close to turning back because of my leg. After 3 hours of this we put the skis back on and skied through the trees above the barrier up the to lake. After 6 hours of hard work it was 4pm and a crazy minus 17C when we started the 4.5km lake crossing which took over 90 minutes. We reached the Burton Hut just as the sun finished setting.

Skiing through the trees up Rubble Creek Trail:


On the edge of Garibaldi Lake preparing for the COLD and WINDY crossing:


Skiing across Garibaldi lake:


We were rewarded with a good view of Black Tusk from the lake:


Cooking dinner inside the hut:


The small but cozy Burton hut on the edge of Sphinx Glacier, our home for 2 nights:


Friday was spent eating as much food as we could, burying the hut in snow for insulation, and contemplating whether we were going to attempt the crossing the next day. High winds Friday were giving us second thoughts about our strength and condition of our blistered feet. Friday night we somehow contaminated all of our pots and drinking bottles with kerosene, despite the fact that all our stoves use naphtha. It was a little frustrating melting snow 3 to 4 times to finally get a relatively kerosene free litre of water each.

We also went for a ski for a few ours up Sphinx Glacier. A few people made it all the way up to Deception Col, but Angela, Greta and I opted to turn around with Roland. This is a picture of Angela skiing down from the col:


Despite our best efforts in waking up at 5am Saturday, the cold said otherwise. We finally left the hut closer to 8am and started crossing to one side of the lake in -19C temperatures! We climbed up that massive hill at the end of the lake, a scary combination of kicking steps and traversing on edges:


After a few hours of skiing we crested the col between the Glacier Pikes. Garibaldi lake is now a LONG ways down! Burton hut is around the corner in the top right of the lake:


We then were rewarded by a nice expansive downhill across Warren Glacier. A bit short though. We skied down from the col in the middle back of the picture, a lot farther than it looks:


Then it was back to climbing hard up through crevasses and seracs up onto the neve. As always the slope is a lot steeper than it looks. Those are seracs on the left!:

My nose picked a perfect time to start bleeding as I was standing on a steep slope above a crevasse, probably due to elevation/dryness, leaving a trail behind me. Fun!

At the high point of the traverse we ate lunch directly below the peak of Mount Garibaldi!


After 2 days of uphill it was finally time for some downhill down the glacier! All of the snow in this picture of on top of glacier! Unfortunately it wasn't the best skiing though as it was extremely wind battered and crusty, but fun nonetheless. We also ran into a party of 5 heading in the reverse direction to Burton hut.


A very nice pic of Mike on the glacier with Mt Garibaldi behind!:


The end of the glacier dropped off into Ring Creek, which meant some serious crevasse dodging. The wave looking pieces of snow are burried crevasses. Opal Cone is the giant mound to the left.


Once down in the depths of Ring Creek we found a snow bridge and had to kick steps to get out of the very steep valley sides. It was a little hair raising!:


Above Ring Creek was pretty sketch too. The sides were extremely steep gulleys over cliffs. Oker dropped his thermarest and had to go all the way down to get it. And I fell and almost slid down a gulley, damn scary.

In the trees above Ring Creek....VERY steep!:


But finally after 9 hours of skiing and bonking right before the last 20 minute uphill we made it to Elfin Hut!


Because of its proximity to Squamish and easy trail in (the trail we went down, not the one we came from) the hut was completely packed. The hut has 30 something beds and around 60 people were staying there Saturday night. We all ended up sleeping on the kitchen floor and getting a bad night's rest.

Kim, me and Greta sitting on the floor:


Sunday was a nice leisurely ski down through Red Heather meadows (only after 90 minutes of uphill/traverse) and then a treacherous bobsled run of a trail down to the parking lot, followed by a few hours of car shuttling to end the most awesome of trips!!

Waiting at the side of the road for our shuttler's to arrive:


What a wicked trip! I'm hooked!!

Posted by Evan at 9:31 PM

Project Fail Supposed Grad Year:

To add to an already academically unsuccessful reading week in which next to no reading was done I am taking off on a ski trip early tomorrow morning with 9 or so other members of the VOC. The plan is to cross the Garibaldi Neve in 3 days, with a day to ski around once we are in the mountains! Starting from Rubble Creek we are going to ski up the Barrier trial to Garibaldi lake, and cross it to Sphinx hut. After a day of rest and skiing around this end of the lake we are going to cross the neve to the Elfin hut in one big 20km push, sleep there, and then ski down Sunday!!

The weather looks like it's going to be nice, but COLD! The Whistler Alpine forcast reads:
Thursday:
Mountain Top Winds East 40 To 70 Km/H.
Clearing Early In The Morning.
Alpine Temperature Falling To Minus 19 In The Afternoon.
brrrrr

See y'all bleary eyed and sunburnt in midterms next week...

Posted by Evan at 10:06 PM

Weekend Wrap Up

What a week! The weekend-long culmination of E-week began with True Engineer on Friday afternoon, which involved each club building a bridge out of a limited supply of stirsticks, straws and elastic bands. Of course Fizz won with our ingenuity and force in numbers, and not cheating helped too (MTRL guys). Our bridge held the most amount of water before catastrophic failure.

Then there was Red Knight Friday night at the Cheeze, which broke the normal Cheeze stereotype in that there were actually girls there! The place was completely packed, both inside and out, with a band playing outside. And as a bonus, if you wore a red beer was only 25 cents!! Which ends up working out to free when people buy you beer to borrow your jacket! Way too many beers and boat races later we wound up in a drunk fight in front of the SUB. Well it wasn't really a fight, more like a pushing match of 5 on 5 with a dozen security guards running out of the SUB to break it up. Surprisingly fun since no one was hurt, but I somehow got a few bruises and I don't normally bruise. Eventually we made it downtown to the Yale but balked at the eintritt and got some poutine instead and headed home. Somehow instead of heading home I met some random people at the village and ended up staying out until the wee hours.

Saturday night was EBall, the annual Engineers' Ball. It was absolutely loads of fun! It was great to see so many people out too, and the dinner was delicious. After dinner Fizz was awarded trophies for both the fabulous ball model the 3rd years made and also for winning EWeek thanks to the tremendous effort Fizz put in all week long! Fizz hasn't won EWeek since 2001 so it was nice to see our name on the trophy again! The rest of the night was spent in the EUS hospitality suite thanks to Peter! You needed a pass to get in and each club only gets 4 so we spent a lot of the time trying to shuttle people in. The open bar somehow lasted well into the next day, which made for a really fun night! Met lots of people from all over there, including having a pretty good chat with Spencer Keys and also met some engineers from UVIC, one of which might be a coworker this summer too!

Fizz 5th year guys:


The Fizz ball model team and winners:


5th years with our winning trophy!:


The entire Fizz battalion:

Posted by Evan at 4:00 PM

Paul Oakenfold - time of your life:

Woke up this morning with a head full of snow. was it a dream.
Picked up me body for the ride of a lifetime is what it seemed.
Hope got me started. put you to the centre, so it seemed.
Don’t you hurry ’cause you’ll reach your goals, is what it reads.
Got caught in the rain and it washed all my senses down the drain.
Drop me a line when you’re given the time and we’ll talk some more.

This is the time of you life
This is the time of you life now

Posted by Evan at 3:43 PM

Photography

There is beautiful scenery nearly everywhere in the world, and China is no exception. LINK

Okay, get all the jokes about Mexico out of your system. Done? Check out these aerial photographs of Mexico City: Rows and rows of government housing and some pretty interesting architecture and scenes. LINK

Posted by Evan at 6:57 PM

Skulk Night

The annual Engineering Week here at UBC officially started this past Sunday with Skulk Night. Ceremonies get underway at 11pm Sunday, in which the rules are read and then club boat races take place. A 'boat race' is basically 4 guys from each program lined up along a table and the teams compete to see who can drink 4 large beers the fastest! Needless to say, Fizz lost horribly, and I wasn't really any help either. The winning teams were clocked in at around 17 seconds for all 4 beers!! After the reading of the decree and breaking of a beer bottle E Week is officially on and the "lists" are handed out to departments at midnight. Each team has until 7am to get as many of the items completed to earn as many points as possible. The items on the "list" range from easy to the absurd to the very illegal and impossible. The most important thing to remember is to protect the list at all costs, and this involves eating before letting the police get a copy! Heavy consequences befall whoever divulges the list!



Some of the items on the list cannot be mentioned, such as various pranks and stolen items, but the vast majority are harmless tasks that usually involve self imbarassment or nudity! Some pictures of the more tame ones are below.

I ended up staying up all night, from about 9am Sunday to 6pm-ish Monday night when I completely fell asleep despite my radio. After the red-eye breakfast Monday at 8am the rest of the day wasn't too much fun. I only made it to 1 out of 4 classes and had to start and finish a nuclear physics assignment due that afternoon! Also, waking up at 2am Tuesday and watching a movie wasn't much fun either.

Boat races/beer chugging:


Reading of the Decree:


Now the pranks....

4 unnamed naked guys in a fountain:


24 paper boxes:...


"Flashing":
(pic removed at Pete's request!)

Hanging a bike on a street lamp:


Me naked in the middle of the intersection of W. Broadway and Granville!! (for the 3rd try too!!)(not the best pic uploaded, for obvious reasons):


Me in the back of a police car, thankfully not for the previous stunt!:


5 guys in a phone booth:


Unnamed Fizzer jumping off the 10-meter naked!!:


McWedgie courtesy of Jodi:


Human pyramid at Science World:


Mini Cairn hanging from the flag pole:


A little present for Forestry!:

Posted by Evan at 12:51 AM

Some pretty cool artwork! They get better further down the page.

Posted by Evan at 12:45 AM

Bowlin'

Went bowling last night with Peter, Jodi, Natalie, Ian, Stacy, Bob and Mike!


Jodi and Stacy:


Peter the professional bowler:

Posted by Evan at 1:59 PM

Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow broke off their 5 month engagement! LINK...it's nothing but bad relationship luck for this guy.

Posted by Evan at 10:16 AM

Rainfest, aka Pool Pandemonium

Rainfest 2006 was last night and it was without a doubt the best yet!!
Way too many blurry pics are posted HERE!
Team Fizzification: Ralph, Natalie, Cheryl, Martina, Bob, Jill, Me and Edward:


Cannonball in the hottub!

Posted by Evan at 8:38 PM

More pics from Red Heather!!

I just got some more/better pictures of last weekend from Kim and Simon!! Some of these are pretty cool, particularly of the inside of our gigantic underground snow cave mansion, and also the ones of us freezing! Um, Yeah, so here it goes....

The "van gang" at the trail head: Juli, Andrew, Simon, Max, Kim, Moi, Greata & Fokko.


The view from camp, Mt Garibaldi:


Me and Simon taking a break INSIDE the snowcave about 2 meters underground during construction!:


Here's it's night time and we're all freezing trying to cool:


Juli and I trying ever so hard to keep warm:


Dinner time!!:


Now we're inside our snow mansion, all 7 of us plus gear!! Too bad it wasn't large enough to get a whole group shot:


Deer in headlights: Me, Kim and Andrew looking a little disoriented:


Tim makes a house call:

Posted by Evan at 7:05 PM