What Was Your Work Out Today?

I tweaked a finger, so Monday was my last day's climbing of the week. It seems fine now, though.

I lifted a couple of times in the week, the details of alarums and excursions are lost to posterity.

Saturday
Caving. We did Northern Lights at Ogof Fynnon Ddu top entrance. It's quite a big trip; I think it normally takes people 7 or 8 hours. There were just two of us, and we're both reasonably fit, so we got a bit of wriggle on on and got it done in about 5 hours. I got stuck for a couple of minutes at the top of a climb where it turns into a squeeze to get into the Northen Lights.,but I eventually twisted the right way.

Sunday
We meandered up and down a valley, where a friend had found what appears to be a new cave. It was very tight; he managed to wriggle through to link it up with another cave. It was too narrow for me, although I did get about 15 metres into the 30m squeeze. I suspect I'm the fourth person ever to see this passage. Here is me entering the system:



We spent a few hours wandering up and down the valley after this going into small caves.

Mine have been "non-traditional" as far as what most would call "work-outs." But I'm having fun!


Last week I went paddling two days (Sunday and Thursday). It was about 18 miles each day. The second day launched from where the first day ended. I didn't really get any pictures, and that's OK.

On Monday and Wednesday, I went to the aquarium and did some diving. Wait. That's not even outside. Never mind!

Then this past weekend I drove over to the coast to meet a friend. I bought a car from a friend who was moving to Australia in October; this was my first night "camping" in the car. We had a little RAV4 party. Hers is a couple years newer, but has a lot more miles. She was paddling a decked kayak, I had an open canoe.



We walked on the beach, drove to town, walked on the shore where the waves break on rocks, had a nice meal at the brewery, then went back to camp and saw the sunset.






We paddled a neat canoe trail the next day. It starts in a lake and goes out the river outlet from the lake out to the sea. So you get lacustrine, riverine, and estuarine environments over three miles. Then we were out in the dunes. The wind was horrendous, so we didn't make it all the way to the ocean.

There's a tide gate along the river, and there's a portage made of polyethylene skids, so it's a very easy portage both down and back up. The water was higher in the lake than I've seen previously, and the tide was in; both sides of the portage were pretty easy.

The last quarter mile upwind on the lake was a little scary. There were whitecaps. I thought I might get flipped; my canoe is kind of "twitchy." I didn't. My friend said SHE even thought she might get flipped in her kayak, and it sheds wind better. Of course from a kayak with a skirt, she could have rolled up. I would have just been swimming.








On the way home, we stopped and did a short hike up a creek that has lots of small waterfalls and a couple larger ones. It's a nice hike; it was kind of crowded since it was a beautiful weekend day. We never go just for the hike; it's too long of a drive for such a short hike. We seldom do it on the way back from the coast because there's not time. Well, this time we did it.





Yesterday I hiked up a local peak that's the highest in the coast range. I hadn't been up this year. Hiked a bit more than seven miles through beautiful forest and saw a bunch of wildflowers. There were different flowers blooming along the way to the top. It was really windy up there, but I stayed a while as it was one of those rare days you can see the beach and even the waves crashing in (and the bridge over the bay) and also the Cascade volcanoes to the east. Usually you can see one or the other; sometimes neither. Every now and then, you can see both. Nice day.





Today I'm taking friends for a 15 mile paddle on the river again.