Sunday, February 17, 2008

Mountain Bike excursion


So here we go again. On Thursday we tried some snowboarding, on Friday we did some skiing, on Saturday we did this mountainbike ride and the next day we ran the Palm Springs Half Marathon.
Our bodies felt like they went through a mincer!
Here we are with a few members of our mountainbike club at the top of Highway 74 and we're heading down as much single track as we can find for the next 7 odd hours......
Some of terrain was pretty tricky. These turns were even too tight for our experienced downhillers!
No lack of downhill or rocks....That's me heading down. I guess Jacques must trust my skills to be standing at the bottom of the trail with a camera....
Do ya see those little spots on the road - That would be our cycling buddies...





And we're getting closer to them..





What would a cycling expedition be without a flat!





I love this stuff!
















With all that downhill, we had some short steep climbs just to spice up the day.






Just one mistake and you loose your line and it's so steep, there's no getting back on the bike.







Did I mention the little rain we had gave the cacti just enough energy to grow along the single track like crazy and shred all our legs and arms to pieces.
I'm still taking thorns out of my shins.












Here's our "lunch place". It used to be a place where Indians once migrated through. See that hole in the rock just to the left of the dude in the red shirt.
That was where they used to grind corn.














Grinding gears...












The rain and the rise in temperature we have now is turning our desert a shade of green.






























This would be the river crossing that I decided to give a shot. It ended up banging up my only good knee. So I ended up running the Palm Springs Half marathon with two blue knees and cacti in my shins!











Remember the corn grinding tools I was talking about earlier. Well here's a close up!










Our first try at snowboarding in Big Bear (again)

We decided that snowboarding could not evade us any longer. So off to Big Bear we went....

We stayed in this really cute rustic cabin.



This would be my favourite part of the cabin - the TUB.
After all that beating we took with our tumbles in the snow, there's nothing better.... Well maybe the glass of Amarula afterwards......


Jacques had the camera, so I didn't get a chance to take a photo of him, but here I am.
It's the coolest thing. Soooooo much fun. Sooooo embarassing when you smash into the snow for the how-manyeth time.
Ahhh , what the hell! We all gotta start somewhere!



I look like a beginner....maybe because I am one?




Not gonna fall - not gonna fall......

Big Bear Skiing with Clark

Here we are again in Big Bear. We had our buddy Clark join us for the day!


Here's Clark and me heading for the slopes.


It was only Clark's second time on ski's and it ended up being a really successful day!