Panorama VI

On this, the sixth installment of our annual foray into the Purcells, we assembled another great group of Gord’s Bike Club members and ripped it up at Panorama from the 15th to the 24th of August.

Day 1 Saturday
Well, ladies and Gentlemen, it looks like we finally got it right! Our departure time, anyways. Leaving from Gord’s on Kenaston at 8:00pm on Friday Night turned out to be just about perfect. the bus ride was an absolute breeze and our arrival time to Panorama was even a bit ahead of schedule at a very nice 4:00pm. Now let’s not forget that a trip to Panorama is never quite a trip to panorama without a screw up at central check-in. This year was no exception… 6 years running (ski and summer trips) we had a glitch. This time it was an erroneous bed count and a little glitch that had us supposedly arriving on Sunday instead of Saturday… The folks at central check in sorted everything out and two hours later we were all set. Not a terrible thing since we took the time to build up our bikes and sort out our gear. Archie even made it up not the lift for the first ride of the vacation… lucky bum! As per usual our ‘Gold’ slope-side accommodations at 1000 Peaks were absolutely first rate and the large deluxe condos Ryan Stimming set us up with were well laid out and featured everything we needed … including jaw dropping views and very comfortable beds.

Day 2 Sunday
Cat, Garth (aka AquaMan) Carl and I started out the day with an early morning bomb down the valley on the golf-cart trails. Great warm up for what’s ahead… Can’t quite express how nice is it to just roll your bike on a nice paved trail in the middle of wilderness and bump into both deer and golfers along the way. We rode from the base of the quad all the way down to the river (a drop of close to ten degrees) and then up the pedestrian gondola up to the Quad chairlift… quick and exhilarating… like I said: A great way to start a day of gravity assist.

This (Sunday) is usually our C.O.P. day in Calgary but this year we decided to hit Panorama right off the bat. Kinda funny after all these years… The difficult thing about it was the absence of some practice time… C.O.P. was always a nice place to kinda get acclimatized to the DH experience… but the logistics just made it quasi-impossible. So we made the call… first day would be at Pano and we hoped that peeps would take it easy the first day.

Like every Pano trip we started out with one great big group descent… something not too technical, low speed… just to warm everyone up with a sample of what was ahead for the week… For this first run we picked an easy blue called “Lookout” Selection was based on the skill set of the folks on the ride and unfortunately, at the very bottom of the ride, within sight of the chairlift, Chris and Keith both crashed off of a berm… Chris with a vacation ending separated shoulder. Man, did we feel for Chris… He was so looking forward to this trip, he’d worked so hard to get to where he needed to be until this freak crash took him out. Quite the sobering start to a gravity-assist vacation for everyone… but especially sad for Chris who would have to participate from the sidelines.

With Chris off to Invermere for some X-rays and meds, the rest of us did our best to get on with our day of fantabulous mountain biking… many of us -Ryan and I in particular- found ourselves feeling like we picked up exactly where we left off last year. It was so very cool to see the look in people’s eyes and the infectious excitement guys like Lewis and RT were exuding. I can’t say it enough, It’s always such a great feeling to bring folks to this great place and to see them happy. Pano has such tremendous facilities, great, great riding and fantastic terrain for all levels. It’s amazing how Panorama has remained an underrated and mostly undiscovered playground… If you haven’t already, you should really put it on your to-do list!

Day 3 Monday
Another stellar day on this superlative bike of mine surrounded by great riding buddies… As sweet as the day began I could not shake the thought of Chris unable to ride with us… No matter how great my riding day was going to be I never fully enjoy it when one of the team is sidelined and unable to ride. I know, I give too much of a shit … Sorry for the downer but that’s my cross to bare. The only way I can truly enjoy myself is if everyone is having a great time… Please keep that in mind next time you’re about to hurt yourself on a trip… ultimately, it’s all about me. That being said: The highlight of my day had to be a ride down what we call “skull crusher” with Cat, Rodney, Dave Degelbanger and Jerry Todd… What a hoot, what a good mix of riders. No doubt about it, Rodney has some pretty serious bike skills to go along with his ninja skills, computer skills, male modeling and gut skills. Thanks for that great run, guys… one for the memories, that’s for sure! Oh and by the way, have you checked out that Catherine chick? She is is riding so unbelievably well on this trip it’s crazy. The only thing more impressive was to gaze upon a certain Dave Degelman and his patented royal blue Speedo. To witness the lap dance he gave a certain female member of our gang is to fall down laughing. Too bad all the incriminating footage of this hysterical event was confiscated in a cowardly pre-dawn raid on our room.

Day 4 Tuesday
What another stupendous day! It all started out with Coppens and RT deciding to unicycle down “let it Ride”. Two words best described it: “Nuts” and “Amazing” oh and “cue the circus music”. Way to go gentlemen. Day three was also Dave D’s last day with us and we made the best of it. Some of the most whhhicked riding of the week for me so far. Rode my favorite: Punisher with Dave and Dave and had the bestest run on that very technical trail ever. Also rode a trail we like to call Skull crusher (in honor of Dave’s bike landing straight on his helmet (while he was on the ground) in 2005). Today also marked the second Panorama trip in a row where Batenchuk managed to land on her face… This time splitting a Bell full face helmet in half. Amazing how she to this day refuses to use her hands to land on when falling off her bike. No but seriously, good for you for getting back on that horse and continuing to ride. No doubt about it our girls are the most kick-ass of all.

Day 5 Wednesday
It’s Wednesday… so of course, just to keep up with tradition, it’s raining. It certainly seems like it has rained every single Wednesday of every single Pano bike trip we’ve ever been on and although today we have decided to take the big bad bus over to Kicking horse for the day – just to mix things up – we have not been able to shake the curse of Wednesday being a rain day.

What about kicking horse you ask? Well if Panorama is serene and beautiful, KHMR (the last two letters of the acronym stand for Mountain Resort) is much more imposing and awesome. If you live by the motto “bigger is better” then KHMR will certainly ring your bell. First off the vertical is off the charts… you ride from the very top to the very bottom… we only managed four runs and even if you didn’t dilly dally (as we certainly did) I doubt you’d be able to do much more than five runs in one day … especially if you took in (as we did) the simply fantastic lunch at the very top at the much vaunted eagle’s nest restaurant (the highlight of many folks’ KHMR experience). Suffice it to say that Kicking Horse was indeed impressive. the MTB trails were well laid out and show serious potential…. I think it’d be fair to say that Kicking Horse is a pretty intimidating place for the uninitiated and I certainly understand it’s quasi-cult status with the hardcore crowd. it’s just so… BIG. I just wish it hadn’t rained so much… it did keep us off some stuff. Simply way to sketchy to ride wet. I’m certainly planning on coming back next year for there was one trail that blew my mind that I simply MUST revisit… oh and then there’s the corkscrew stunt (that Archie aced not once but twice) that I think I can do (provided my balls grow a bit during the off-season). And let’s not forget the wall ride called “Mr Hankey” on “Claim Jumper” that scared the crap out of most of us except for Archie and Mike (Archie being the only one to negotiate that particular stunt without breaking his hand in the process). Kicking Horse is best summarized as follows: great big playground for the fearless.

Day 6 Thursday
Many of us fully expected to take a day off because of the monster precipitations in the forecast… yet when we woke up it was almost sunny outside! So a few of us rushed to the lift for a few wicked runs until Ryan and Leanne showed up (all healed up from her alleged concussion)… just in time for us to get one more great run in until SIDEWAYS RAIN hit.. Man, it didn’t just rain it poured… non stop… pelting, hard core rain… turned trails into streams and Jenn into chocolate… a few more descents and we called it a day. But not before I hit my first deer on a bike. It was on “stiffy”, coming around a berm… just a graze but still, I’m calling it a hit! The funniest thing was that right after the “incident” the deer (check him out right here, to the right) just moved over a few meters and turned around as it to say “WTF?” … weird.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with riding in the rain… but 7 degrees and rain makes one question the upsides of such an endeavor… Check out the video, it speaks volumes of how ‘fun’ it was. Awfully glad I did it though. At least Friday was around the corner with sun in the forecast.

Day 7 Friday
The last day is always bittersweet. The difference on this last day was that we were not leaving at the end of the day. Some luminary decided that a full day of riding followed by a good night’s sleep and a Saturday morning departure was a better option than riding all day, showering in the pool area and packing all the bikes and luggage for a rushed departure. Good call if I do say so myself.

This scheduling change allowed for a proper day of riding, a great group dinner at the RK Heli Plex and some unhurried packing at the end of the day… Oh, and did I mention anywhere on here about the AWESOME hot tubbing at the hot pools? Like I said: AWESOME! Oh and the riding today was fantastic. nothing is more fun than riding at Pano after a good drenching the day (or night) before. The soil gets nice and sticky, the dust is nonexistent and the air is, I dunno, better. The last ride up the lift is always filled with conundrums “maybe I should move to Panorama and live here” or “I wonder if I could hike with my bike to the peak and just “giver” to the bottom (at Pano you ride the bottom third of the mountain only)” and the ubiquitous “what trail will I ride for my last descent?”.

As I type this it’s 11:00am on Sunday, 24 hours since we shut the door to the bus and started on our way back home to Winnipeg and for the life of me I can’t remember what that last run was… but I can remember who my riding buddies were: “Michelle, Ryan and Archie; Three of the best riding buddies one could ever close a Panorama vacation with. All I can remember about that last run was that it was fun… that I laughed lots and that I was thankful my knee held up for one more day and that no one got hurt on our last day of riding. I think I can safely speak for everyone when I say “I can’t wait until next year’.

Twelve things I’m taking away from Panorama 2008:

1. Dave Degelman is one stand-up kind of guy. Only there for the first three days of the trip he nonetheless offered to take Chris to the hospital after he injured himself on the first ride of day 1. Not only is DD the best rider I’ve ever ridden with he’s also the safest, most conscientious and responsible rider I’ve ever ridden with. As I was reviewing the footage from day two I happened upon a clip where I was following him on my bike (while filming) at a good speed down a paved section of trail… and there he was, making like an airplane, hands off his handlebars… and then just as he approached a turn on the path he actually did a blind-spot check before clipping the apex of the turn… just to make sure he wasn’t cutting anyone off… Not a biggie but it exemplifies a big part of his his riding style: Risks, but calculated risks. I realized once he left us after day 3 just how much his understated leadership has made my job easier on these things. No chest pumping antics here, just the real deal in blue Speedos. Thanks for helping out and riding with me , buddy… oh, and you owe me money, douche bag.

2. What was up with the newbie injury rate? Here we were during our trip post-mortem (pardon the pun) wondering aloud how we could have prevented some of the carnage this trip suffered. Truth be told there’s nothing we could have done short of preventing people from coming or issuing sumo-suits when exiting the bus… Shit happens and we can only be thankful injuries were non-life threatening and that everyone will recover nicely. The only conclusion we can pull out of this is that there is no substitute for experience and preparation… But even then, like I said, shit happens… It’s just a bummer when it happens (like it happened for Chris Endo) on the very first run of the trip. Everyone felt for him and it certainly affects everyone but the most dispassionate when one of the gang gets hurt.

3. I think we finally have the format dialed-in! Like I said earlier, the departure times and return times were the best we’ve had yet. Bob and his crew of drivers did a great job of getting us out and back safely and promptly. Thank you Robert!

4. Next year let’s try to keep it under 26. This year we got caught up in trying to out-do last year, got caught up in the “more is better” mind set… But in retrospect, we probably got greedy and forgot that more is. in fact, not always better. When one tries to push something on folks, you always get participants who are there for the wrong reason. Like Paul told me one evening, (I’m paraphrasing here) “don’t forget, this has always been first and foremost a gathering of friends with mountain biking as the catalyst”… Instead, for better of for worse, some took the approach that this was a chartered vacation organized by Gord’s where everyone split up and did their own thing… Pretty understandable since some people had never even met each other before getting on the bus… of all the previous trips to Panorama, 2008 was probably the least unified trip we’ve had. Gone (or highly reduced) were the nightly roomfuls where everyone gathered ’round at Rideout’s or JF’s to watch the videos and the pics of the day… All but disbanded were teams “patio” “common sense” “Dave” and Matt and Ming’s “team we only get up around noon”. Not surprising since we did lose a half-dozen key veterans from last year… of course it changed the make-up of the trip. Thankfully we had a handful of newbies this year that were nothing short of delightful… Guys like Garth who “got it”. But no biggie, it was still a whhhicked time! We’ll address these issues next year by making that clear to those we invite … plus Paul and I are going to lean on guys like Swede, Rideout, Jerry, Matt and Ming to come out and play in 2009… Because although it may sound a little ‘Nancy’ to say so, we really did miss those guys this year!

5. Special thanks to Coppens and his boy-band … great job keeping us rolling, guys.

6. Panorama is the only place I’d go to do one of these things. Sure, Kicking horse was grandiose and Whistler is rockin’ and Fernie is all that… But I am steadfast in my belief that there is no better place to take 25 of your friends for a mountain bike trip. Fernie would not have the same accommodations and ambiance, Kicking horse would all but eliminate the casual riders and Whistler is just too far… Slotting in a side trip to KHMR was a fun thing to do and I’d certainly be open to making it an annual part of the Panorama experience but there’s still so much to discover and to master at Panorama… and plus, I really want to show up one year and have all our accommodations dialed in and perfect… now THAT would be the prefect vacation.

7. My first day at Pano felt exactly like a continuation of the 2007 trip… like I never missed a beat. I picked up exactly where I left off! Maybe I AM getting better… or maybe my it was my new kick-ass Commençal … either way, I’m happy. I may have said this earlier but I’m also happy that my knee allowed me to complete Friday before completely flaking out on me… I can’t even walk down stairs without wincing… Maybe I just need to get to bed, ice it and get some rest… It’s now 5:12pm and I’m still at work.

8. I can’t say enough about my Hope Mono 6 brakes. Sure, they cost about as much as a decent commuter bike… but come on, when hurtling down the side of a mountain nothing saves a 41 year-olds’ ass from impending doom better… and lord knows I’ve tried all types of brakes. Zero fade, perfect modulation. Simply amazing.

9. I realize that I am a very lucky man. Pretty cool that Catherine likes doing this kind of stuff with me as much as I like doing this kind of stuff with her.

10. I don’t want to single anyone else out … but there are some of you that I simply love. You folks make all of this worth it… year in and year out you help me, you support me, you humor me, you drive me freaking nuts. Year in and year out you add to my experience and it is especially for you that I put all of this together. Seeing your smiles, hearing your thanks and dealing with your bullshit makes it all worth while. Special thanks to a few newbies and second-year participants like Archie, Aqua Man, Ryan and Carl who stepped up and all the others who unintentionally filled the shoes of those vets who I really missed and for some reason or another could not make it this year… Dudes like the venerable Jerry Legbacon. Jerry had the best and worst excuse of all to miss out on the Pano trip this year: He got shipped out to Afghanistan a week earlier than scheduled and therefore could not make the trip for 2008… Don’t worry buddy, your spot is reserved and paid in full for 2009.

11. Thank you Leanne!

12. Finally, A great big thanks to Ryan Stimming for another stellar vacation and thank you for the beer and nachos… it was absolutely unnecessary yet very much appreciated. It is humbling how good you guys are to us.