Summers all done...

So summer is truly over now. It's been a busy one indeed this year but sadly most of the workload has been just that... work. Still, there have been a few opportunities since my last post to get into the woods. Mostly they were spur of the moment decisions to throw some gear in the truck and go but we did wrap up the principle work on the firetower this year which was nice. Work on the tower has been a 3 and 1/2 year process so it was nice to see it completed. I put together a photo retrospective of the tower work over those last 3 years which can be seen HERE. What lies forward is some more basic day to day maintenance and perhaps a trail rerouting... but certainly the work trips will be scaled back. It was a truly enjoyable project though so I was glad to have an opportunity to contribute to it. The finishing touch - a new map and alidade for "peak spotting" I also got to get to the Whites a couple of times this year. After one of the Mt Adams(NY) work days I did the rare traverse across New England to climb New Hampshires version of Mt Adams. I must say the latter is a bit more significant a mountain. It had also been a while since I had been up on the "rockpile" so it was a tough reminder how difficult an environment it can be. The long site lines are both a blessing and a curse and the rocky trails are hard sledding. On a relatively beautiful summer day its a hard place to go for a walk... and if the weather is foul... well it's probably not the best place to be at all. Up on the "rockpile" With summer quickly wrapping up I did manage to drive down to Montreal to catch the UCI pro road race over Mount Royal. This year's edition had an exceptional field taking part. At one point, prior to the race start, I was standing within 50 meters of 4 of the last 5 Tour de France winners. Not to mention a lot of the significant players on this year's world cycling tour. As it turns out the course in Montreal has a very similar profile to the World Championship road race course just held in Florence, Italy. With that in mind, a lot of the big names had come to Montreal to test themselves as a warm up for the Worlds. Usually the winner of the World Championship road race comes out of the Vuelta D'Espagne - the 3 week tour of Spain which takes place from mid August to September. Three weeks racing in Spain (and a little recovery time) tends to leave the riders quite fit! This year however, the (just) crowned World Champion (Alberto Rui Da Costa) came to race in Montreal (and he had won the Montreal race 2 years prior as well) so that certainly indicated that most of the teams were right to opt for Canada over the Spanish tour - at least for this year. As always there were copious amounts of photos taken and a full set can be seen HERE Ryder sprinting for the finish! The Army Run in Ottawa is also an indication for me that summer is drawing to a close. I've been involved since its inception in organizing the route for that race. This year we had 22,000 participants in the 2 races (5k and 1/2 marathon) which marks remarkable growth over it's 6 years. It's a bit of a handful but a fun weekend overall. This is the last year of our "contract" with DND so we'll see if we are out there again next year. If not then that might give me one more weekend to go climbing instead so win-win either way that comes out. The steady stream of runners - crossing the bridge On to a busy fall schedule. Seems like each weekend is already booked up with things this year so it should be a quick transition from the colourful leaves to the snows of November (fingers crossed!). Time to start thinking about winter if I'm going to be ready when it arrives!