Wow I can’t believe I haven’t wrote anything new in almost two months. Things have been a little crazy around here as I have been busy training and preparing for the trip. Oh I have a been in contact with someone who I will be travelling across Peru with on the GAP Adventures tour. I’m really looking forward to meeting more people who will be on the tour.

I think I’ve finally got all my gear sorted out. I have arranged for all my climbing gear to be sent up to Huaraz as soon as I get into Lima. I’m really happy I was able to do this as I won’t have to carry any extra gear around Peru until I actually need to use it when I’m mountain climbing.

Since some people have been asking me about the gear that I will be using down in Peru, I will put together a gear list and post it on this blog. Potential gear sponsors take note

I’m still going to the gym on a regular basis. Unfortunately I had to stop running a while back as I some how managed to hurt my foot. Instead of running I’ve been using some of the different cardio machines at the gym, as well as going for the occasional bike ride. On a positive note, my foot has been feeling much better these last couple of weeks, so I think I’m going to try running again tomorrow night. Besides going to the gym and going for the occasional bike ride, I have also gone indoor wall climbing on several occasions. Here are a couple pictures from the climbing gym and also from a recent snowboarding trip to Holiday Mountain.

Well that’s it for now. This Friday I leave for San Diego. I must say I’m really looking forward to the warm weather. I’ll be sure to post a trip report when I get back.

Lately a couple of people have asked me how my training for the trip is coming along, so I figured I would write a post about it. The truth is that I’ve been slacking off I know, I know, tisk tisk. In my defence, the holidays did consume a lot of my time, and it’s also been really frickin cold outside for the past month or two.

Okay, that’s enough with the excuses. It really isn’t as bad as I just made it out to be. I have been going to the gym regularly, just not as much as I would like to though. Ultimately I should be going five times a week.

But besides going to the gym, I have also been getting outside on the occasional nice day that we rarely see in Winterpeg. Last weekend I headed down to North Dakota and spent the day snowboarding. It turned out to be a pretty decent day and the ski hill wasn’t very busy, which was awesome because you didn’t have to wait in line for a long time just to get on the chair lift. For those of you who have never been skiing or snowboarding in Manitoba or North Dakota, this is a big deal as it can take less than one minute to get down most runs. When there are lines you end up spending most of your day waiting in lines and riding chair lifts. This is a perfect example of why we need to build more mountains in the prairies

Now if you remember back I had originally said that I wanted to ride my bike to work throughout the winter? Well that ended rather sooner than later. It turns out that the bike cage where I normally lock my bike up does not approve of cold weather. The lock for the cage froze and we’re unable to open the door. Boooo!!! Then to top it off, whoever is clearing the snow from the parking lot is piling the snow right in front of the door to the bike cage! I guess it was just not meant to be.

Oh well, I actually got out biking last weekend. I met up with a good friend of mine and we headed out for close to three hours on the bikes. We ended up riding on the Seine river and headed towards the Forks where we stopped to watch the snowboarders and drink some hot chocolate. After that we headed down the skating rink on the Assiniboine River.

That was last weekend, so what about this weekend? Well, this weekend was also pretty wicked. It was gorgeous outside! On Saturday I checked out the annual Banff Mountain Film Festival. I highly recommend this event to anyone who enjoys action sports and the good old outdoors.

On Sunday I finally got out and did some ice climbing at the St. Boniface ice tower, which is run by the St. Boniface section of the Alpine Club of Canada. What a blast! I will definitely be heading back to the ice tower this year. I’ve included some pictures from today.

Since I plan on doing a lot of trekking and mountain climbing in Peru, I’m going to need to do some serious training and conditioning so that I will be as physically prepared as possible. Now that the weather is getting cold, I will be heading back indoors to the YMCA. I’m pretty excited to get back to the gym, especially since the YMCA by my place has just been renovated.

A couple weeks ago I took my little canine friend Quincy out for a hike at Birds Hill Park. He enjoyed it and he even had the opportunity to meet his first horse. Quincy also discovered that horse manure tastes good. Yuck! Needless to say we left the area where the horses are allowed and went to a different trail where horses are not allowed.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of hiking, running, and cycling. Even though winter has officially arrived, I still plan on cycling to work. Well, at least when it’s not -40 outside. I picked up some studded bike tires last week and man is it ever fun to go ripping around on the ice and through the snow with these tires on! I’ve also been stair climbing at my apartment. I guess I could consider that a bonus to living on the top floor in a high rise building.

I’ve started a training program used for climbers who are preparing to climb Mount McKinley (a.k.a. Denali). The one thing that I really like about this program is that it is geared towards those who don’t have access to a nearby mountain. Something we are definitely lacking in the prairies. The program progresses on a month to month basis, and progressively gets harder.

With that in mind, if anyone knows of any places close to Winnipeg that have a lot of hills, please let me know. I’ve been talking to my cousin who goes dirt biking out by the Garvin pits, which is not to far from Birds Hill Park. He says that the area is quite hilly and would probably be a good place to train. This place sounds promising and I intend to check it out next weekend, as long as the weather is favourable. Time to load up the pack!