Trip Reports
Bikes, Booze and Baker. Twice!
By Jason Addy
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1999
My first attempt at Baker by bike from town was with Jesse Jackson. It
was our first trip together and it's the starting point for our
relationship. We have been failing to climb together on bushy
convoluted approaches ever since. It was the summer of 1999 and we both
worked at UBC in two portables side by side at two different jobs. Most
of the summer I would head over to his office to hatch trips that would
make us late for work. We biked to Baker and climbed to the top of the
Roman Wall in a blizzard. We didn't know it but we had climbed the
hardest part but were forced to turn back. When we got back to the tent
after 16hrs on the mountain Jesse proposed we go to sleep right away
and head back up at 2:00am. I was giddy for a few minutes as the rain
hammered the tent and we ate a brick of cheese. Then it occurred to me
that the weather wasn't looking good. I looked at Jesse and said that I
was out. We packed up our tent, ran down to the parking lot and hitched
a ride home. It was off, and we instantly sold out our high concept
biking plan. It rained for two more days and I felt good about
abandoning the trip.
2001
I've never drunk so much on a trip in my life. This is another classic
trip that Colin Punchard (who doesn’t mountaineer) blessed.
Colin has been on only a few trips like this in his life, he is not a
bike geek or an armchair mountaineer like most of my friends; let me
give you his stats from our trips together.
Cathedral - by bike in a day - sunny - summited - smokes - booze
Baker - by Bike - sunny - summited - smokes - booze
Garibaldi - by bike - sunny - no summit - smokes - booze
Grainger - by bike - sunny - summited - smokes - no booze
He is a golden horseshoe and he is always invited to come with us. In
the small world of SPOC (Self-propelled Outdoor Club) he is our mascot
and our hope. He will drop everything and grab the worst steel rimmed
steel framed bike and smoke and sweat and drink his way into shape
after a full year off.
We had split into two groups. Neil, Ryan and Myself made up the vegan
team. Neil and I were already vegan and I was buying food for my rope
team so Ryan became vegan for the trip. Vegan means no animal products
whatever in the food stocks. To make sure my team wasn't getting the
short end of the calories stick I did some over compensating with some
of my food choices, including vegan sandwich meats, sprouts and a full
bottle of mustard. Apart from this I wanted to make sure our team out
drank the others (two to one was our goal). Both teams started by
meeting at the Pit Pub at UBC. Pitchers were ordered and gear was
sorted. We left late on a Friday night and biked with all our gear to
the George Massey Tunnel bicycle shuttle where we camped out until
7:00am the following morning.
Colin brought a 40oz. bottle of homemade scotch. He shared it with all.
I made sure it was passed to our team whenever it was sitting idle for
even a moment. We had also brought beer from Vancouver just in case. We
woke up to a field of empty bottles (including the scotch) and the
shuttle just arriving. We had no time, we had to just throw the bikes
on the trailer and be off. Moments later we were on the road to Blaine,
WA. Blaine is where H Street Road starts. It takes you dead East to
Sumas. We had fuzzy heads and hungry stomachs by the time we had
reached the first pub in Blaine. The contrast between Canada and the
USA is immediately felt and enjoyed. We headed in and got some fries
beer and shots of whiskey to wash it all down. Our next goal was the
dairy just before Sumas. The vegans suffered a big defeat here. I won't
go into it. We fueled up nonetheless and headed to cheap booze at the
grocery store in Sumas.
It had been hours since we had a drink and we sat in the parking lot
and thought about the possibilities of drinking in public. We realized
that we had no cork screw for the many bottles of wine we just bought
which got us to talking about the methods of getting corks out of and
into bottles as seasoned drinkers. Team "B" was amazed at our
experience. They couldn't hold back the looks on their faces. We
decided to just split the one bottle and move on.
Out of Sumas we headed up the valley and into the foothills of the
Northern Cascades. It was there in these woods that one of the
drinker’s team had parents who summered in a gated mobile
home park. Genius. Cool woods, hot tub, pool and a father who
appreciated a drink or two himself. This was now considered low camp.
We biked on but it was in our mind to come back especially if we ran
out of booze. This low camp was well stocked.
We made it to the parking lot that night and finished off the rest of
the grocery store wine and some whiskey, no sorry bourbon. We woke up
to the torture of flies buzzing and biting. A quick get-away and some
hours later we were just below the glacier at high camp. Alcohol was
slim and we were leaving at 2:00am so a couple of smokes and a drink or
two after dinner and we went to bed in the afternoon.
Summit day went off without a hitch. Jesse had to "drop the kids off at
the pool" but at our altitude it meant he was actually "dropping them
off at the rink." Lots of laughs as he squatted over a crevasse with
his harness on and pants off. We were back in camp the next afternoon.
We packed our things and headed to the bikes.
My rear rim was split along the curve a few centimeters long. I took it
easy for the 11km descent and met everyone later at the Pizzeria where
we had lots of Pizza (no cheese on ours) and Organic Micro Brews (Wow).
Ryan and I were pumped up and courageous with beer. He suggested we get
on the bikes and push through the night home to our girlfriends. I was
for it, for a minute or two. I missed Nola badly but I would be messed
up afterwards, if I could make it back at all. Instead we headed to low
camp. I remember hitting the hot tub and drinking quite a bit. The next
thing I remember is waking up in the morning and having a group shot of
us taken. We then got on our bikes and headed back for Vancouver. The
drinkers had only one man out in the front of the pack. Neil. Colin and
I were suffering out well behind the rest. Team "B" was looking pretty
good, but there is not much glory in looking good.