Weekend Adventuring

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What a great vision of Monday, hey? Full of life and adventure, exploration and beauty – nothing close to dragging feet, closing eyes and rushed mornings to sit in traffic. I hope your Monday (or at least your Monday attitude!) reflects more of the former.

I am starting this Monday thankful because Mikey and I got outside this weekend! With the warm weather we’ve been having, the snow has settled a lot and conditions have been much more like spring skiing than mid-February skiing! Seeing that avalanche conditions were extremely low and the back country reports said this was the perfect time to try some bigger climbs, we made up our minds to try Mt. Field in Field, B.C.

We left Friday night after packing up our gear for the trip and stayed overnight in Canmore with Mikey’s boss (thanks, Janine!) so that we’d be closer to the mountains. We got up early and hit the road after a quick breakfast (overnight oats with blueberries, almond butter, cinnamon, some protein powder and chia seeds – talk about power!), grabbed a coffee from Starbucks (thanks, gift card!) and were on our way.

It was a beautiful, mild day and while there were other people who had the same idea to get out as us, we still felt like we were on our own out in the wilderness for the most part.

All day were racing the clock, hoping to summit and worried about skiing out in the dark. We had plenty of water, food and our headlamps, so we carried on and barely stopped except for a brief snack break every hour. I experimented with our food on this trip and brought more homemade food like Paige’s Pumpkin Primal Protein Bars (Mikey loved them! Great fuel!) and Mama Pea’s famous MMM Sauce to go with cut up veggies (never taken this on a ski day before!). I love how Heather said in a recent post that she wants to eat like an athlete, not like a weekend warrior! Eating this way all week is key to that for me, including on our trips!

 

(click photos for recipes)

To find out if we pushed through and made it to the summit or not, check out the video below – Mikey did an awesome job putting it together!

We met some new friends on the summit (hi, Sheena and Leeland!) and went out to a great dinner afterward in the small town of Field. It was the perfect end to an incredible day!

8 1/2 hrs, 3 litres of water, 16 km &  1300m (4265 ft) in elevation gain… We still got it. 🙂 Mt. Field mid-winter ski descent, check.

Mikey and I got home late and slept in this morning, feeling our aches and pains (blisters for me, achilles pain for Mikey!) and then finally got going to church. We were honored to be able to speak at our friend Mike’s church about our film, Wrong Way to Hope. Sharing the stories of what God has done in our lives through cancer and what he’s continuing to do through sharing stories and our Survive & Thrive trips was a huge encouragement to us. What a blessing! We are living an awesome story that God is writing, even with the ups and downs, and being reminded of that was incredible for us this morning.

How were you encouraged this weekend?

Inside or out, what did you do to move the last few days?

How do you fuel for outdoor excursions? We’ve often gone for pure sugar because it’s great instant fuel out there, but I loved experimenting with the food this trip!

Let’s make this a great Monday, friends. Here’s to the week ahead and more adventures living the stories of our lives, wherever they’re taking us right now. Live well & be well,

Bonnie