Maui - my new best thing

Paul and I are in Maui. This might just be my new favourite place to visit.

Side note --> a lot of the pictures loaded sideways. Sorry, that's just the way it is. To see them properly, right click on those images and save to your computer. When you open them from there you will be able to rotate. 

Also, you can click on any of the images and a larger version will open in a new window with more detail.

Our view is not bad.

Here is what has gone down so far.

Day 1:

We spent most of the first day at Kahekili Beach Park. It is only a five minute walk down the beach from our hotel and it has calm, clear water and is fantastic for snorkeling. Despite the fact that all three of our books list this as the best beach in all of Maui, it seems to mostly be populated by locals. Most of the tourists stick to the big beaches and for most of the morning we had the entire place to ourselves. Decent.

Sunset run.

 Day 2:
Today we woke up at 6:30 to head to the north part of the island. The Road to Hana is a crazy highway that is super narrow and twisty. It's also one of the main tourists attractions, but we decided to skip it because it means spending an entire day in the car. Nevertheless, we ended up taking the Hana Highway for a while this morning to end up at our hike.

It was early in the morning and pouring rain when we arrived. That turned out to be a good thing because we ended up having this amazing spot to ourselves.

The trail head: 6/10ths of a mile past mile marker 6 at a small turnout with a wire fence. Kind of like the entrance to the wizarding world in Harry Potter, this would be impossible to spot if you weren't specifically looking for it.

The first part of the trail was through a bamboo forest.

There were four waterfalls on the hike. There was some climbing involved to get to the second one. This climbing later turned out to be insignificant compared to what was to come.

The second waterfall. Sweet.

Right before this is when the sketchy climbing happened. A 12 metre sheer rock face with some dodgey ropes and a rickety old ladder to make it up. Yikes. This is Paul at the top of the second waterfall.

Eventually we got to a point where the trail seemed to disappear. I tried to follow it up. This turned out to not be correct.

The reason my climbing turned out to be incorrect was that to get to the next part of the trail you actually had to get in and swim. So, that's what we did.

Paul swimming.

The swimming is done, so the hard part must be over, right? Wrong. The last obstacle is the third waterfall - which you have to scale. Luckily, we had our Roclite 230s on (which were also good for swimming).

Now Paul climbs.

At the top of the third waterfall, looking back on where we just swam. We came from around that corner.

This is why is was all worthwhile. Amazing.

Now Paul swims.

Here we are!

Graceful.

This place is cool.

Now Paul swims again.

One last look. The fact that we had this whole place to our self makes no sense at all.

Death Race

Tomorrow the Fast Trax crew heads to Grande Cache for the Death Race - Death Race website. This will be our fifth year entering the race, and with the exception of 2008 (when I got lost on stage 4), we've typically done quite well.

This year's lineup will be as follows:

1. Paul Moore
2. Reid Hosford
3. Tyla Cooper
4. Will Critchley
5. Patrick Moore

Our best times for this race were in 2007 and 2009 - both years we finished the 125km even in 12:12:00. I'm pretty proud of those results, but with our crew this year I think we'll be able to take a run at them.

Unfortunately, there are no live results for the Death Race and the official results typically take weeks to get posted. In the meantime, the best way to follow our progress throughout the day is on the Fast Trax Facebook page - FT on FB. We'll be live blogging throughout the day as the relay and solo events go down.

In addition, Jack (a legend of the Death Race, literally), Marcelo (a legend in his own way), and Claire (a first time soloist) will be tackling the whole event on their own. We'll keep you posted on their progress as well.

Let's get dangerous.

Patrick, Robin, Will, and Paul getting dangerous.

Sinister 7

This weekend the Fast Trax shop team, consisting of Tyla, me, Will, Paul, Reid, Kristen, and Maryann, headed to Blairemore for the Sinister 7 trail race. This is a 148km trail race comprising seven stages ranging from 12km to 35km. The scenery is beautiful, but the terrain is tough. You can check out more details here - Sinister 7.

We did a pretty good job of live blogging the race to Facebook, but for those of you who don't following the shop (Fast Trax on Facebook), here is what went down. There are a [very] few pictures as well.

The weekend started at Wok Box in Leduc. Whether skiing or running, this is how I like to start my trips.

Saturday, 12:48PM:  Tyla had a strong run and powered through Leg 1 to finish in 1:40. Patrick floated up and down the technical Leg 2 to finish in 1:40. Will out on Leg 3 now, we expect him to finish around 1:20PM.

Saturday, 1:52PM: Will utterly slays Leg 3 in ~2:45. Paul has now been out on Leg 4 for about 45 minutes.

Saturday, 4:22PM: Stage 4 over. Paul kills it in 3:13. Team Fast Trax comfortably in fourth overall.

"That bottle of cola was one of the best things I've ever put to my lips. Straight up."  Paul Moore

"They say that you feel most alive when you're close to dying. I guess I felt pretty alive for those final few kilometres then."  Paul Moore

Saturday,  6:49PM:  Reid done Leg 5 in 2:05. Fast Trax now second overall, at least 8 minutes up on third. Kristen out on course.

Saturday, 8:13PM:  Kristen through Leg 6 in 1:25. Fast Trax now in fourth overall. Maryann out on course with two teams hot on her heels. This is going to be close.

Saturday, 9:00PM(ish):  Fast Trax finishes fourth! Maryann held off hard charging teams for a sweet run!


A fun weekend with an awesome team. You can check out full results here later in the week - results. Also, you can check out my GPS download of Leg 2 here - Patrick Garmin Connect. Click on "Player" in the upper-right of the screen and then click the "Toggle FullScreen" button once it loads. If you check out the hybrid view you can see a map of where I went. Hitting the "play" button will give you real time speed, heart rate, and elevation data. Pretty cool.    


Next up is the Death Race on July 30th. The first five members of our Sinister team make up the Fast Trax Death Race squad. As Paul said, "we are going to have a phenomenon of a Death Race team."  He is correct - I think we're going to be pretty darn good!


Huge thanks to Jack for arranging the race entry, smokin' team kits, and accommodation! The whole team is ultra proud to represent the shop!

Warning - not skiing related

This is mostly for Grandma.

Maryann and I made cookies! I accidentally ate a couple out of the batch on the right. They turned out really well!

Quick update

After tours at both Fischer and Madshus, tomorrow is my last day in Europe. I will spend the night with a friend in Oslo and then fly home to Edmonton.

Here are a few pictures - I will post a few more when I get home.

This is where we live.

The main square in our little town; Ried, Austria

Now we have cappos.

Grillteller - Google it.

Fischer is one of my best things.

Now we ski at Sognefjellet, Norway.

Ski testing. We are always testing, even in June.

Prototypes.

We played in a trivia tournament in Lilihammer. Team BNS did not place well.

In London

As always international travel is an adventure. The trip started off super well with supper with Maryann at Famoso in Edmonton. Then, my flight was delayed by 50 minutes for some mysterious reason, but that was OK as Maryann and I got to hang out a little longer.

That's when things started to go downhill. As the departure time approached, a massive thunderstorm arrived in Edmonton. Lightening activity meant that all airline operations were stopped - bummer. Eventually we were allowed to board, but by this time it was even later.

Enter the next complication - the electrical storm had fried the plane's computer and a technician had to come get that fixed. Luckily, they didn't figure that out until we had boarded so we got to sit on the plane at the gate for a while sweet.

Finally, we pushed back from the gate and started to taxi to the runway. Enter complication numero deux - a fuel pump was now broken. So, again, we sat on the tarmac for a while and eventually Air Canada decided we should go back to the gate. We didn't get to leave the plane however, we just sat there while the fuel pump was fixed.

Once those two issues got worked out it was 1AM and our flight was 2.5 hours late. The sweet part about that is that it means that I missed my connection in London to head to Munich. That wasn't a big deal though, and I'm on a later flight.

So, for now I'm chilling in a Servisair lounge that has snacks, drinks, wifi, and a private bathroom - decent.


The plan is to sleep in Munich tonight and then meet up with Nathan and Roger tomorrow. That could be interesting as the current level of detail is to meet at the Munich Airport. Paul and I tried that once at the train station and it was interesting to say the least!

Now we go to Europe.

See you in Austria.