Bear Valley Back Country Ski/Snowboard Trip

The 2009/2010 ski season came finally to an end late May with the last trip to Bear Valley. We started the weekend by getting the equipments (snow shoes, beacons...) to MAS at Bear Valley Village.

On Sunday not so early morning, we hiked up Super Cub, Spring Gap to the top of Porridge bowl, where the kids warmed up on the cornice.

We then, dropped Cliff Run to reach Mickey's meadow.

Since the snow was getting too wet on that side of the mountain, we made some fun runs from the top of Snoopy Dog hill.

The video was shot with an iPod nano and edited with Final Cup Pro. Enjoy.

Music from The National, Song England.

Bear Valley Back Country Trip - May 2010

For the last trip at Bear Valley, we hiked up to the top of the ski resort with snow shoes. It took us about 1 hour. Benoit and Lucas warmed up by jumping the cornice. We finished up the day by a few runs of Snoopy hill.


Lucas is getting ready. The snow shoe ended up too large for him, so he hiked up with his ski boots. Not a problem, since the snow was icy enough.

View to the Bear Valley lodge

Lucas off the cornice. They did not jump from the highest point because of the risk that the cornice will collapse!

Benoit "Flying" off the cornice.

Benoit can be seen on the top of the hill.

Santa Cruz Board Walk

Digital photography has been increasingly popular in the last decade or so. Nevertheless, the time has come, for me, to remove the dust from my 40 years old mom's camera and go shooting. It was quite an experience!

Possibly one of my best picture in a long time.

Lucas, Claire and Benoit posing in front of an old building.

Santa Cruz West Side Sunrise Sunset

A few photos from the west side of Santa Cruz during the sunrise and sunset. Enjoy.






Who knows who got the best pictures? I bet I did :)

Wharf Halloween

During the Halloween's afternoon, all the wharf restaurants and shops opened their doors and offered candies for the kids.

Benoit, with Isabelle's help, created and sew his costume, the pig cowboy fairy.

Estelle Jordan.

Dylan Dunn.

That must be Claire.

Bishop Road Trip Summer 2009

Bishop is one of the favorite destination for climbers with top notch bouldering, sport and trade climb.

We camped a few night during the summer and checked out the natural hot springs.

Lucas climbing that nice slaby 5.8 route.

Beautiful scenery can be seen off the high way 395.

Benoit and Lucas posing in front of old furniture that can be seen at the Train museum Bishop.

Natural hot spring with warn but not too warm water. Life is good.

Some more hot spring to warm to take a bath.

Bodie State Historic Park

Bodie is a gold mining ghost town. In 1880, the town grew from 1 person to 10 thousands in less than one year. The last person left Bodie around 1940.

The dream team.

The car needs a bit of work...

Turtle Rock Bouldering - San Francisco

Turtle Rock has great bouldering with an awesome vista to San Francisco and Marin County. Benoit sent his first V1, very powerful, overhanging, on good holds. Meantime, I almost (2 inches) put my hand on a snake on the top of the rock. I wonder what was that snake doing there but it did scare the shit out of me.

Benoit working the sit down start .

Nice work!

Sending the V4 low traverse.

V1 slab, a bit worry about lose rock.

The dream team.