Three weeks' recovery was so necessary...

December 31st to January 8th found a stable of Tribute shop riders and friends ascending and descending on Mount Carlyle Lodge- Wiggles, Logan2, Uncle Bacon and friends left their indelible, lanolin-scented mark all over the surrounding backcountry and the lodge will never be the same.

In what has already become a legendary, nay, notorious week for subzero temps and high elevation radness, the almost all-split crew slayed lines throughout Carlyle's impressive tenure, all while braving minus 25C a.m. starts and similarly chilly nights.

And what better way to stave off hypothermia and frost-bite than to bundle up in the daylight, and huddle up come nightfall? Great eats, great peeps, and a new year's week of debauchery ensured everyone took home a hazy set of memories to float them through the approaching warmer months. Wolverine tracks, mind-blowing sunrises and sunsets, high stoke levels and (again) low temps froze and bound our group together like so much so many perfectly formed stellars blanketing the landscape.

Highlights included many first ascents on The Witch's Fingers, Mt. Heyland, Star Trek, and innumerable repeats in Boulder Field, Lumberyard and other crowd favourites. A custom pyrotechnics show courtesy of Narly Carly melted our collective retinas New Year's Eve and at least two more times(?) during the week, the Carlyle Snow Cave providing a great outdoor hangout for the ice-bar set.

Many thanks to Leah Brown at Footsteps Eco Adventures and Brian (The Bomber) Cross for helping to make it happen- We shall return, less haggard and more able than last time, fitter, faster and stronger than ever.