Outdoors

Well we’re in the mountains, we’re at 1,000m of elevation, and we’re surrounded by beautiful shady forest; but there’s no way around it….  August can get warm in Fernie, eh? Not Penticton-in-the-middle-of-an-Ironman. Not Marble Bar, Oz as you check into the Ironclad Hotel… but definitely warm enough to have some thoughts like these.

Congratulations to Canadian Elite Team rider Ryder Duczek @ryder.duczek, Wake Canada’s Men’s Wakesurfer Of The Year (2022)!

Ryder has been collecting titles since he was in the Junior division: 2017 Junior World Champ, 2018 Amateur World Vice-Champ and 2020 Outlaw World Champ. Ryder has been progressing exponentially over the past six years, and now competes as one of Canada’s top pro wakesurfers in “skim” style.

While trail running is an increasingly popular year-round sport, there’s no doubt it comes into its own during the three non-wintry Canadian seasons. Give or take the odd snow flurry. Just like in many other areas of your life, while spring takes seemingly forever to roll around, before you know it, it’s fall. Cue drilling spikes into your sad looking, under-used trail shoes. Sound familiar? Well here’s a little lowdown of some of the local-ish to Fernie trail racing opportunities, to help get a few races on the calendar and set some much-needed goals…

My partner is from Ontario and often talks about cottage country. I get it – it’s absolutely beautiful. I spent a week on a tiny island within the Thousand Islands and while I enjoyed it, I found after day two I was in need of space, silence and movement (it must be the mountain girl in me). Fortunately, not far from Fernie we have our own cottage country that offers the best of both worlds - the South Country!