If you run into 50-year-old Kamloops steelworker Jim Lamar at the Grizzly Lodge this season, you might assume that his first experience sledding in the heart of the Shuswap Mountains was paramount. He first rode the area nine years ago and has been returning on a weekly basis from late November to the end of April ever since.
But if you swap some war stories, what the longtime snowmobiler has to say of his first time in the area may surprise you.
“I first rode the Shuswap in 2003,” said Lamar. “A friend of mine took me there to Crowfoot. I got hurt because we were riding in the fog. I hit something with the front end of my sled and I had my leg up on the seat, so my leg whipped out and I ended up tearing the inner ligament in my right knee. It wasn’t a very good experience for my first time in the Shuswap."
Lamar said despite his misfortune on that first trip, he could tell the riding would be incredible on a sunny day.
“We went there when it was really foggy and I couldn’t see anything,” he said, “but I always wanted to get back there because there was so much snow when we were there—I couldn’t believe how much snow there was. I wanted to get back there when the sun was shining to actually see it.
“The next time I got back there it was in the sunshine and it was just awesome. I was hooked from then on.”
Getting into pristine terrain
The main draw in the Shuswap is the terrain, Lamar said, because he and his buddies like to get off the beaten track.
"If you go into the Shuswap, there’s a lot of area where there’s been some fires so a lot of the trees are gone, and that opens up your riding because you can just pick your line and go in whatever direction you want," he said. "There’s a lot of boondock riding, ups and downs and some drifts, and there’s not a lot to slow you down.”
For Lamar, boondocking is a favourite style of riding.
“That’s the kind of stuff we always seem to end up doing,” he said. “We drop down into gullies and then we turn around and look for a ridge. All of us start picking lines and seeing if we can make it back up to the top. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t; it’s a lot of fun.
“We find these areas where no one has been and ride through the trees. It’s kind of like what Chris Brandt does, but without being so extreme.”
A highlight from last season
Lamar said this past season, he and his two riding buddies discovered some chutes to climb while exploring the back areas of Crowfoot and Pukeashun mountains.
“Last year we found some really steep climbs in April; I climbed some things that I never thought I’d climb,” he said, giving credit to his ever-dependable 2008 Arctic Cat M8. “We climbed some stuff that was pretty amazing—some stuff that was scary. It took you a long time to get to the top; we were on the throttle the whole way.”
