Latest from the Man Cave

Got mojo?

In the 1980s, when I started mountain biking, and deep into the 1990s, when I started to take it seriously, having a “mojo” on you bike was a prerequisite to YOU being taken seriously as a mountain biker.
I tried a Google search of “mountain bike mojo”…

40th Birthday Shenanigans

Last Saturday, I turned 40.
40 years – 4 decades – halfway to 80.
So, like any responsible adult, I developed a three point plan to mark the occasion:
1 – invite everyone over to my house for waffles on my Birthday
2 – go back-country skiing with whoev…

Getting out there

I like to go on adventures and push my limits. The last time I was up at Mount Cain, I did just that, trying snowmobiling for the second time in my life. It was hard work. I rolled the sled on its side once, fell off three or four times, and generally …

Lift Baskets – First Look

Back in December, I received a message from Hugh Patterson, the developer of the Lift Basket. Hugh explained how he was frustrated by always having to flip his poles upside down to manipulate the heal lifts on his Marker AT bindings. To counter this, H…

1,408

1,408
That is the number of unique visits to my “Beefs” post.
I am very humbled by this response. It is the most views any post on here has ever had.
With that in mind, and hoping some of these new readers will return, here are some memorable blog post…

Beefs!

I was hoping to be writing a post about skiing on Mt. Becher and the lift-pole baskets I am trying out right now.
Alas, my thoughts were sidetracked by the following “beefs” that appeared in a recent edition of the Comox Valley Echo:
A BIG DOLLOP of ic…

Mt. Cain…finally!

The title says it all. After a two month drought, Mt. Cain finally opened this weekend with 120 cms of snow – 90 cms of it falling in the last week!

This is the snow that fell on Mt. Cain AFTER we arrived Friday night. My good friend Nancy is sho…

SNOW!

Finally, the drought is over, and it has been hyper-dumping. Mount Washington has received over a meter of snow in the last week, and the rest of the Island mountains are getting the same.

Here’s what our tracks looked like. Boot deep powder and more …

Olympic Perspective

As I watch the Olympics, with all of the coverage and hype, I find myself wondering – does everyone really think that this massive media and money frenzy is all these athletes do? Do they realize that this single event every 4 years is just one in a co…

A Fortunate Series of Events

Saturday, February 1, 2014 was a very interesting day here at citizenclass.ca. I had decided, no matter the ski conditions or available ski partners, that I was going to Mt. Cain and I was going to do some touring. What ended up happening far exceeded …

The “Why”

Welcome to the home of Braxton Consulting (a.k.a. Andrew Gower).

Before we get on with blog posts, philosophical ramblings, and reviews/reports on equipment I am looking at, let’s talk about me and why the hell I am doing this site anyways.

I get things stuck in my head that need to come out. I also do some gear reviews and testing on the side. This page provides me the platform to say what I am thinking, and pass on things I learn about life. Originally focussed on gear reviews and advenetures, the path I have been following has diverged somewhat, so now you will hear about many topics – all shared with passion.

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