Link to a cartoon contributed by a friend.

Link to an Epic Rating Scale published long ago by Rob Kelman

   
 

 

Link to a poem containing spoonerisms.

Link to a 'poem' about helicopter access

Link to a 'poem' from a Rockies ski camp

   
           
 

 

 

BUSH CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

by
Roland Burton

From: Varsity Outdoors Club Journal (VOCJ) Volume XIII, 1970

This system was figured out on an attempt on Mt Judge Howie [sic] by Peter Macek and Rick Price.


To describe the difficulty of their routes, rock climbers have designed several classification systems, the most popular one grading climbs from one to six, with a separate system for aid climbers.
Skiers have also adopted, for runs, a six class system, namely: beginners, intermediate, expert, extra caution, closed, and avalanche danger. However, anyone who has tried to travel in our area soon realizes that rock bluffs and avalanches are trivial problems compared with the vegetation of our coastal rain forest. Here is a system for describing bush traverses.

B1: No bush, similar to Granville Street at 3a.m. on a Sunday, or see the American Forest Service trail network.

B2: The occasional fallen log must be stepped over, occasional branches may stick across the trail. Some difficulty to motorcycles.

B3: Here the bush first becomes noticeable; inexperienced mountaineers are heard to mutter under their breath. May have to cross small streams, the occasional patch of huckleberry bush, or some slide alder. The trail becomes difficult to follow.

B4: All members of the party are at least intermittently swearing; blueberry and slide alder abound, ground slopes up in direction of travel; there may be the odd devil’s club or other prickles plant, maybe a hornets’ nest or two.

B5: All members are now swearing continuously, except when gasping for breath, while climbing over fallen logs about four feet off the ground, surrounded by devil’s club, slide alder, vine maple. Visibility is less than eight feet. Ground, when it can be seen, slopes about thirty degrees at right angles to the direction of travel.

B6: A genuine B6 requires at least two kinds of poisonous plants: for instance stinging nettles and devil’s club. In addition, there should be slide alder twenty to thirty feet high, growing among fifteen foot blocks of granite. There are bears in the spaces between the granite blocks. Visibility four feet or less. Not sufficient room to swing a machete.

B7: The use of napalm, defoliants, and the like are frowned upon by the Conservation Committee.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------