back in february while eating lunch at a chili’s restaurant in alaska a few of my friends (mark, blotto, jeremy, gabe) decided to make me a bet to see how long i could go with out eating meat (beef, pork, chicken). after talking it over we’d decided that april 20th (mark’s birthday) was the end date. so if you know me at all you know this would seem like an extremely advantageous goal to go some 54 days without eating meat. i’ve always been a picky eater and not really one to try new things often… i know what i like and i usually go with that, so i knew this was gonna be hard. blotto added in some incentive to the deal, if i made it the end date the crew would pitch in for a panasonic lumix gx1 camera body. again if you know me you know how much i love cameras, so this totally sweetened the deal.

the next 54 days would be the heart of my filming season, mid february to mid april we get a large amount of our footage and working long days without meat could pose a problem. i found the hardest was planning breakfasts and lunches for sled days without meat, these were pretty boring at first but i found some pretty delicious options, such as grilled cheese sandwiches, veggie samosa rolls, and cheese pizza to become a staple of my sled diet. at home i did the fruit/granola thing, cheese/crackers were also often consumed, mostly snack type stuff. at restaurants i got out of my comfort zone many times, even ordering items that only had vegetables. this was ground breaking for me. hah!

thankfully i was still allowed fish, so sushi was a common occurrence. but i did endure having to skip out on some epic home cooked meals with friends & family, opting for the veggie route. all in all though it was a pretty awesome experience, definitely a lifestyle switch up for myself and having friends motivate along the way totally helped push me in more of a healthy direction. so thanks for that!

here’s a shot of my first meal post bet.

i went with a bacon cheeseburger, there were a few nights that i wanted to cave in and this was at the top of my list so i figured it made for a good first meal back.

finally we got a few days of high pressure in whistler but along with the sun comes the stress of having to get things done before the snow turns to shit. by the afternoon of the second day spring was in full effect, landings were baking and faces were burning but all in all we had a good 3 days stretch, now just waiting for mother nature to hit the reset button on the alpine.

un-named mountain.

insert cabin here.

tandem.

glaciers of ice.

touring.