Survivor Ellesmere

Those of you who remember my trip to Eureka in 2004 will no doubt remember the tobogganing that Tobias, Keith, and I participated in. You will also no doubt remember this awesome picture. (And those awesome videos...) Last year, the little red toboggan that used to reside at the lab had mysteriously disappeared. Oleg found it carefully stored in the station garage this year, and so yesterday Oleg, Paul, Tobias, and I head to the hills to defy death as we hurtled down the steep steep slopes surrounding PEARL. And defy death we did. There's not as much snow around this year, so the sharp rocks that make up the ridge the lab sits on are covered by only a small layer of protective snow. So only a few slides into our adventures we wussed out and came inside. Tobias quit after one run, and seemed to escape unscathed. I bounced a little funny at the end of a run and ended up with a giant, painful bruise on my bum. Oleg, while going over this hill backwards (I don't think this picture quite captures his "oh shit" facial expression as he realised he was going over this hill backwards), landed on a rock that managed to cut him through his parka, snowpants, pants, and underwear. Paul took a rock to the knee and has a nice gash to sew up in his pants and snowpants (and knee for that matter). The hills of Eureka are fighting back, and they're not going to take us trying to slide down them for fun.