MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter Spring 2020

46 And he did. Always the entrepreneur, Gary pieced together a 7,000+ square-foot indoor obstacle course, while also figuring out how to set up and staff a business. “I seem to go ahead with more enthusiasm than actual knowledge,” he says. “I jump into great ideas and then discover how much work they are—but there is this amazing feeling when you see a kid come into the gym and realize this is their place, somewhere they can challenge themselves and have fun. That is an incredible thing to see.” And of course, Gary is in there hitting the obstacles—climbing and jumping and swinging and falling as much as he can. “Looking back, I guess I’ve always sort of been building my own playground,” he says. Now in his fifties and with a full-time business, Gary doesn’t travel as much as he used to (and he gets better hotels when he does), but that spirit of adventure and “making it work” still runs deep. “I think the secret is your attitude,” he says. “Everything changes, and if you dwell on the past or worry about how things used to better, you won’t be happy. Everyone’s glory days are back there, so find new interests and new passions and look ahead and embrace. My dirtbag travel climbing days are behind me— dirtbagging in general might not even be the same, but my glory days as a ninja warrior might be just ahead.” “I was watching the Ninja Warrior show and I wanted to do that but there was nowhere to do it,” he says. “So I had to build it.” – Gary McFarlane At home in the Squamish Ninja Gym. January 2020. MARK GRIBBON