Ski or Die - 24 March 2005

Yo!

The last ePostcard was a wee while ago so this one is a bit of a summary. I’ve been a little busy skiing to manage small details like ePostcards…

Super at Silver Star

The village is very cute. The snow sculpture competition was incredible.

So where to after Big White? It ended up being an easy choice. Silver Star is Big White’s sister resort and it had reasonable snow, even better it was fairly close. Silver Star is owned by the same Aussie that owns Big White and the resort is very similar, except in some indefinable way it is better. Perhaps they did Big White first and learnt some lessons. The resort is smaller, steeper, the village works better and is much friendlier.

I so got it right. The night I arrived it dumped 35cm of new snow. I must have the snow Midas touch. The first two resorts I visit get new snow when I arrive, what more could you want?

They don’t muck around at Silver Star. The “CAUTION” signs are everywhere… Yep, that’s me on the left.

The day started with me turning up to the main lift 10 minutes early to catch “First Tracks”. The queue was already 10 minutes long! While in the queue I was lucky enough to hook up with a Snow Host on her day off (60 year old snowboarder) and she showed me and a bunch of her mates where the best snow was to be found. She took us straight “over the back”. When we arrived at the back runs they were still closed – there were 50 people lined up along a tape waiting. Ski Patrol gave the Ok and everyone was off. Skiers were still skating at 25 km/h in an effort to get to the new snow first! I’ve never seen anything like it. Fortunately our guide knew a few tricks and we got plenty of first tracks. There were a bunch of double black diamond runs that were closed that she knew would be Ok – we even beat the Ski Patrol down them!

Unfortunately that was the only snow and it wasn’t long before I was back to slumming it on packed powder. Enter Chris the Craigieburn man. Chris has his Stage I Ski Instructors ticket and as part of his Canadian holiday was doing some training towards his Stage II. He was looking for a guinea pig, so what was I to do ;-> Score! He was quite good and I learnt a lot.

Getting air and doing a trick is the “easy” part. Landing in the middle of a nasty mogul field is something else.

In this part of the world there are heaps of competitions and the Boogie in the Bumps was one of them. It is an insane mix of a steep slope, very short, sharp man made moguls and a couple of big kickers for good luck.

It didn’t take long before the week was up and the snow was getting decidedly firm. Where would be next?

Beautiful Banff

Once again I was on the hunt for good snow. Where to this time? The snow reports were still quite dismal and deciding from reports on the web was dodgy, what resort web site was going to tell it like it is? Talking to recent arrivals in the hostel had to be a safer bet.

With three ski fields and mostly Ok references Banff looked like being the place to go. The Banff township is in the middle of the Banff National Park and almost all the accommodation is off mountain, thanks to the Parks Board (I wonder if DOC talks to them, some of the attitudes seem very similar…). Banff is probably the best known ski town in Canada, there are a huge number of beds and heaps of different things to do. It is similar to Queenstown in many ways - when Queenstown grows up it will be just like Banff. ;-)

The nutters climbing the waterfall made it look easy.

Johnsons Canyon is one of the myriad of winter walks that can be done. It is a canyon that pretty much freezes over but the water keeps flowing behind the scenes. This leads to some amazing formations. The more amazing are the waterfalls.

Seriously cold at Sunshine

Sunshine’s claim to fame is that they have no artificial snow making. Most years they simply get stupid amounts of snow so this is not an issue. This year… well lets say some snow making would have been useful.

The nutters climbing the waterfall made it look easy.

They love moguls in Canada. They’re everywhere and some of them are the size of a small elephant.

Sunshine lived up to it’s name and it was always sunny – this didn’t help with the temperature! It was always freezing cold. Typically it was well under minus 20. Brrrrrr. Two pairs of socks, glove liners, lots of wool and covering the face as much as possible. Even then you still got cold on the lifts, especially if the wind was blowing. Then any exposed skin felt like it was being surgically removed. The cold also stopped the sun warming the snow. The result was that in high traffic areas the snow got very hard and highly polished. You could almost comb your hair in it. The trick was to head to the low traffic areas, mainly double black runs and anything you had to hike to get to. There the cold kept the snow on these runs in good condition and the skiing was quite pleasant. Unfortunately the steep runs tended to have the most rocks.

Lake Louise – Living the Life

Then there was Lake Louise. This is my favourite mountain for its varied runs over three separate ski areas. It also did the most damage to my skis! There were lurking rocks everywhere! The “Front Side” was not a happy place to ski. I want to come back here sometime when there is heaps of snow.

Yehar! You had to ski over this drop to get into this run. Excellent planning, it kept most of the punters away! Shame you can’t see the actual drop…

Like Sunshine the best snow was to be found on the low traffic areas – once again these were mainly double black diamond runs. The “Back Side” had a whole series of very steep runs with drops to get into them. Marvellous skiing, albeit standing at the top of each run was somewhat scary!

The last week I had in Banff I stayed with a friend in the staff accommodation at the Lake Louise Chateau. While the staff accommodation was quite basic it was a whole lot better than the hostel. Every morning I had to walk through the Chateau proper to get to the shuttle bus, it was nice being treated like one of the “other half”. And how the other half pay. Rooms start at CAD400 a night!

Calgary Cars

Using busses is a pain, but up to now, bearable. Banff had shown me just how much you miss out by having to rely on public transport. The Johnson Canyon walk wasn’t cheap but could have been done for free, if you could only get there. I decided it was time to find some wheels. Some of the boys wanted a break and had heard that Calgary was a fun town, so off to Calgary it was. While I bought Car Trader magazines and trudged around bookshops and the library looking for “Lemon Aid” (2^nd hand car guide) the boys sampled the pubs. Calgary really is a party town and I was more than a little envious of the fine time they were having while I was working my way through the mire that is buying a 2^nd hand car.

I ended up with a reddish brown 1992 Honda Accord Wagon with a maroon interior. Those of you with any fashion sense should avoid looking at any photos of it! It is a desirable but rare car so hopefully easy to re sell (in spite of the colour scheme).

Back at Big White

Now I was mobile it was time to hot foot it back to Big White to meet up with some friends who had hired a condo for a couple of weeks. What a condo it was too! Complete with hot tub and I had whole floor to myself! Excellent!

Spring conditions create some mad “G” tans

While there was more snow than in Banff, there was far less than when I was last here. However while the conditions were firm they weren’t nearly as polished as Banff and playing in the trees was where the good snow was.

Then the spring conditions arrived. It was almost t-shirt skiing and the snow disappeared rapidly. One major lift closed and it looked like there wasn’t much season left. Damn.

Then it snowed, not a lot but it went on every day for four days. Much rejoicing was had! Then it dumped! Heaven will be like this. The closed lift turned out to be a blessing. A bunch of us hiked from one lift across to the top of the closed lift and had access to acres of 30cm of untracked powder. Wohoo!

Today it dumped again…

Gotta go, tomorrow will be awesome! ;->

Mark