The Chronicles of Travelling Steve

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Sunshine Skiing

So the first ski weekend of the season is over and done with and the sore muscles and aches are starting to fade leaving only the fantastic memories. We stayed at the Lake Louise Alpine Hostel on the Friday night and were glad that we were heading to Banff to ski on the Saturday as there was only one run and lift open at Lake Louise itself. We didn't get up to the chateau so I can still leave that particular treat until Mum and Dad arrive. We had brilliant early season skiing, much much better than I was expecting and I got thoroughly into carving on the snowboard again which was great. It's a little slower at the top of the hill on a board compared with skis, but it more than makes up for it on the way down when you pull that great turn and just swoop across the slope. The snow cover was surprisingly good and the icy parts were pretty obvious. There was even some soft untracked snow if you knew where to look and by the end of the weekend we'd looked pretty much everywhere and got our share of delightfully cruisy fresh stuff. We skiied almost all the runs on offer at the top of the resort and used the Angel quad, Strawberry, Standish and WaWa chairlifts, ignoring the smaller Jackrabbit and Wolverine lower down as they looked a bit lower on snow cover. The Goats Eye part of the hill wasn't open yet and it looked like it will require an awful lot more snow before it's rideable.

We stayed at the Sunshine Inn on the slopes which made the whole experience just that much more fun, having lunch in our room and being to get all the outer layers off without worrying too much that we were taking up too much table space or what have you and not having to deal with the lunchtime hordes at the day lodge. Col had come down with a cold on the Friday that we went up which was a shame but she gamely skiied half the day on Saturday and all day Sunday with us which was awesome. Here's a little of her style


Col carving...

Of course the resort is called Sunshine and we had sunshine the whole weekend. It would have been ideal if it had snowed a bit overnight, but that only ever seems to happen the night that you leave, so maybe a three day weekend next time? :-)


Col & Steve kitted up and ready to go...

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Snow Valley

Well it's not much of a valley and there wasn't all that much snow, but there was enough of both to open up the season at Snow Valley on Friday. Snow Valley is about a half hour from our front door and is basically just a largish hillside down to the valley floor of the North Saskatchewan River. One triple chair and a T-bar service the main slope (blue and black runs - cough cough, teehee) and a rope tow and magic carpet for the beginners mounds. Pretty basic, but the snowmakers have been in full service for a while now and some snow is better than none. Keen as I am to partake in as much snowsporting as possible I was there bright and early on Saturday morning for my first snowboard in over two years. Sadly a lot has been lost in the intervening time, flexibility, youth, fitness and balance being chief amongst them however I had a lot of fun, got a good workout, and rediscovered just why I used to love going to the snow so much. Now all I need is for the weather to chill down a bit more, for lots of juicy snow clouds to come hammering in from the ocean and for heaps of snow to cast its winter cowl over the landscape. There's a chance of going to check out Sunshine in Banff this weekend so it might be prudent to make another visit to the 4 lifts and 2 slopes of Snow Valley again this week just to work some more of the kinks out and get some of that carving touch back.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Aurora Borealis

Finally I've been able to witness the splendour in the heavens that is the Northern Lights. People kept telling me that Edmonton got the aurora all the time but up until now it's been a big fat disappointment. Until Tuesday night that is, when I was struck down with awe at the display in the skies. All I need now is some polar bears in rusty armour to come ambling in to town and my life will be complete... I didn't happen to have my own camera with me and probably wouldn't have thought to use it anyway so here's someone else's attempt at capturing some of the dancing curtains of cosmic particles crashing into our troposphere


Northern Lights...