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.