The Almighty Jens

Today was very usual for a Monday morning. Getting up seemed liked a chore but once you get going it ain't so bad.

With only just over a week to go between now and my Level 2, the pressure is on to be up to scratch for the course in both the skiing and teaching departments - at the moment i am no where near sure that i am going to pass to say the least.

One good thing that did come out of today was that i got the Yoda of Skiing; Jens. He heads up the course out hear and is a skiing God. He will be one of my course conductors next week so if i can please him this week then i know i am in with a good chance next week.
In general skiing was OK today with good and bad moments. Quite knackering though!

To top it off we had a tech session this evening which lasted the best part of 2 hours - far too long.

This left me little time to get ready to go out. I was invited by Louise to join her, her Dad and Patrick and Mark for dinner at a local Sushi house. I have never had sushi before but i can know say that i really enjoyed it and would happily go to a sushi house again.
We had a wicked evening and a great laugh - it was good to talk to people who knew what 'the rock' was!

Will keep you posted on skiing developments this week as and when i can, it is going to be a busy last couple of weeks!

Laters, peps

Now I've skied the USA

Well it was only a short trip but one i am glad i did.
The start yesterday was even earlier than the one from the week before, but wasn't to hard to get up strangely even after only five hours sleep - had to watch the F1 qualifying on Friday Night.
We were on our way by 7.30 and the trip went fairly quickly except for delay at US border control. They are so bloody rude and picky - we decided we didn't like them!

We arrived at Big Mountain about 11ish so decided to have breakfast and lunch all together with the aim of skiing the rest of the day in one go. After scoffing a strange form of spag bol, i hit the slopes with Andy, James and Tom. To be honest i felt crap from the start - i had taken my carving skis instead of my powder ones and paid the price because most of the mountain had a nice little dusting of pow pow which grew to much more in certain areas. This just meant that i skied rubbish and got quite frustrated!
On the positive side what i saw of the mountain i liked quite a lot - i thought i was better than both Red and Castle from the two weeks before. My best run was probably the last where i felt like my short radius parallel turns were great. We actually stopped skiing about 3.30 and chilled with a drink or two in the humongous day lodge.
About 4.30 ish we got the coach back to WhiteFish and found the hotel. It was quite like the accommodation at Red but it was OK. After a freshen up me and Rich went to look for possible dinner. In the end we grouped up with a bunch of others and headed to supposedly the best restaurant in town. We had a wicked evening and a great laugh - with pretty good food to be honest. We racked up a bill of about US$1100 in the process!
After this we hit the bars - some stayed later than others. After an hour or so chatting to host Jenny i headed back once i had seen others pack it in at about 11 ish.
I tried to watch what was apparently quite an exciting opening race of the season for F1 but America don't like that sport so i couldn't and watched the Incredibles instead!
Rich stumbled through the door about 2 and others returned all through the night till about 7 this morning.

Today we just chilled around town. It seemed to expensive to go up the hill and ski for 1/2 a day for $60. I did loose count of how many times we walked around the streets cos after breaky - which was some wicked french toast we even walked a few kilometres out of town to Whitefish Lake itself. I will upload picys in the next couple of days if i can find time. Even after this hour and a half detour we still had time to waste. Eventually back at the hotel people started to appear and we got on our way after picking up some stragglers at the ski hill. This was about 6.00 ish. After a stop on the way we got to Canadian border control who were much nicer than the US version - unsurprisingly. Then it was a straight drive back to the lodge where i chilled and watched a movie with the gang, before writing this and will soon be hitting bed.

Important week this week so gotta push hard for the Race coach this weekend and then the dreaded Level 2 next week - aaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh.

Laters people.

On the way back to norm

I will try and make this another one of my briefer posts.

I haven't posted for the last couple of days simply because not a lot has gone on. Since my fall the other day i decided to be cautious and take a couple of days off from the skiing routine.

Today i returned to the slopes and had one of my best days on the slopes so far despite the cold and icy conditions. Things just seemed to click today. While all this was going on the first group of level 2's completed their course today. Amazing only a few failed to pass which i view as a good thing for them and me. With the high pass rate it looks good for those of us taking in a week or so time.

Any how i am off to Whitefish US, tomoz so have to get up ridiculously early and need to try and sleep with the level 2's celebrating in the corridor - laters peps.

Oh dear yet another wipeout

Will make this quick as i have to catch the bus in a few minutes. (I am writing this on wednesday but talking about tuesday if you catch my drift)

Yesterdays skiing wasn't to bad - the runs were very icy; particularly down the bottom.
Skiing yesterday was based on ski improvement and i think we achieved it. Everything went well till the afternoon - where i decided to follow Ron(our instructor) and jump off a cat track. I landed the jump without a problem, but then shat myself when i saw the condition of the snow 20 yards ahead. Somewhere in that melee i lost it and had a nice wipeout although curiously i lost both my poles and my skis stayed on?

The evening was consumed by dinner which wasn't to bad - a very cheesy lasagna and yet more pool and a couple of very obscure games of Jenga; Mark likes to twist the whole tower as he removes bricks!

Surprise Snow

Well you would expect it with the weather we have been having over the last few days but we actually had about 15cm of snow over night.

This meant that my early morning lesson was a little interesting as it was powder on top with ice underneath and this caught me out on a few occasions!
In places however the snow was superb and the real powder skiing feeling came over me as i made nice neat short turns in pristine pow pow.

Sadly though it didn't last till even lunch time, by which point the temperature had hit 10C and the area in front of the rental shop was suitable for water skiing.

I came home at this point and wrapped up a few things that needed sorting and spoke to the rents and Han again. Other than this though it was dinner and a mediocre film called Pride and Glory; if you haven't seen it don't bother!

Laters People.

Castle Mountain and crapy internet

To be honest this week has been a fairly average week in terms of goings on.
The snow has been rubbish and therefore skiing hasn't been great, but as we keep being told 'you have to be able to ski all terrain in all conditions!

Yesterday was the earliest getup i have had since i have been out here; the shocking hour of 6.50am. With that i had to be on the bus by 7.15 so as i snoozed my alarm there wasn't time for breaky. The journey to Castle Mountain was fairly uneventful, its about 1h30m. I slept a large proportion of it until i woke up finding my head bashing against the window which i was lent upon.

After sorting our selves out we headed up the smaller of the two mountains to find it extremely icy and not much fun. We decided after a couple of runs to move to the larger of the two mountains to see what it was like. The snow was better - where there was snow. It was very sparse particularly towards the top of the mountain. There was so much bare rock it looked like the surface of an outer planet not a ski hill; serious navigation was required. After a couple of runs we came in for a drink followed by another run and then lunch.

Once we had satisfied our hunger needs with chilli-fries for me we hit the mountain again and decided that the snow on the big mountain was shocking (like velcro) so went back to the smaller hill and skied some runs there. We also took some pics so will upload those and the videos when the internet conection is stable enough to upload without cutting out.
At this point we decided enough was enough and hit the bar as it was baking hot and it was turning into waterskiing rather than skiing.

When Adam returned from the hospital with Louis in one piece after being crashed into we headed home. This took a little longer than getting there probably cos i remained awake for most of it taking picy's.
I was so knackered when i got back i couldn't be arsed to go out to get food so had cereal instead. The only other thing of note to happen last night was our epic Jenga game which lasted a full 40 minutes and we actually completed it - we ran out of blocks.

Today has been much more chilled in comparison. Slow start made the phone calls to the best of the canadian internet's ability and caught up with the peps, mother especially considering the day. Other than that i have surfed the net, watched a NASCAR race - silly racing, done my washing and waxed one pair of my skis. This evening we went to Rip and Richard's for dinner and had a great laugh talking about two people on course who are prolific liers and dig their holes deeper by the day until we blow it all to pieces later this week - hilarious!
That brings me to here -->.

Laters peps.

Temperature is just right for frying bacon

Well so far this week it has been fairly chilled. Not a great deal has gone on since the excitement of Red Mountain.
As previously mentioned I did have an extra room mate who ended up staying an extra night but all has been sorted now and things are back to normal - a bit quieter and more peaceful than before.
Instruction has been tougher this week. With people taking their level 2 next week there has been a big focus on teaching and improving our skiing technique for the 4 things we are going to be assessed on; Snowplough, Intermideate Parrelell turns, short radius turns and Freerun.

Today i did my first bit of shadowing, which was well cool and very useful. It was good to see an actual lesson taking place and the instructor taking it, Sarah was very good and aloud me to demonstrate stuff and asked what i would do at one point, which was kinda scary but she was really good about it and i demonstrated well so that was cool.

The down side to this week though has definately been the temperature. It has been so hot this week that most of the snow and ice around town has melted.

P.S. Sorry meant to post this yesterday (Friday) but got carried away with something i guess.

Laters

Right an update as i have promised on the weekend.

To be honest there wasn't anything major that happened it was just alot of little things some good and and some bad that made it quite a wicked weekend.

We left on Friday morning and headed for Red on two coaches. Sadly i managed to pick the party bus and unfortunately the seat right next to self appointed DJ - Paul, who decided to play music at full blast on his Bose Sounddock all the f***ing way, all 5 hours of it. Pardon my French but that really pissed me and a number of others off.

Anyway after a stop at the Kootenay Brewery on the way we arrived in Red about 6 ish.
The accommodation was awesome - for some reason i didn't take any picy's but it was 5 star condo's i had my own room and we a had a private hottub; awesome. I was sharing the flat with Louise, Nicki and Christine although Christine ended up not staying in our condo, so we each had a room to ourselves.

The food they provided that night was terrible and could have been prepared and cooked by a monkey in a better way than they did. But we are kinda used to it now!

The following two days skiing were actually very good. It snowed the entire time we were there and the skiing was awesome in places, and excellent virtually every where else. The accommodation was right on the slope so it was a 50 yard walk to the lift in the mornings.

As i mentioned yesterday the accidents just keep coming and the weekend was no exception. One of the snowboarders got some 'absolutely awesomely brilliantly humungos air and landed on his shoulder completely destroying it - he got back to the lodge this evening and is in a really bad way - extreme sports ahy - what can one say!

Btw parents if you thought the lifts were antiquated here in Fernie dont even consider Red Mtn in Rossland as a holiday destination; their lifts are prehistoric!

Anyway sadly Sunday evening came around and we left to return home. The fun was only just beginning! I swapped coaches for the way home and that was a good thing. Firstly no music, secondly i wasn't then in the coach which got stuck going up one of the long passes and at a few points ended up sliding down the road, even with brakes and snow chains on! This meant we sat in the same place on this incline for well over an hour until the guy from the gritter truck who had driven past several times finally rescued the coach drivers from their misery and put the snow chains on the other coach which didn't have winter tyres for them.
So the journey ended up taking 7 hours! Lovely.

The skiing from the last couple of days has been good - we continue to get snow and conditions tomoz should be good as well. Level 2 is coming up fast and i only started to feel today that i was getting back in the swing of things after a whole week off, still got a way to go yet before i am at pass level.

Anyways i am currently awaiting the return of people from the pub celebrating Paddy's day cos i know its gonna get roudy in here with every one wanting to talk to Johnny or me as PJ is currently doing.

Laters

We have gained a cripple!

Well actually more than one - four have been put out for the season in the last week alone. A smashed shoulder, a badly ruptured shoulder, a broken leg and details of the last to follow.

Before you start worrying mum none of the cripples are me!
My issue has resolved itself and i am back skiing - just need to get my confidence back - my skiing is rubbish.

The person in question is Johnny English - no jokes - that really is his name!
Whilst night skiing last Thursday he fell on his leg which had taken a battering earlier in the week on the rails in the park. This lead to him getting a blood clot in his leg and being transported off to hospital. He has since recovered to a certain degree but is completely bed bound for at least a week.
The problem is that he lives in a house and cant walk at all. So after watching a film this evening i came up to my room to find that ideally they wanted to move him in with me and Brendan.
I couldn't say no seeing the pain he is in. So we did.
There are now two people asleep in this room as i type!

I was going to fill you in on the weekend but that will now have to wait until tomoz in case i am keeping Johnny up with my typing!

So sorry for all the happy news but thats how life goes sometimes!
Will try and get a Red Mountain update in tomoz, till then,

Laters people.

Just back from Red

Hey peps, its 10 to 1 in the morning here and its been a very long day. We have just got back from Red Mountain where we spent the weekend. After a 6 hour coach journey i am absolutely shagged!

We had a wicked weekend and quick a bit of crazy stuff happened. Thoughts and stuff to come in due course.

Sorry for not posting last week major internet probs - it looks ok now though. With this in mind i will put a bit of an update and whats happened in Red in a post tomoz - cos i need some sleep. Hope all is good back home and speak soon to ya soon.

Right so I will try and get something posted

It seems that i only have to not post for a couple of days and some of my readers get cranky! I haven't really posted now since Wednesday and the comments have been coming in!

So for those of you that need to know what has been going on hour by hour; tough you aint getting it, but here is an update from the last few days.

Firstly and most importantly is the snow. We have had quite a large dump over the last few days (when i last looked at the website it had totaled something like 77cm over the last week).

This basically meant that the skiing has been awesome in general and overwhelmingly good in places. Going back as far as Thursday, i skied in the morning and tried to ski in the afternoon but something in my right shoulder was saying NO NO NO! So as much as i didn't want to come down from the waist deep powder i decided that to try and save myself i should rest up.
So much happens here i cant remember where we went for dinner that evening but it might have been the lodge where i am staying - not sure.

Friday came round and teaching the rents was back on the agenda. It was interesting to see the change in their skiing from the weekend before. To be honest i was happy with what they had done; a few reminders and we were back on track. Considering the conditions they skied the day very well. Mum is skiing very well indeed and has really picked up the stuff i have passed onto her, she is now skiing like a rocket! Dad has improved as well he just needs to ski with a bit more confidence. Its actually to long ago to remember where we went for dinner that night.

Saturday brought more snow and more surprises. I thought i would take the rents to some places that they hadn't been before to experience more of the mountain. This is where i got a shock and asked them if they wanted to ski some powder off piste; i was expecting a very definite no but i got exactly the opposite. So off we went and they took to it brilliantly, tiring as it was. I was so happy - i had the rents doing something i never imagined that they would and they wanted more! So that's what they got - we had a wicked time and got some wicked pictures over these few days.
After having to rescue Dad from a fall i discovered my shoulder was aching like hell so we actually called it a halt early - doh!
After a chilled afternoon the rents picked me up and we went to one of the posher restaurants in Fernie for dinner called The Old Elevator. This was as i had been told really good - the food was amazing, though my steak didn't quite match the one from Lizard Creek earlier in the week, but thats being picky! Their Iced Tea was very good though!

Sunday was a day of rest and we just chilled out by rents coming to the lodge for breakfast, browsing around town and sleeping in the afternoon! They picked me up later and we went to the Italian up on the hill which i though was OK but dad in particular didn't rate it. Not like back home!

I didn't ski on Monday to try and give my shoulder a better chance of healing and ended up back in hospital! You will be glad to know however it wasn't for me. Louise had suffered a concussion the day before and was told by the head ski instructor to go to hospital to get it check out, so i went with her. The rest of the day was just chilled (in more than one way it was -30C ish on the hill) and i met the rents for dinner at corner pocket in the evening which was very nice. They seemed to have had a reasonable day skiing considering the conditions.

As i write this on Tuesday i am once again not skiing for further recuperation and to avoid what is an uncomfortably cold -35C or below outside - horrible. I expect to meet the rents later for their last night here.

Christ that was a post and a half!

Laters peps

Update

I thought i would post a little note. We have been having a major problem here in fernie with the Internet. It has been really temperamental and i haven't been able to get a post online. I am taking tomoz off so will try and get a full update online then.

Laters peps

I am gonna have to employ a blog writer!

I know i seem to go on about this all the time but i just don't seem to have any to write my blog at the mo. This is possibly quite evident in the sparseness of the posts from me, hence my point of having to employ someone to do this for me.

Anyway - onto matters of the last couple of days. I have been back in lessons as normal and we have been having snow. It isn't all brilliant but some of it is nice to ski on - the snow yesterday was very random there were patches of lovely powder and in other parts it was like skiing through glue. Yesterday evening parents wanted to try out curling so we went for dinner @ 'The Pub' with Louise and then headed to the curling rink. For a couple of hours we had quite a laugh although i did end the evening with another aching body after a trip on the ice! Oh well i knew it this morning cos my back absolutely caned!

Despite this i got up and went skiing as per norm and had a reasonable day - although i wasn't rating tuition this week as Jono is really slow; he talks alot and doesn't ski much - to hinder matters further for some reason we joined another group so there was 12 of us instead of the usual max of 8. Oh Well the afternoon brought some racing which was different - i drew with the guy i was racing 1-1. Tonight i went with the rents to Lizard Creek Lodge for dinner. it was superb the steak i had was one of the best i have ever had. Delicious.
After a quick boot check for mum i came back to the lodge to finish off my day!

Laters,

No Time = No Posts

As you can possibly tell from the lack of posts over the last few days i have had very little free time on my hands. I have spent most of the time with the rents helping to educate and improve their skiing. It appears to be working to some extent but we still have some work to do.

Today i went back to skiing with my group and the rents skied on their own however by pure chance we broke for lunch at exactly the same time so that meant free lunch - handy!
Skiing today was a little slow and very technical - it was also very wet we are having alot of rain at the mo - what is going on!

Not much else to report - went to 'Rip and Richards' tonight for dinner with the rents and had a nice burger and then came back and chatted with peps for hours! Then wrote this,

Laters