Execute Plan B

On Monday, Dale & I set of for Sunshine nice & early to hopefully take advantage of some fresh snow before the crowds trashed it.
We turned off the Trans-Canada with a relentless line of traffic around 8.15 & crawled all the way to the Sunshine car park. Usually at that time its a clear run straight to the first couple of rows of the car park. We made the decision to turn around & head back to Calgary. The Lake Louise experience was still fresh in our minds & we weren't about to go through that again.
The back-up plan was to go to the Canada Olympic Park (on the outskirts of Calgary) & just have a play. When we arrived, there were next to nobody there & we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The park has 3 short runs of varying degrees of difficulty, & 2 terrain parks. One of the main runs was quite steep but not beyond us. Fortunately it was steep enough to scare off most of the idiots & we had it to ourselves. We speared off that run straight into one of the terrain parks.
The big kids terrain park was a bit daunting for us, but the "progressive" terrain park was spot on. It has a mini half pipe, a couple of rails & a couple of little jumps (pictured is Dale on one). We gave the rails a miss, but had a play in the 1/2 pipe (we were crap at it) & practiced our jumping techniques.
At the end of the day, we had a bit of fun & didn't have to battle the crowds & ice in the mountains.

Learning how to use the new camera

I've been trying to get my head around how to use my new camera. It's a big step up from the point-&-shoot compact camera's that I've been using. There are so many extra settings & variables to try to understand. The camera came with a DVD to help & a CD with some tips for editing the photos. It's starting to come to me, but there will need to be a bunch of experimenting before I'm comfortable.
I'm hoping to have it sorted out by the time we get to Las Vegas & the Grand Canyon in 2 weeks.

Frozen Lake Louise

After a couple of great days Snowboarding on Xmas Eve & Xmas day (at Lake Louise & Sunshine respectively), we all had a rest on Boxing day knowing the crowds would be out of control. So today we figured it would be a bit better (we were so wrong) and headed to Lake Louise nice & early. I had promised Kerri some personal snowboarding lessons & hung out on the learner's slope with her for the morning.
Just before lunch, Kerri needed a rest & I managed to sneak one run in. It was terrible! I waited in the lift line for about 10 mins & the run down was icy & busy with idiots. We met up with Shane & Dale who had had enough as well. We all cashed in our tickets (half day refund), had lunch & headed home.

Kerri & I thought we would go & see what Lake Louise looked like in Winter, frozen over. (see pic). It's no where near as interesting as it is during summer. Notice the Fairmount insignia on the Ice Castle below.

The Fairmount has a way of fleecing you for money at any time of year.This one makes a good shot, but it not something I'll be jumping out of my skin to do.
Thanks to its position & altitude, it always seems to be cold Lake Louise. The last thing I want to do is ride around in a two horse open sleigh.....
Poor Santa. I know he only works one day a year, but it's a tough gig.

My First White Christmas

This is the gang I spent my first white Xmas with. Unfortunately Kerri had to work (nursing's a tough gig), so the last thing I was going to do, was mope around the house by myself.
What better way to spend Xmas than to head for the mountains & go snowboarding for the day? My fellow orphans from left to right; Shane (West Oz), Canne (Nova Scotia), Todd (Alberta) & Dale (West Oz). We all have our reasons for being orphans at Xmas, but none of us were complaining one little bit. It even snowed for us.
All of us except Dale had been to Lake Louise the day before as well. We had two great days with a heap or fresh snow around. I tagged along with Todd most of the time. He's been skiing for as long as he can remember & it forced me to do a few things outside my comfort zone. This was good because I improved so much over the last couple of days. I even conquered a couple of Black Diamond runs for the first time.
In all, not a bad way to spend Xmas. It was just a shame Kerri had to work.

Elbow River

Today we got sick of sitting around the apartment & decided to go for a walk to the Elbow river (a few blocks away).
Most of the waterways are frozen over now. The lakes & rivers in the mountains have been frozen for a while. The last few weeks, even the rivers & streams around Calgary have been frozen over (or at least partially). It's pretty cool really. You can see the city buildings in the background.

During our wander along Elbow River, I spotted some movement up river. An animal scurried from the island in centre of shot into the gap in the ice. I'm not sure whether it was an otter or a beaver (I think it was a beaver or otter) but it was cool to see so close to the centre of the city. I was way too slow to take a photo of whatever it was.

New Toy

I never would have thought to buy a DSLR camera back in Australia. Canada has that kind of scenery & wildlife that makes you want to get out & see the world & then, take photos of it. I decided that, as good as Kerri's camera is, it was time to upgrade. I'm sure we'll get plenty of use out of the new toy over the next two years and beyond.

The camera comes with a 18-55 zoom lens, but I also bought the 70-300 because I thought it would come in handy for shooting animals that are too dangerous to get close to. Waterton National park down near the Montana border is literally crawling with animals & we're going to be spending lots of time down there next Summer. I'm seriously considering a wide angle lens as well, although they're quite expensive. It would be nice to have because the awesome scenery in North America is, more often than not, very difficult to frame with a standard camera. I can see the uses for it back home & in NZ as well.

Sunshine Village

Friday was an EDO (Earned Day Off, as they like to call it at Jacobs) & it was my first opportunity to head up to the Ski fields when you take advantage of  shorter lift lines & less chopping up of the runs. Shane had the day off as well, so it was on. Kira came along with us as well. Kira's the daughter of a guy that Shane & I have both worked with back in Oz & Shane is still quite friendly with them (they live over here now as well). It was Kira's first time snowboarding.

We reached Sunshine right on 8.30 and headed up to the village in the gondola nice & early. The photo above is what they call Sunshine Village. It's at the top of the gondola, but is the hub for most of the lifts.

It's always an advantage to get to the ski fields early. The runs haven't been chopped up & the lift lines are shorter. This applies in Oz & NZ as well.
We left Kira with the instructors & hit the mountain when there were next to no marks on the groomed runs & there lifts were clear. It was awesome! We had the place to ourselves & had an absolute belter of a day. The only downside was the minus 20 something temperatures. It was a small price to pay. Sunshine Village scored over 1/2 metre of snow last week & it showed. Notice the snow on the trees behind me in this photo. It was much better than when we were there last weekend.

This was the sight that greeted us when we headed up the first chair lift for the day. There was so much snow! And the day was as clear as I've seen it since we arrived in Canada. Beats the hell out of sitting at the office!
There are a couple of runs high up to the left of shot that were groomed in parts, but still had 30cm of powder. Having learned to snowboard on ice & chopped up runs in Oz & NZ, I had no concept of how to deal with it (and still don't). Apparently you have to change the way you balance & steer. I came of second best. I was traveling pretty fast, went to turn & dug the nose of the board into the powder. I must have tumbled about 6 times before I stopped. It rattled my confidence for a bit & I've got a sore neck & shoulders to show for it. It won't stop me going back & having another go!

This is what happens when 57cm of fresh snow falls in a matter of 3 days. Needless to say the outdoor tables weren't getting much use.

The mountain over to the left of picture is Goats Eye, where he wrecked his beloved snowboard on a rock & I'm lucky not to have done the same to mine. The lesson learnt, is not to get too excited when a run opens for the first time for the season.

Hot Chocolate with a Dash

My cousin, Mark, put me onto this one when we were in New Zealand snowboarding last year. It's a standard hot chocolate with a hearty dash of Brandy. Sounds odd, but it's really quite nice & gives you a warm feeling inside. Just the tonic when it's pushing -20 outside & your core temperature is low because you've been out snowboarding in it all morning. It's become a bit of a lunch time tradition for us.
Normally one at lunch is sufficient, but Shane ended up having about 4 on Friday after he destroyed his board. Can't blame him really.