Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Ice on the way to the city

An early Saturday start saw me on a bus to Vancouver to stay with friends and get away from all things snow for a weekend.

The journey was a lot more exciting than I had planned as the conditions on the roads were very icy. The 60 seater bus actually lost control on one bit of ice and we slid about ten foot with the back starting to slide sideways. That was really quite scary and we had to go really slow so that didn't happen again. A little while later the driver announced that a dangerous pass was coming up ahead and wasn't sure it would be safe to cross, there being a large drop on one side (yes I did think of the Italian job at about this point). Fortunately the bus driver decided to stop and wait for the pass to be cleared and gritted before setting off again and we managed to make it alive to Vancouver with only a couple hours delay.

By the time I got to Vancouver I was still early to meet up with my friends so I decided to have a walk around the waterfront area. I was a complete tourist, taking loads of photos. There were lots of interesting bits and pieces including a huge Lego whale sculpture which was ace!

After that I went around to Emanuel and Yvadney's place. They are old friends from London, I used to work with Emanuel, who moved out to Canada a couple of years ago. I stayed at Emanuel's flat which is very nice but on the 20th floor! It took me a little while to go anywhere near the windows.

Emanuel gave me a tour around his bit of the city including a visit to his office, which is the Canadian branch of the same company I work for in London. It was very interesting to see the office and see how a typical Canadian work place is set up. The city is nice with lots of little touches like leaf prints in the concrete walkways, which were done for the Olympics. In the evening we had a meal, drinks and an opportunity to catch up. I could give them the low down on our friends back in the UK and they tell me about all the odd things about living in another country (they really miss a good fish and chips shop).

On Sunday morning Emanuel and I had a breakfast of kings at the Templeton Dinner. Sitting at the counter, I had two blueberry pancakes, six strips of bacon, three eggs easy, rosemary potatoes, two rounds of brown toast, maple syrup and about a pint of coffee. I didn't need to eat again until Monday morning.

I took my leave of Emanuel and Yvadney on Sunday evening, It was great to see them again and hopefully not so long until I see them next.

Vancouver is a nice place and I think I really need to go back and visit it during the summer as it rained constantly the whole time I was there and so wasn't maybe in its best light, well they do call it Raincouver.

Week Two - Get your hands up

This weeks instructor is called Tim, an Aussie with full set of their skiing qualifications. He skis in a very controlled style with his tight turns pretty constant not matter what the terrain.
Mike joined the group still recovering from his knee problem. My group is meant to be a bit more gentle so he can recover.

The three main areas, Tim had me concentrating on were, keep your hands up (I drop the hand after the poll plant which twists the body), keep the upper body still and turn from the feet (balance and movement in the turn should be coming from the lower body not the upper which throws the balance out and makes the turn a lot harder).

Tim introduced us to some more steeps including a drop into west bowl called Cockalorum which I completely messed up, crashed, lost a ski and slid down the steep (60 degree-ish) slope on my belly for about 20 metres until I could stop myself by using my poles like ice axes. My ski went another 30 metres and had to be rescued by Tim.

The weather was a big mix with days of sun, blizzard, fog and v cold winds. The conditions proved a bit too much for my selection of goggles and I ended up getting a set of Vonzipper Feemon's for 150 dollars! Since then I've no more problems with fogging/icing up which makes for a much better skiing experience when you can see what you are doing.

Away from skiing we have had a couple of good nights out to the Karaoke at the Crystal lounge and generally around town. I've also managed to get to the local climbing wall on Wednesday which was quite good and that old familiar arm burn lasted a few days. They have the same grading system for bouldering but the routes were so overlapping that different colours got very confusing. The centre called the Core is good with about 8 descent size walls to have fun on.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Back to Basics - Week One

So how do you split up 49 skiers into teaching groups?

That was the first order of business on Monday morning.

Guy got us roughly split into 7 groups ranging in how much bottle we thought we had. Dom and Arthur went for the mental double blacks top group, Mike went for a one a bit less than that and I went for a nice easy don't get myself in hospital in the first week group. Nick picked a level similar to me, Ed was off snowboarding and Ben, apparently only booked the accommodation and so went off skiing some crazy off piste stuff all week by himself.

The group I picked ended up quite a good mix and all about the same level. We have
Tansy, Alice, Amy, Chris, Pete, Ciran and Myself. Our instructor for the week is Donie, who is a small Canadian lady, who turns out seem to have taught half of the other instructors.

We spent the week starting to learn the basics again, such as planting your polls, not leaning back, getting you hips and shoulder parallel to the slope in a turn and finishing your turns completely.
We had exercises where you held your polls in out to the sides (to lean the right way), at half way (to get us lower down), at our waists without hands (to get us to bend at the waist) and on our shoulders to get the shoulder line parallel to the slope.

Arther and Dom spent the week coming back shattered and tell us all the mad things Guy (who took the top group) was making them ski down, and loving it of course. Mike didn't have so good a time of it as he twisted his knee and is going to be out of action for a couple of weeks at least.

By the end my group seemed to be getting quite a bit smoother and looking in control. Most of the time we spent on the pistes but we did do a couple of bits of steep towards the end of the week. The conditions ranged from foggy to clear to very windy and cold. We didn't get much in the way of new snow but the base is deep so it was all good groomed runs.

I've been out drinking with most of my ski group and we had quite a jolly time of particularly the Tuesday night Karaoke at the Crystal Lounge. Pete signing 'Bust a Move' is a memory that I hope will remain strong for a long time!

My house mates are not bad for a night out either although as they are all on the 11 week version of the trip they are on a bit more of a budget.

Monday, January 16, 2012

A day out with the Locals

OK one local, Sandra, a friend from way back, who moved out here a couple of years ago.

It was a lovely Powder day but it was also an American holiday weekend so lots people travelled up the ski resorts for a bit of a holiday. Unfortunately this makes for mad queues at all the chair lifts.

Sandra is a boarder and knows all the nice little bits of the resort so we spent the day with some nice blacks and tree and bike tracks (one called blue velvet) on Whistler mountain. Particularly fun was a trip into Whistler bowl which was quite bonkers, steep with deep pow and really no visibility. She also introduced me to a bit of a Whistler tradition, the Bloody Caesar cocktail at lunch which is quite tomato-y and quite spicy. I've not idea how strong it is but it was very nice.

At the end of the day we went drinking at Brandy's and watched the American football. It was also an opportunity to meet Sandra's other half Ryan and some of her friends. They were all very nice and made me feel very welcome.
Sunday was quite! a bit of skyping and I went to watch the half pipe comp

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Whistler and the Alltracks group

So I'm in Canada, in Whistler, sitting in what will be my room for the next 5 weeks.

The journey was good once I had managed to get all my gear from my flat across town by Tube to Heathrow. Air Canada did a good job with the service and one of those seat back entertainment systems. I caught up on a bunch of movies (Margin Call: very good, Lincoln Lawyer: good, Sucker Punch: very rubbish even on fast forward and Puss in Boots: also very good) and had a couple of fairly good meals.

At Vancouver the first thing of note was a huge tank of jellyfish before you get to passport control (no idea why). I was met by Guy, who it turns out is the head Instructor for the resort and really really tall!
and after hanging around for ages for another flight, in the bar watching ice hockey with an American and a Dutch lad, we got a coach to the resort.

The house I'm staying at is in a little quiet corner of Whistler called Valhalla. It's a modern development with a communal hot tub for all the houses in the square (more of a round actually) to share in the middle. Unfortunately the hot tub isn't working due to something to do with heath and safety. The house has all the things you would expect including a big TV, good wifi, microwave and washing machine (so no trips to a launderette, thank God). There are 7 of us sharing, 2 downstairs, Ben and Dom, who are friends from the UK. Upstairs we have two single rooms and a big room with three sharing. Nick, a tall South African and myself have the two single rooms and Arthur, Mike and Ed share the big room. Arthur and Ed are English (Ed is also the only snowboarder) and Mike is a blue haired American from Oregon. My room is huge and I definitely got the best deal in the house. I've got a huge double bed, a bit of a balcony and a walk in wardrobe.

Saturday we had the welcome meeting and in the evening a welcome drink. The most interest information was finding out just how many people are on the course. Once we all managed to get into the Hilton Whistler's main meeting room, there were about 70 of us with about 20 or so being snowboards. Most of the group appear to be either 18-19 and straight out of school or in their mid 20s (my house mates, except Mike (mid 30s) are all in this group). There a few grey haired individuals so I'm not the oldest by a good few decades.

It all seems well organised, the people seem nice, the town looks lively and the weather looks snowy so fingers crossed it should be a good trip.
the size of the group

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Three days work and then I'm off

A good Xmas and new year at my Parents, catching up everyone big and small. Now I'm just got a few quiet, hopefully, days at work and then I'm flying to Canada, Friday lunchtime.

The bags are packed the fridge is nearly empty and my laptop is loaded with music and movies.

Time to hit the slopes

Yay!
On reflection it was quite good...