Now into the second week of the course, we had a change of instructors up at Sunshine. The 2 groups of skiers swapped instructors so as to get a fresh perspective. This change was very welcome, as a new way of explaining things helped many people make huge leaps in progress in both groups and suddenly it all felt like it was coming together. By the afternoon, the snow was once again falling heavily. So much so that after 10 minutes of swinging on a chair lift we stood up looking like snowmen - absolutely covered from the short period of inactivity. After a hard day on the slopes, there was a tough decision about what to do for the evening. The course had organised another attempt at road hockey, and the new Warren Miller film was being shown in town as well. However, we all decided that a restful night in was in order to prepare for the insane snow conditions we were sure to find the next day. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get the blog up to date and continue the search for a manvan. Sharing a small kitchen between the 6 of us, it means that dinner has to be staggered. I was part way through the search for a truck, and still hadn't eaten - so when the phone rang at 7.30 asking why weren't at hockey, and we were guilted into leaving the house in the snow to participate - i was starving. This did in no way stop us from absolutley dominating the hockey "pitch" - a gravel carpark with a good inch of snow and homemade goals. No other team could withstand the Cougar pressure - and with the exception of 1 game where the rules changed halfway through we were undefeated when the local residents came out at 10 to insist we stopped due to the noise. We traipsed home in high spirits, and finally it was time for dinner!
Tuesday 1st December.
After last nights dump, we were all looking forward to the mountain today. It was a freezing cold day, but with perfect blue skies and the bus arriving early, I took the oppportunity to have a few warm up runs. It was going great until I got stuck on an old lift in freezing cold. Arriving at the top of the mountain, with less than a minute to get to my lesson, it was time to put all my newly learnt skill out the window, set my skis straight and go as fast as possible down the hill. Despite the blinding speed in freezing cold winds, I was late for the start of the lesson, by 5 minutes- DOH! They had all gone already, and today was the day both our normal instructors were absent on a course to re-certify themselves. In desperation, I bombed around all our normal haunts, searching for where they were doing a the warm up runs. after 25 minutes of searching, and having covered more terrain than we normally did in a morning, I gave up the search and text Emily the course coordinator. She directed me to where the group was skiing, one of the few lifts I hadnt yet been up. I caught up with group in advance of the meeting point and introduced myself to the new instructor - a Harrison Ford lookalike. Despite the rocky start, we all had a great day with new instructor and learnt loads. In his years of experience, the instructor had been an olmpic race coach, and we sure felt the increase in speed as day went on. Following on from yesterdays positive feeling - it was only enhanced today leaving me very positve about the course.
Wednesday. 2nd December.
Yesterdays blue skies were an indication of a high pressure system sitting over us, and led to a temperature of -26 with wind chill on the hill. In weather this cold, you have to be so very careful of getting frostbite, and halfway through the morning we stopped for hot choc with instructor. Despite yesterdays confidence, today my skiing was very shakey - despite the praise at the end for having improved the most over the 2 days, I definitely didnt feel ready for the exam next week by the end of the day. After getting home, we barely had time to wash and change before heading off to the evening technical session. On getting out the shower, i'd started cooking dinner in the oven, only to discover we didnt have enough time to let it cook. My highly sensible plan was to turn the oven off - leaving the food in to slowly cook in the residual heat as I thought we would only be there for a few hours. However, following the technical session, I spotted a fellow student perched at the bar on his own and despite him being a snowboarder decided to join him for one quick drink. Well, we all know how "one quick drink" alway ends up - the most memorable being an epic pub crawl via every pub en route to see a band playing in Portsmouth.....
When I finally arrive home, dinner was definitely slow cooked, and tahnkfully just about still warm - but bed was definitly required for the night!
Thursday 3th December
A groggy start to the morning, but still making the bus on time. Today we were back in Lake Louise, and back with Anna - our instructor from Monday. Further improvements were being made to our technique and in the afternoon, we were videoed to have a look through what improvements we had made and what still needed to be worked on. Despite everything looking good on the video, i was still very concerned thati wasnt going to pass the skiing part of the course. Come the end of the day the instructors were very encouraging and as they were going to be the ones who would be assessing us for the actual exam it was definitely a good thing they'd seen what we were capable of over the last week.
Thursday night on the course is always meal night, and once again Rich and I opted for the smarter shirt option. Its a great excuse to get everyone out for the night, and as there is no lessons on Friday its a good night out. Following a good meal, despite the expensive drink prices there was a split in the group as some people were heading back to our place for "pre-lash" and others were thinking of staying out or heading home due to lack of numbers. Horrified, I came up with a solution and set about converting the going home crew that a few quiet pints over a pool table was a good idea and headed down to pump&tap tavern - where i manage to persude the barman to set our pool table to be free for the night. Bonus. With free pool and pitchers for $10 bucks, the night started well - and we even found 8 free songs on the jukebox. With an eclectic mix (from Rammstein to The Eagles to WHAM to Drop Kick Murphies) the Scots were beaten down in revenge for the other weeks narrow pool victory. When the other patrons got fed up with our musical tastes and hogging of the pool table, we headed onto our next favourite, The Devils Gap where those I hadnt convinced to join us had regrouped we provided shelter from the cold before heading on to Hoodoo's once more. The hot barmaid once again proved an exceptional sales woman, and jagerbombs flowed. The cougars lasted the longest - rocking out on the dance floor with a wide range of interesting dance moves. Sarah, who lives upstairs and arrived at the club late and relatively sober was still amazed at our moves the next morning!
Friday 4th December
Despite last night celebrations, I was determined this morning to make the hill. Norquay was opening today and I needed to meet my new boss as well as get to know the place I would (fingers crossed) soon to be working. Dragging myself out of bed, with 15 minutes till the last bus, my plan was ruined by having taken my inners out of my boots to dry them yesterday, and putting them back in was more of a mammoth task than I could manage. Wobbling up the road, I started to consider how wise it was to out just yet... After 10 minutes of waiting at the bus stop I reluctantly called it a lost cause, and teetered home to spend the rest of the day nursing my hangover from the comfort of the sofa.
Come the evening, i was fully recovered. Fortunate really, as we had arranged to play 5 a side football with some of the other 3 weekers from the course. A long walk to the gym later we heard that the scottish under16 national player who was the scots secret weapon had broken his arm and was camped up in the hospital. The 1.75 average we had been warned about at the start of the course to be injured by the end of the course had now occured, both snowboarders! This may or may not have helped influence our whitewash win over the voyager 3 weekers who had turned up, not just at the 5 a side but at the 10 minute basketball game afterwards. Cougars just dominate! Finishing nice and early I finally managed to catch up on writing the blog! Finally. Its been such a busy week.
Saturday 5th December
After yesterdays epic fail at getting to Norquay, I managed to make it out the house and to the bus on time today. Completely surprising the others waiting at the busstop as when they had left, I was still in bed. Everyone already thinks I have a magic way of stopping time, and this went to enhance that even further. Arriving at Norquay, the runs were in poor condition, with rocks strewn all over the place, the snow cannons had been working full power leaving the patches that had been covered exceptionally sticky and the runs that hadn't exceptionally hard packed and icy. But we still didn't let that get in our way as we explored the runs to get a good feel not only of where we would be working but also where we would be examined next week. Before catching the bus home, I finally made contact with my new boss. Emails and phone calls had failed, and only hanging around her office for 40 minutes proved successful. Fairly disorganised and unapproachable, the news she had for me equally bad - the lift pass I had been using ran out in a week, and I had followed up on Norquay's offer to purchase my season lift pass upgrade through them. However it had not yet been processed, and may only be available to full time staff, where as I would be part time only. Devastating news, especially as I had turned down other offers to purchase the lift pass at a discounted rate as I had said yes to this. Still, there was still hope as it was only a maybe only open to full time staff. Ollie (my new boss) said she would be checking with higher management to find out. Only time would tell.
Getting home nice and early, I was able to prepare for the evenings adventures. I had volunteered yesterday for the Banff Christmas Parade. So at 5pm I walked down to meet up with the organisors, and once again despite being hundreds of miles from home was once again right back into events work. With a flourescent jacket on, and floats from many different companies and ski resorts to walk safely through the streets, I quickly found my calling. I chose the giant Columbian Icefield Truck and walked point on it through the street, holding back the crowd to keep them at a safe distance. The wheels on one of these things are massive, taller than I at least and would have easily eaten one of the small children darting around for supper.
Image of a Columbian Snow Truck - Still not able to find the one from the parade with me in the front corner.
After the parade, I headed up to the lighting of the christmas tree. The others from the house were supposed to have been at the parade, but had instead hit the hot tub to warm up and relax after the weeks skiing and had not made it to town. Having missed the parade they were determined to make the lighting of the tree.I directed them in to where it woud be, and as they walked up the road they had started to wonder if I was walking them the right way when ping! The lights went on. Not only had they missed the parade but also the lighting of the tree. DOH. We stopped on the way back in Bruno's to recover with a deep fried mars bar before heading to the liquor store to grab some drinks for the night. We had decided to have some pre-drinking games before going out for the night and got going with Ring of Fire. Teaching so many pre-university students to play drinking games was as much of a challenge and combining the different sets of rules those of us who had experienced it before were used to. When the final King was finally pulled, Kira had the unfortunate challege of the Kings Cup - which was a 1 litre jam jar filled mostly with beer. Over 10 minutes of video footage later - Kira still was unable to finish it, and shortly later we were breaking down the bathroom door to recover her. Now remember kids, when your a little bit the worse for wear - DONT LOCK THE DOOR!!!! While Kira was looked after, the others went out and I fixed the bathroom door, pulling out the trusty swiss army knife to repair the broken lock. It was good however, as it gave me a much deserved early night to prepare for getting up the hill on an earlier bus tomorrow.
Sunday 6th December
Due to the early night last night, I was able to easily get up in time for Louise. While the others, slightly the worse for wear stopped immediately for lunch, I got some great runs in to practise and at the same time had plenty of opportunity to watch the ladies GS world cup runs. Those skis go so exceptionally fast and they are so accurate and yet they still are not even close to getting the times of the mens from the previous weekend. Still. by getting in so many practise runs, I was unable to stop for the freebies on offer in the tents. By the time I had exhausted myself the racing was over and the tents packing up, with nothing by warming hot apple juice and soup left for free. Goes to show, Im finally no longer a student in a ski environment, eagerly itching to get my hands of the piles of free stuff from table to table, and now a skier in an environement where free hot apple juice and soup is so eagerly anticipated.
Following the days ski, it was off home to revise and prepare for the start of exams tomorrow. Once again missing out on the favourite haunt for locals on a Sunday, i've now been here 3 weeks and the closest i've been to getting to Auroras is the queue! Fail.
While finishing off my revision however an amazing thing happened. The time difference between countries allowed me to chat to Rhea as she was waking up back home in the UK, bright and early at 8 am, and then video call with Maria over is Australia as she got home from work, before going to sleep at the end of a long day in the early hours of the morning in Canada. Round the world communication spanning 2 days - what a world this is.
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