Delayed

Well today was the day t oleave Whistler. However, snow was falling last night, and it was decided to stay over.

Of course this was all to do with road safety, and not the fact that we've got approximately half a metre of new snow to play in!

First lift today then!

On Our Travels

The time is nearing to our departure from Whistler. Normally on a Sunday I'm complaining about not being out on the slopes. However, this weekends been cool.

Following our trip down to Vancouver we had our Pool Party / Birthday do for Dave. Although not a huge number of people turned out (ie 3!), but it was still cool. Many beers were drunk, hot dogs were eaten in the hot tub, and much fun was had by all.

Today, we had our first warm up journey in the car. The idea was to get to Bralorne. Unfortunately this was not to be, firstly as the road between Pemberton and Bralorne is closed in the winter, and the other way round via Lillooet adds an extra 150km onto the journey! Still we bravely ventured forth to see what we could do!

The trip really reminded me that Canada is a big place, and that there is a hell of a lot of wilderness out there. Leaving Pemberton, you start climbing up over the hills and towards Lillooet. In between, however, there is 100kms of bug mountains, trees and lakes, and not much else. THere are absolutely no shops or homes, and it really brings it home to you! I hate to think what its like when you get away from the Southern Interior into the true wilderness.

The Final Days

Well, our time in Whistler is coming to an end. After 4 days of pretty good snowboarding (I even managed to land a pretty big backside 180 off a cat track!) today was the day when we headed off to Vancouver to pick up our Rent-a-Wreck.

Typically, as we couldn't get on the slopes today we walked down to pick up the greyhound with clear skies above us, and 5 in of fresh. I don't think it stayed that way though, so that's some sort of compensation.

Van was wet, as we were told it pretty much has been all the way through January. Still, we managed to find our way down Hornby Street to the Rentawreck offices, and got a nice shiny Saturn. Ugly little blighter, but it'll do the job! The only problem now was jumping into a strange car, with a new traffic system, in the middle of downtown Vancouver. Still, we managed to find our way through, and out of Vancouver, and made it into Whistler with few problems.

We'll be heading off some time over the weekend. I think we're having a day trip to Bralorne first, then heading off towards Kelowna. I shall be in touch from the road at some point!

Washed Out

I woke up this morning with the best of intentions to do some more laps of the park, practice some more tricks, and generally mess around. It was so warm getting on the bottom of the lift, that I cockily thought I won't bother putting my gloves, goggles or ballaclava thing on. Course by the time I'd got up halfway I was regretting my choice. The snow was getting blown off the hill by the 40-70kmh wind, and straight into my face. By the top I had to just run to some shelter to get all my stuff on.

I had one run through the park which was ok as it's relatively sheltered. However, the run back to the lift was a nightmare, and I decided it really wasn't worth the hassle. It was the first time where the runs at the bottom of the mountain were better than the rest. It's still pretty warm, and the snow is just like sugar - strange to ride on, but pretty fun cos it's so soft. Still stopped off at the bottom of the halfpipe at Blackcomb, and it just so happened that the men's Canadian halfpipe snowboard team were getting some last minute training before heading off to Torino. Man, it was scary watching some of them, the size of the McTwists and 720's they were throwing down.

By now though, it was raining at the base, and despite the fun I was having in the soft snow, I could only handle a couple of runs before I decided it was getting too wet.

So here I am, stuck in the appartment again, but today I am actually pretty pleased cos it beats getting frozen up on the mountain. Hopefully this weather should bring some new snow to the top of the mountain, which will make tommorrow pretty good!

Selfish Old Me

I must admit currently feel rather selfish. Today was the first blue sky day that we've actually been up the hill, and I took absolutely no photo's!

It's amazing to actually finally see something from the top of the hill, other than the other mountain (Whistler or Blackcomb, depending on which mountain you're on). Some of the mountains around here seem absolutely massive, and it's amazing actually seeing how far they go on for. You look at some of the peaks and can't help but wish you could get a helicopter for the day.

Still, you'll have to take my word for it cos once again I went up the hill totally for myself, and had another good day. It does, as Rich has mentioned to me, almost seem a bit of a waste on such a nice day to not go up to the peak to get the full experience. But apart from not really fancying the runs down from the peak, I was really having a good time messing around in the park. Haven't managed to crack all the tricks that I mentioned at the weekend, but I'm not doing too bad and feel I've progressed quite a bit.

Sounds unlikely again that there'll be much fresh snow if any to go play in, so I think that it may be into the park I go once again, especially as Rich has a job interview tomorrow, so I'll probably be on my own.

Right, now where's that magazine that has tips on throwing down cab 900's?

Back on the Slopes Again

After what seemed the longest weekend ever, I was back on the slopes again. Despite this long weekend it wasn't possible to get Rich up the hill - think there's been a bit of bug that's been going round.

Anyway, this meant my first bit of solo boarding since I've been out here. And I must admit that I think it did me some good! Managed to learn some new tricks. Not particularly convincingly, but it's on the way!Had a few pretty hard slams today, but thanks to the wonders of modern helmets I think I'm still doing alright.

Still, it's so refreshing to be able to get up the hill. Apart from anything else, the low cloud is still down over the valley, but once you get through the cloud (roundabouts the bottom of the solar coaster for those in the know), it's amazing how it opens up. THere's still cloud over the mountain tops, but in the middle you can see everything.

Anyway, more poker and pizza tonight, then I'm bursting to get up again tomorrow.

What a difference a few hours makes...

Well, a few hours later, and I must admit I'm feeling way more positive now.

I've had a good afternoon. Had a trip out of the village which I think probably did good. Admittedly it was to Function Junction, possibly the most boring part of Whistler, but at least it's not full of annoying tourists. Still the rest of the afternoon has been alright.

I'm really amped that I'm soon going to be able to go snowboarding again tommorrow. Plus me and Rich are beginning to make plans for next week when we leave Whistler. I'm really looking forward to leaving Whistler now. The snowboardings been amazing, but it all gets a little bit same-ish, and almost claustrophobic being stuck in one resort for so long! I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of Canada, and sampling some other resorts. Perhaps some other resorts that aren't so, as Rich puts it, "Disneyland". I think I need to be somewhere that isn't trying to pretend to be a European Alpine resort, and somewhere that is just Canadian.

Anyway, there's a whole weeks worth of snowboarding yet, so let's get that out of the way first....

Aaaaaaargh

Another long Sunday, another post on the blog!

This weekend seems to be really dragging at the moment! Maybe it's because I had such a good day on Friday, but I am just really feeling tired of Whistler at the mo. It probably hasn't helped that the weather has reverted to it's normal grey colour. It's not even grey and snowing, it really is just grey and dull.

Had quite a good game of poker on Friday, although I began being a little careless, and ended up going from having nearly all then chips to having none! Still, since then, very little has been happening.

I spent most of the day out of the house on three separate missions. One to generally have another look around, another in pursuit of two Norwegian girls Rich said he was meeting up with, and the final one to take some photo's at the Queen of The Rail competition at the bottom of Blackcomb. The photo's of which can be found on the Kodak gallery thing if anyone's interested!

However, leaving the flat three times yesterday kind of left me underemployed for today. The condo is getting kind of boring, with one or other of the muskateers on the computer, and some music playing on someone's iPod that either I don't like or I've heard a million times before, so I normally end up becoming more and more hermit like, sitting in my room with a book. Luckily I bought another 3 books yesterday to keep me going. Two Ian Rankin books, and a Harlan Coben one, so hopefully these should keep me entertained for the next few days. I think there should be some more fun and games next week, so hopefully the evenings will be cool!

Anyway, back out on the slopes tommorrow, thank God! Sounds that their may not be much snow for the next coup of days, and rising freezing levels, so I reckon it's time to wax up the short board, and head out to the terrain garden / terrain park and see what I can figure out. I reckon I'm gonna try out some new tricks. First up 50-50 to 180 out on the box, and also trying to ride the rainbow a little more confidently. If I get really cocky I'm tempted to try a 180 t 50-50 on the box, but we shall see.

If my next post is from a hospital you know why!

Things Are Good

What a fine couple of days. Unfortunately we failed to make it out yesterday. I feel almost ashamed. However there was a very good reason - we were all amazingly hung over. My last entry was done at about 3am after god knows how much beer, and our honest intention was to have a day riding and teaching Chris. Hell hath no fury like a bottle of beer or 20 drunk, and so trying to get up at 8am a couple of hours later was never going to happen. Cue, a very long day in the chalet. What made it worse that it was actually clear up the mountain, and once again there was some sun. Once again we missed out on it.

Nevermind though cos it's all been made up for with a damn fine day. Clearish sky's, at least until now (the next storm is rolling in!). Firstly Chris got on a snowboard. And did bloody well and is now linking turns after only a few hours. The problem is he wants me on skis now - never going to happen!Secondly, thanks to the slightly slower pace of today I managed to teach myself how to ride switch. Added to that lots of fun doing little jumps and drops off the edge of the piste, and also having one of the funnest lunches so far, it's all been pretty good. I'm feeling pretty good about myself, my riding's coming on and it's peaches and cream.

More snow coming in tonight, so perhaps lets roll on a powder day!

Hello Again

Hello there.I apologise now if this post is slightly random and the spelling and punctuation will be slightlty bad, as I've had a few drinks tonight.

Well since the weekend very little has happened. Iactually managed to get through the terrain garden today hitting every jump/rail whilst only falling once, and that wasn't really my fault -that was only becuase I jumped off a rail into an a hollowed out area and landed on the up side, thus compressing my entire body (As well as the waffle's I'd just eaten) and therefore collapsing in a heap. However, apart from that all was good, and we got to mess around in an excellent gladed run which cruised through numerous types of fir,spruce and hemlock such as engleman, subalpine, mountain, western (those of you in the know have to match the type of tree to the genera!)

The plan for tommorrow seems to be all changed around. Our resident skier is going to borrow one of our snowboards and we're gonna teach him. Seems like a good time for me to learn to ride switch, so we'll have to see how things progress. We'll hopefully have the one and only t-bird with us so it should be fun!

What a lovely day.....

Wow, this is actually really exciting! Although commented on Yesterday, today really is the first day you could actually call sunny here, and once again I'm trapped down in the village, only able to gaze up the mountain on the runs I would have to pay an extortionate amount to use today.

Still, the sun and lack of snowboarding lent itself to a rather pleasant photographic walk. Today I chose to head to the inappropriately sign posted Lost Lake. Very pleasant and picturesque, but I almost had to get down on my hands and knees to be allowed to use the paths, as it seemed to be being run by some cross country ski-ing fascists. Two skis good, two feet bad. Still, this didn't seem to matter to much, as soon as I started taking photo's at the lake, my camera batteries ran out.

Nevermind, I wandered into town and saw the main affect of cheap gas prices. The amount of single occupancy of cars was ridiculous. I carried out a little survey on the way into town, and I'm sure there seemed to be about 75-80% of cars that only had one person in them. And of course, being this side of the pond, the cars weren't little Honda Civics or Toyota Yaris', but nearly all of the mostly empty cars were absolutlely massive SUV's and pick ups, with huge V8's by the sound of it, the GMC Suburban and Chevy Tahoe's being the most popular choices.

Anyway, I think I shall pop off now - I've managed to finish the second book since I've been out here, and for me, finishing books this quickly is something of a record. I think I need to try and find somewhere to buy some new reading material.

A Lesson Learned

Ok, I have learned a new lesson then. Never, ever, try to go out anywhere in Whistler on a Saturday night. Especially not when you've been told that it's some sort of American weekend when a lot of American teens head out of America and invade Canada.

Luckily we were able to get in somewhere for dinner, mainly due to eating at some indecent dining hour. However, after that we weren't able to get in anywhere. Our first choice of entertainment we had to give up (I'd better not say what this form of entertainment was as there may be parents listening!) due to being warned about the line-ups halfway there. Then followed a long walk through town with every single place queued up about 500m out the door. Add to this the hundreds of drunken Americans screaming and hollering, and generally being bloody annoying, it was a nightmare. After trying to play pool on a table that was horrendously warped (every single ball ended up in a huge group in one corner), we decided it was best to call it quits, and we headed in to play poker instead. This turned out to be such a success that I've just bought a pack of poker chips, and it's likely to become the new obsession in the house.

The Weekend Strikes Again

Well, the weekend is here again, and so we are exiled from the slopes once more.

Although I am availing myself of the new technology, the other housemates are once again reverting to jigsaw activities. Although Rich is kind of pacing and dancing at the moment which is actually pretty scary.

Typically, seeing as I can't get out on the slopes today, there's been another 12inches of snow and there appears to be a strange golden burning orb visible every now and then in the sky. God knows what that is!

Anyway,might be heading out soon to watch fellow Brits huck themselves off a kicker in the driveway, or more likely I'll sit here and read until we go out tonight.

We shall see.

Wow, even more newness

We finally have our fourth compadre in our little bubble of Englishness over here in Whistler. Dave the Macham (or however you spell it) from Bedford who's a Liverpool fan. Not only is it a brand new person to talk to, but he is also a self confessed gadget head, and so has come armed with a lap-top (upon which I am now communicating on t'interweb), a PSP, a portable DVD player, and just about anything else which should hopefully keep us going over the coming weekend when we can't go out boarding!

Our boardings been slightly slack this week. Due to perhaps slightly excessive midweek drinking, Thursday was a right-off. Probably didn't miss much as the web cams showed that visibility was not existent, and there had only been an inch or two of fresh. Still, had a nice hot tub session late last night. It really is amazing sitting out in the snow in a hot tub, our lower halves baking, whilst the heavy snow settles, gradually turning our hair white! Unfortunately all this fun and excitement meant that I didn't get to bed till about 3am, which is pretty dumb when you want to get up on a powder day! 4 hours sleep and snowboarding all day do not go all that well together, hence the fact that it's about midday over here and I'm safely tucked up in the warmth of the living room typing away! Still enough time to get a couple of first tracks (but only on crappy runs that weren't reallly steep enough), get repeatedly buried up to my waist (reports say about 1ft of new snow, but it's way more in places!), and perform probably the best powder turn of my time here so far, so it's all pretty good.

Roll on the weekend now. Should snow a lot over the weekend, then my dream would be for a bluebird day on Monday. Seeing as I've seen the sun about twice in two weeks, I can't see it happening though!

By the way, I would just like to reassure Juan and the Dangerous one that my love for the sound of leather on willow will never be dulled by the allure of ice hockey! Remember, I am International Development Officer!

New things in the life of Ace

Three new things this week have made things quite cool:

1: A new snowboard- a Venue Onyx 162. Mmmmmmm, all mountain freestyle loveliness! Nice and solid, but soft and flexy enough to be able to have a bit of fun on, and less like riding a tanker than the old 168 wide board! All for roughly the same in Canadian dollars as pounds (ie, roughly half UK price!)
2: New snowboard trousers - Burton Shift Cargo pants. Mmmmmmmm, nice fitting baggy, non-holy goodness. I've finally, after about 5 years got a pair of snowboard trousers that I can take a decent sized stride in without ripping the crotch! And they look dope as well!
3: And most importantly , new snow. After the break from snowboarding over the weekend, I awoke to 35cm of new snow on Monday! This meant leaving my new shiny board at home, but I think my powder board enjoyed the outing! There must have been a metre accumulated in places! Cue lots of fun and sinking in snow!

The rest of the week has been cool as well. Roughly 4 inches or so each night to top things up and lots of fun and jumping around on my new board!Even had a couple of runs through the park, and haven't killed myself as yet, so it's all good!

Plus another new thing, is the fact that I actually know some people now! Boarding with friends on Monday, hot tub with more people on Tuesday, partying on our first night out yet(I know that's hard to believe that 1.5 weeks in and we've only been out once!) with lots of people, and hot tub again tonight. Funny that - as soon as a hot tub is mentioned you can find so many friends!

One thing in addition to this that I'd ask for: A break in the cloud. This place is beginning to get slightly claustrophobic. I know there's mountains up there, but I haven't yet seen them cos there's always cloud in the valley. I know clouds mean snow (or in todays case, light rain) but I could do with a view. I don't think we'll be seeing the sun soon though, so better get used to it!

The Origins of Ace

I notice that a popular comment so far has been the origins of the name Ace McGraw.

Well, in order to infiltrate the country of Canada I had to go under a pseudonym. Anyone who has ever bought anything vaguely American in their life is barred from entering the country on a work visa, so I had to change it, and Ace McGraw seemed the most obvious choice!

Unfortunately this is not the truth, and is also not much more interesting than the truth. This is going to sound really sad, but Ace was always my name on video game high score boards, and the McGraw bit just came naturally!

The National Sport of Canada

I realise this title could have been used for the previous post as well, but I think this is closer to the truth.

I'm pretty sure that the real national sport is smoking weed. Everywhere you walk, if you take a deep breath, you're probably unsafe to drive for a while!

I've only been up the mountain 5 days, but already I can see that gett ing stoned b proxy is going to be pretty common. It seems to be the thing to use chair lift time to get high. It's ok if it's a nice day, and all the smoke can drift away. However, when the weathers bad, and you've got the bubble down on the lift, you can pretty much guarantee to be feeling pretty mellow by the time you start boarding down!

No wonder everyone's so happy all the time!

Ice Hockey Rules

I never thought I'd say, but I'm beginning to turn into a hockey fan. I don't thinkI have much choice, as I'm sure the sport is televised pretty much 24-7 over here. I think we arrived at the right time, just at the culmination of the Junior World Hockey Champs. After beating the US in the group stages, Canada got to the final against Russia, and we ended up in a bar at the same time. With a couple of jugs of beer, a pile of Nachos about two foot high, Canada managed to thrash the Russians 5-0. Get in there. What an atmosphere!

It was just as good last night when we ended up in a bar for the Vancouver v Calgary NHL game-The Canucks won in overtime after being 3-1 down in the final period. I don't know what's happening, but I actually ended up getting excited during the match, something which I thought would never happen watching ice hockey! I am beginnig to get slightly worried as my Dad said I was beginning to sound Canadian on the phone the other day!

What the hell is up with the weather!

Probably the biggest surprise over here so far has been the weather. When we left the UK it was freezing, and we weren't sure whether we'd get to the airport because of the snow. Whe we got to Vancouver it was about 10degrees!

I thought it would at least be really cold up in the mountains though. However, after a week up here, I'm still waiting to get cold!On the walk into the Village today I passed about 10 people wearing shorts! I really didn't need my coat on. What's happened to winter? Leaving the town yesterday we were getting soaked by torrential rain! What's happened to the snow?

Still, apparently up on the peaks the snow base has pretty much tripled since Christmas, so once we can get up there when we can actually see stuff and when it isn't blowinga gale it'll be sweet! Still, the ridings been prettyy fun already, despite (or perhaps because of) the slushy conditions!

Supposed to get colder, and snow for pretty much the next two weeks, so fingers crossed!

New Year 2006

You know, I can't remember a more random evening than this in a long time!

After having been in Whistler for roundabouts 24 hours before New Years Eve coming along, we were kind of counting on there being a bunch of 6 other people in our condo who had already been out here for amonth, hada bunch of contacts and knew where to go. As there was just 3 of us who had arrived at the same time, it was a little more difficult than that. We got in touch with one of the other chalets run by the same company, who said they were heading down to a place called Merlins. We'd deciaded pretty much the same thing as it was 5 bucks to get in, rather than $50-100. They said they were going down at 4pm, which seemed a bit excessive. Of course, when we strolled down about 7pm, there was a mile long queue and no hope of getting in. Luckily, next in line were three girls-two Aussies and a Kiwi. We all got talking, they'd driven up and didn't have anywhere to stay, we had somewhere to stay, but no friends, so we did the only sensible thing; invited them up to our place, stopped by the liquor store, and partied the night away. Come midnight time, we were all down in the hot tub, along with about 10 other Canadians and Americans seeing the new year in. Totally awesome as they say over here (a lot), apart from the fact everyone kept asking where in Australia I was from!

Come the next day the plan was to go tubing, have a few drinks, then the girls were going to head off to Vancouver Island. Got back to the appartment, and their car had vanished! I think this had something to do with them parking in a bus stop in front of a fire hydrant. Queue more drinks, more hot-tub time and merriment!

The Greyhound to Whistler.....

Wow, my first ever Greyhound trip! 15 bucks, friendly service, a beautiful 2 hour ride up north and some Canadian university girls to talk to on the coach! You can't beat it!

Still awaiting our first bit of snow as it was 10 degrees and way hotter than the UK when got over there, and it was pretty grey and uninviting in Vancouver, so it was good to get out!

Adding to the excitement was our new South ASfrican friend, Brendan who had only seen snow once,so was getting more and more excited as we got to the snow line!

I couldn't beleive that after alll the planning and wating, I'd finally made it to Whistler! Such a big feeling of relief, and the knowledge that for a month at least could kick back and relax without having to worry too much!

Felt even better when we got to our Condo. SOunded pretty good, but when we got there it was cool - 8 people, four bedroom condo, with only three people staying in it. Get in there. There's a hot tub shared amongst the appartment complex, and it has all t he mod cons inside, plus a room each - we totally lucked out!

Felt even better to get our season passes. Trust me, these are the key to becoming treated with way more respect, and generally feeling like a local! All the people in the shops are friendlier and you get to know them quicker, all the lifties chat with you, and you feel like one of the crowd straight away!

Vancouver

At last we arrived in Vancouver, and I actually began to feel I'd made the right choice. Vancouver airport is amazing, and the British airports could learn a thing or two! It's wide open, friendly and has a bunch of First Nations totem poles and art work and stuff. Apart from having to wait about an hour to get through Immigration (one guy serving a line of about 20 people at one person every 15mins!)it was all good.

At least now I'd landed, and it was all good. Taxi ride to hostel, food , bed etc!

As for Vancouver, I can't really make up my mind at the moment. It was kind of fun being there, partly for the experience of being in my first big city, with sky scrapers and everything! But a lot of the downtown area seemed pretty run down, and there was quite a bit of poverty and begging, which I guess you find in all big cities, but just seemed in your face. Even bits of the more commercial streets seemed run down, but having said all that it's not too bad for a city - better than London!

I think being jet lagged would be a good way to loose weight as we tended to sleep instead of eat for the most part!

Anyway, Vancouver was done for the time-being. Time for Whistler!

The Flight

Ok, all you traveller dudes aere gonna laugh at me when I say, the flight was a killler. I know it was only 10 hours, and everyone else has managed to really enjoy 45 hour flights twice around the world, but it really knocked it out of me! Even Rich said it was bad, and he's been on one of the aforementioned 45 hr flights!

Didn't help that the choice of movies was really bad. Having said that though, gotta put a word in for Zoom airline. 130 quid (lJust noticed that Canadian keyboards don't have a pound sign on them!) each way you'd have thought means a trans atlantic easyjet flight. But actually it's pretty decent - meals, snacks, drinks, wine - all included, plus a ski and snowboard movie just as we came into land which was cool!

still, being couped up in a seat still wasn't calming my seething nerves, as the length of time without sleep was increasing. Still at least we had a bit of air rage to keep us amused. Shame it was 9.5 hours into the flight! As soon as we landed, on came the RCMP and marched her away. Good Work!

Whoops, pressed the wrong button there!

Didn't mean to press that button!

Anyway, Gatwick is a really rubbish airport! For starters an evil baggage handler wouldn't let me put my snowboard bag on as it was too heavy. As if I care bout those poor peoples backs! Thank God he went on a break and left a much cooler guy who let me re-arrange stuff and put it all on!

After sorting all that out, I don't know whether it was the fact I'd been awake for about 36 hours, or the crampt and dull environs of the airport, but I began feeling dead apprehensive! Had I done the right thing?Was I gonna fall flat on my face? Were we gonna be allowed into the Canada?

Only time would tell!

Here We Go

Greetings and welcome to Canada.

I've now been over here for a week and a half, and this is the first time I've managed to get near a computer for long enough. Anyway, I've found a cheapish internet cafe, so I'm now gonna bore everyone's brains off by giving a blow by blow account!

Day 1: Leaving the UK

Man,this day sucked! Got on the bus about 20 mins late after a nervewracking day of watching the snow fall and wonder whether our bus is ever gonna turn up! Still it all turned out good and we managed to get on the bus which was emptyish so time to spread out and fall asleep. At least until Stanstead when a couple of hundred people got on the bus down to Heathrow. Couldn't figure out the bus route seeing as we somehow ended up in Golders Green. At least I think we did, but I was pretty out of it by then!

I really am in Canada now!

Greetings there everyone.

I am now (and indeed have been for a week abnd a half!) in the vast open spaces of Canada.

All is well although I'm constantly plagued by a lack of time in front of a computer.

More news soon!