Okay, I've just remembered these posts appear in the order of newest first, so these comments won't make any sense until you've read the big entry below!

I don't know about you, but I feel really drained after that

I Can Definitely Confirm That Spring is in da House!

Once again it's been a very long time since I've updated this blog, so I apologise for the long windedness of the post. Please feel free to scale it in numerous attempts if you prefer! I shall leave it completely up to you!

I believe last time we spoke I had just knackered my ankles in the park at Blackcomb! Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, this injury did indeed rule me out of the lifty Olympics, although, I was an interested onlooker! It really is pretty handy working a job where people have both the knowledge and the power to get things ike this sorted out. Basically one of the gondola's was left running especially for us to get up the hill, where a small rail course had been set out, using the proper Whistler terrain park rails. Plus there was free beer and food from the nearby mountain restaurant! It became even better when a piste basher turned up, asked us if we waned anything done, and promptly created a kicker for people to huck themselves off! Needless to say a lot of fun was had, and despite not being able to snowboard, it was still good taking photo's of the evening, and generally sharing good times!

I think last time I wrote anything, it was the start of the de-springing of spring. After a week or two of beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures, the weather suddenly became decidedly winter again! Temperatures dropped to below -10 again at the peaks, and we even saw a few inches of snow falling in the village! The views from the hut at the top of the Harmony Express where I work receded from the majesty of the entire Garibaldi Provincial Park and Black Tusk, to just about being able to see Blackcomb mountain, to only being able to see about 2 yards in front of you! It has to be one of the most bizarre feelings ever riding down from the top station of that lift in the fog. The run involves heading down a ridge, the edges or which are marked by bamboo canes and coloured markers. In the fog however, you can't see the edges very well, and you can only just make out the piste markers. The strange feeling comes because the light is so flat, that you also cannot make out any bumps in the snow ahead of you! This means that you cannot see how fast, or in what direction (other than down!) you are travelling. It almost makes you feel slightly sea sick, as your head and legs can feel that you're moving, but your eyes can't reconcile that with anything that you see around you! So far I've only managed to fall off the side of the run once, so I've been doing pretty well!

Luckily, in the middle of all this bad weatheer, I managed to get away to the sun for some time thanks to the visit of Loo! She managed to see Whistler look relatively pretty, cos after a week or so cloud and rain, the rain turned to snow, covering all the brown earth poking it s head through the snow pack on the pistes down to the village. It was almost like being in Whistler in January again, with a good few inches falling and settling all the way down to Village level, with more being found in the Alpine areas.

Actually, this snow gave rise to one of the best days liftying! The wind was blowing and the clouds were in, meaning that there was no chance of opening up Harmony or Peak, and the only chance was the T-Bars, where I happened to be working that day! So the me and the other T-bar lifty, with the Peak chair guys headed down to start digging out the t-bars to see if it was going to be possible to open them. After about 10 minutes of digging, we then had to retreat into the hut to await for instructions. There were the 4 of us in the heated hut, stereo on, chatting about random stuff for about 3 hours, getting paid double time cos it was good friday! Good times. After this it was decided not to open them which meant I had to work on the Fitzsimmon Chair, situated in the main village, and normally only open till the early afternoon. Therefore after about an hour of work, I went on my lunch break for an hour, and by the time I'd returned the lift was closing! All in all a wood day and good times!

After this snow and coldness I was really looking forward to getting away from it to Vancouver with Loo for the weekend. The hotel was rather nice, Loo having paid for (Thanks Loo!) a large suite with a rather comfy sofa bed situated in front of a large satellite tv! It was situated on Robson St in the heart of downtown Vancouver, and was within walking distance of a large portion of the sights! It was quite refreshing becoming a tourist again for a day or two. Had an excellent curry on Robson Street the first night. Thes 2nd day consisted of being very touristy. Went to Gastown, took photo's of the steam powered clock, the statue of Gassy Jack etc, before heading over to Stanley Park. This really is an incredible place to have within 20mins wa lking time of the centre of such a big city. It really is a slice of temperate rain forest right on the doorstep of Vancouver!Some huge trees were found and duly photographed, which I think may have bored Loo a little bit. Added to the trees, the views across English Bay and the Beaches are fantastic. The weahter was lovely and warm, and people were flocking t o the beaches after work for a few beers, soccer, basketball, street hockey, cycling. It really was pretty cool! We then caught the boat to Granville Island, which again was good. The market there is fascinating. Plus, I got to pay a quick trip to the Grnaville Island Brewing Co, where I bought a nice bottle of limited edition beer! It was really good ale, the only problem being (As with all Canadian Beers), they make it too fizzy! Still, with it nice and chilled, it made a very good accompianment to watching the pay per view films in the hotel room! All in all a rather good weekend. Thanks for visiting Loo!

Little did I know that my next visit to Granville Island would be altogether different! After travelling back from Vancouver, I had one day of work to get through before our end of season lifty party. This meant charging back to the locker room after clocking off to get changed, and jumping straight on the bus bound for Vancouver! Officially no alcohol was allowed on the bus, but everyone had packs of beer secreted around their person, or hip flasks or Jaeger or Whisky! This meant that the bus ride down was rather rawkus to say the least! 2.5 hours later I was standing on the river side at Granville Island again, this time with a group of 60 or so less than sober lifty's!After getting frisked when getting on the boat, we saw that it was a pretty cool Two decks, a dining room area, and a dnace floor and disco. I can remember having fun, but the details are pretty hazy from here on in! We cruised around False Creek for a while, before docking again and heading home. Again I felt sorry for the bus drivers, as we were probably pretty loud on the way back. Well, all apart from me, although I can neither confirm or deny the rumour that I spent the majority of the bus ride in the company of a young lady!

Anyway, after 2 hours of sleep, suffice to say the next day was one of my worst days at work yet. Although that was closely followed by the day after when I rode into a tree during a break. Looking back at it, I was pretty lucky, and I will be a lot more cautious in the trees in the future. I managed to get away with absolutely no serious injuries, just a number of sore bits on my knee, my chest, my hand, my neck and a cut on my face! Very lucky indeed, and a bit of a wake up call!

Anyway, thankfully escaping from that unscathed meant that I was free to enjoy the last day of Winter operations here, and the last day of Blackcomb opening. Although I couldn't quite handle the early morning endeavours of Rich and Brendon, I joined them later on in the day! Thankfully they had already got the Couloir Extreme out of the way, as well as Spanky's Ladder, which is good, but the hike up sounded slightly icy from Bredon and Rich's description! Anyway I joined them in time to head up towards the glacier. The weather was gorgeous, with Rich, Brendon and Robbie wearing t-shirts. Following a short hike onto the glacier and along the windlip, we parked ourselves and had us a quick beer. It was in fact Kokanee, which advertises itself as a glacier beer, so it was all very appropriate! There followed numerous photo poses, including the four of us topless in the snow! The other guys then decided to snowboard down the glacier without their shirts on, and much fun was had! It really was one of the best days up here! Friends, beer, snow, mountains - what more do you want. We carried on going all the way through till closing time. Stopping every now and then for a beer, going over jumps with some style. Brendan making some really nice tail grabs, Rich doing some big fs180's, and myself landing quite a nice melon and a bs 180, which felt big, and also earned me compliments from two random snowoarders sitting near the jump which was cool! We then rode all the way down to the base. This is one of the reasons why snowboarding is so great! A large portion of the ride down is a long relatively flat cat track, but with a group of snowboarders it's like a little playground, doing little wheelies and nose slides, finding hits on the side of the run to get air off and so on. It really is so much fun, and watching me and Rich come down, we really have progressed so much, just being able to mess around and have so much fun on the slopes. We managed to board all the way down to Merlins at the base of the mountain, which was almost quite emotional after an entire season of doing it! The snow was reduced to one thin strip along the side of the piste. Thanks to the aforementioned progression, me and Rich pretty much straightlined it all the way down, managing to ride out through the large puddles that are now appearing at the base of the slopes!

It really is the end of winter, and another stage of this trip. In many ways, I am more certain and positive about what I want to do and what I want to get out of my time here in Canada. I will be working as a lifty probably until the start of June. In the meantime, I am still looking for tree related jobs. I have a contact on Vancouver Island so it would be ideal if I could get some work with him and combine it with a trip to the island. I've also got a friend on the island who has offered to show me around, and it'd be really cool to sort that out! I've also decided I want to head up to the Yukon and try and see the midnight sun, and be within the Arctic Circle, which would be kinda cool! I also have friends in Toronto who are offereing to show me around the town and surrounding area which would be ace. This may possibly include a trip to Quebec, if I stop being scared of the French. Actually a bunch of the lifty's are from Quebec, and they're all pretty cool so I'm not really too worried about it! I'm reckoning that I might even fly back to the UK from Toronto, as I can't really see the point of the expense required to get a return flight from Vancouver to Toronto, as well as the flight home!

I shall be giving it some thought anyway. I trust you are not too exhausted after tha baring of my soul! Hopefully I shall write again sooner, so that I don't have to write so much next time!

The First Injury of the Season

Well, it had to happen eventually. Atfer an entire three and a half months with no worries whatsoever I finally managed to pick up my first injuries of the season.

I'd spent the day doing laps of the park, going over some of the kickers as mentioned in my last entry, riding some of the hips, charging the boardercross course and generally having a good time! It all happened mid way through the park on the first of the kickers. I'd successdusly negotiated the hips, perhaps going slightly higher off them than I had done in the past, at least that's what it felt like. So this had given me some extra confidence, meaning that I was ready to go for my first inverted 540, which I almost made, but not quite. Wait a minute, Rich'll be reading this, so I suppose I'd better actually tell te truth!

When it came to the first of the kickers, I tried to go with a little more speed to ensure that I cleared the knuckle, which I did more or less. Unfortunately though I leaned back a little to far, then skidded out on the toe edge. All this would have been fine until my board dug in a couple of times as I slid down the landing. I noticed the jarring, but it didn't hurt straight away. It wasn't until I was setting up for the next kicker that I realised my ankles were buggered!

Actually, they're not really buggered, they're both just slightly sprained, but it's enough to stop me snowboarding today! It's actually a bit uncomfortable, as it's difficult to know how to limp if both ankles are hurting. Luckily I came prepared, with various support items from last time I hurt my ankle! These are busy supporting me, and hopefully I should be up and boarding soon. In fact I'm working tomorrow so I'm gonna have to be back in force to ride to the lift anyway. Plus, it's the "Lifty Olympics" tomorrow night after work, so I'm hoping to be able to compete in some of these events. It sounds like there'll be some fun events, as well as a rail park that they're gonna set up. I think some of the lifties are pretty awesome on rails, so they'll be giving lessons out to us rail rookies! But even so, don't be surprised if I write again soon with even more injuries!

Apart from the ankles, everything is good. The sun is shining, I'm wearing shorts to walk into town, and from what I've heard it's pretty definite that I'll have a job here for the spring and summer, which is good. I've been busy skating around the hills of the village, and have been having a great time doing it, apart from one slam involving a kerb and some gravel. Still, no harm done that time though!

Had an awesome BBQ the other day for Mel and Julie's birthday. They'd arranged to use. this small hut on the edge of Green Lake, with a bonfire outside, with punch, and beer, and marshmallows to be roasted over the bonfire. Plus a lessoh in how nice Canadians can be! Walking down towards the site (Which is on the edge of a road to a hotel) down the long wooded drive, a huge Audi with an executive looking couple inside, pulled up, asking "Are you going to the hotel?" Expecting them to ask for directions or something, we said yes, only for him to tell us to hop in so he could give us a lift! I don't think I could see that happening in the middle of some woods in the UK, a business man picking up two less than smartly dressed young men, carrying crates of beer in his top of the range Audi!

Anyway, I definately have photo's of me in my uniform and of my short hair cut, so I'll try and figure out how to put them on the gallery now that we have to use internet cafe's to do so!

Still plenty of photo ops are coming now, with general summerness invading the valley, the aforementioned Lifty Olympics, Loo making the trip over from the good ole UK to come see us (Thanks Loo!), including a trip for me to Vancouver, and the forthcoming Telus World Snowboarding Open, it should be awesome!

The Busy Life of the Working Man

Firslty, I must apologise for the long delay since last writing an entry here. There are numerous reasons for this absence, namely, in no particular order;

- Having a job that involves working from 630 or 7am till 5ishpm means that by the time I finish work I'm about ready to drop so I tend to head home and collapse
- As the muskateers remaining in the house now number only myself and Rich, I have no laptop and therefore no free internet access at home
- And last but not least, I do have a real short attention span, and everytime I buy some internet time at the local internet cafe (I'd recomend Squires!) by the time I've finished emailing everyone, the muse has disappeared and I go home to collapse! (Do you spot a recurring theme here!)

Anyway now I am three weeks or so into my working life over here in Canada. My work over here is still pretty good. It can be a bit repetitious, but each day is different meeting different people, learning new tricks of the liftying trade etc etc!

As a bit of an insight to my life at the moment this is what a typical day entails:

530am: Wake up with alarm
545am: Wake up with alarm again as I try to get some more sleep in. Go to the bathroom to get ready. Go back to bed and fall asleep again.
610am: Actually get up this time, throw my uniform on and normally forget about three things on the way out of the house.
630am: Catch the first bus into town.
640am: Get into town, realising that this bus is still a little bit early for work!
700am: The morning meeting. Get the info on the weather, how much new snow etc. Motivational speeches, messages on safety. Reminders that if we're nice to people and get over 85% on our consumer satisfaction surveys we get more money to spend on the boat cruise around Vancouver that will be our end of season party! Get told a really bad joke (Example: What's small, pink and hangs out your trousers? Your Granny!)
710am: Board the Village Gondola for transportation to my lift (now normally up in the alpine areas)
715am: At the mid point of the gondola, quickly run into the staff lunch room there to see if any coffee has been brewed, normally to find that there's no coffee, or it's cold. (Although this turned out to be to my advantage one time where I managed to miss the cup and pour it all over my hand!) Quickly run back to the gondola, hoping that I've done the coffee trip in time so that my board and gear isn't having a lonely trip up to the top station.
730am: Get to the top of the gondola. Mill around for a while to check that we have clearance from the Alpine Office (To make sure we don't get blown up by ski patrollers using explosives to create avalanches, or get hit by one of said avalanches!)
735am: Ride down to the designated lift. My designated lifts tend to be the Peak Chair, Harmony Expresss, or T-bars. If I'm on T-bars I'll generally be sent to help set up the fences on either Harmony or Peak, as the T-bars are a low priority and get opened after the main lifts are opened.
830am: Generally by now all the fences and signs are up around the lifts, the maintenance checks are done and we're ready to rock and roll!
900am: The lifts are probably open to the public now. This week has been pretty quiet, so now starts one of a various number of activities:
- If it's busy you chat to people getting on the lift, making sure no one kills themselves or falls off the chair straight away. Be ready with Emergency Stop button!
- If there's three of you working a lift, you start your breaks. This is the best bit, as the most difficult part of the job is timing all the breaks so that we fit them in! Our break time during the day ranges from 1hour to 2hr30mins. Normally you have a number of shorter breaks to go riding, sometimes a breakfast break, and a 1hr lunchbreak!
- If it's really quiet you can think of various funny things to write on the message board. For instance, warning guests of Polar bears at the top of the lift, or trying to sort out dates for some of the lifties! If you have even more time on your hands you can turn your hand to snow sculptures. So far there's been large snowmen, pick up trucks, cats and various other things, as well as a display of rubber ducky's!
300pm: Start dismantling the maze of fences
330pm: Time we're supposed to shut, although we always stay open for 15mins after. The public think we're doing it as a special favour for them, and get really happy, not realising that we've got to do it! People are easily fooled!
345pm: Close the lift. Fend off people who, despite staying open an extra 15mins for them, get angry when they're refused a lift up. This is because the ski patrol take the last lift up, and have to ensure that the mountain is empty of people at the end of the night. If we let extra people up the lift, we get killed basically! Ski patrol are strict like that!
400-430pm: Finish tidying away. Complete paperwork. Start the ride down to the valley. This generally involves boarding down the 2500m vertical drop with no stops, unless another lift needs help to tidy awway!
500pm: Generally get back to the valley roundabouts now and swipe out for the day.
530pm: Catch the bus home and collapse!

So that is my working day pretty much. It can be hard work, but it's fun, and it can be pretty rewarding when you can tell that you really have improved people's days by being nice to them or whatever!

I'm also beginning to get to know my fellow lifties socailly, and went out with them 3 times last week. This included a FUBAR night (Meaning F****d Up, Buy A Round). This involved me not remembering much and waking up at 5m on the living room floor! Last night was a disco ice skating party which was fun. I was by far the worst skater there, but it was all fun! Had another go at ice hockey, again which was fun!

As for non lifty related stuff, my riding is getting on quite well. Managed to build up the courage to hit the medium sized kickers in the park which is fun, as it really does feel like I'm flying for ages. I know that a video camera would prove me wrong on that score, but hey, it's all about the feeling, isn't it!