Fingers Crossed......

Well, here's hoping that by the end of today we'll have our accomodation sorted until the end of my stay here in Whistler. Me and Sheany have been busy over the last day or two looking at a few places to see what's what. So far the places we'd seen had been ok, but they'd all been about the same price as the one we're staying in at the mo, and in comparison, were not anywhere near as good. However, we looked at a place today, and it looked pretty cool. There was plenty of room for the two of us, a lovely cosy living room with cable, wireless internet, etc etc. It looked pretty cool, and would be a couple of hundred bucks cheaper per month than the other places. All I'm hoping for now is that the landlord will have us, and we'll be sorted. Here's hoping. We were shown around the house by one of the guys living in the upstairs section of the house (It's a big house split into two sections). He obviously took a guess at his audience as the first thing he mentioned was "Free cable, free porn", then came up with the quote of the week so far, "We've had the porn on tv for the last week cos we're afraid it might just disappear!". Anyway, lets hope for the best.

Looks as though everything will be changing soon, the trip once again morphing into a different stage. I'm actually pretty excited about it all at the mo. Not only will I be moving house, but I'll also be changing workplace, heading over to Blackcomb glacier rather than Whistler mountain. I.m not sure how this will turn out - the guys originally from Blackcomb who joined us at the end of te Winter season have said that Whistler is way more chilled out, but we'll see how it goes. I hope as well that I'll be working on the t-bars at the top of the glacier so I can get to play around on my lunch breaks. However, I have a feeling there's just as much chance of me being sent to work on either the Wizard or Solar Coaster, two of the lifts that operate to get people up to the glacier, but where there isn't any possibility of any boarding!

I've also been looking into travel options for later on in the trip, and it is kinda scary as well as being exciting. I think my itinerary will be hire a car for a week in early August, drive to the island, look at trees, visit people there and generally chill. Perhaps even go surfing! Then fly to Toronto for a week, then fly back to the UK at the end of the month. Although this is all still roundabouts 3 months away, just looking into it makes it feel kinda imminent! It's gonna be ace being back in the UK, but I will miss the Canadians. It really is an awesome country, and I would recommend it to anyone - it does feel almost like home now!

Anyway, perhaps one of the few problems with Canada is it's proximity to the USA. Still it's not exactly Canada's fault, just a cruel geographical fault. I've been watching a few episodes of the Today Show with Jon Stewart over here. I think it was being shown back in the UK on BBC3 or something recently. It's basically a satirical news show and is pretty funny. One bit on it last week showed why some Americans perceive the world in such a biased, Republican centred type way. There's been a lot in the news over here about the National Security Agency looking into phone records,and everyone's been pretty much up in arms, considering the changing of the story from the Bush government. As I understand it, Bush and his croneys kept saying it was just looking at international phone records, but it's turned out they've been doing a lot of snooping into domestic phone calls, continually justifiying it as a necessary weapon in the "War Against Terror". The scariest bit of it was the clips from the Fox news channel included on the show. I'd heard that Fox was a pretty right wing tv channel, but didn't realise quite how much until seeing these clips. They showed the Fox anchors sticking up for this invasion of privacy pretty strongly, and finished with one of the anchors ranting on about how neccessary and finishing with the phrase "It's better to collect these phone records, than to be collecting dismembered limbs". With one of the biggest tv news channels putting these sort of views across as fact and balanced reportage, it's no wonder that so many of the country's population can be very easily controlled and told what to believe.

Anyway, rant over, I'll calm down now. The sun is shining, I had some fresh powder last week so all is good. It really is pretty surreal putting fresh tracks down a hill near to the end of June. The great thing is that there are so few people around that no one else is here to track the mountain out. Therefore it was like a lifty's paradise, the only people to claim first tracks were us lifties whilst out on our breaks. It's fun, especially considering that I'm working on the Peak chair at the moment. This means that I have easy access to the best snow on the mountain at the mo every time I head off on a break!

I think I need some more preparation for summer - I need some boardies and some flip flopssor sandals.

House Trained Lifty Looking For a Flat......

After all this time living in the lap of luxury up in the Benchlands condo, my time there is finally coming to an end, and soonI shall be moving to pastures new. This may well be a good thing, as I think a change of scenery will be pretty good. Having said that I will miss the hot tub, the location and the general space of it, but we'll see what we can find.

So, life over here has been pretty much chugging along as normal. Not too much has been happening, but at the same time it's all been pretty good. The weather has been pretty awesome for the last two weeks or so. The sun was out constantly, with temperatures at the peak rising to about 10 to 15 at the peak. This is definitely pretty warm for snowboarding, and I was sweating wearing two t-shirts through the park.

I had some awesome days off this week. I'd had a few weeks where I didn't really feel too much like snowboarding on my days off, and I'd only go up on one of the three days. This week though, I hit the slopes all three days, and I hit them pretty hard. Unfortunatley literally a few times, but nevermind! I basically spent the entire time riding the park, and had some of the best rides for a long time. I carried on practicing over the kickers, gradually going bigger and bigger. It really is a good feeling that's pretty difficult to describe, but definitely something I'd recommend. I now no longer have any real worries about not making it over the knuckle of the landing, hitting the sweet spot of the landing more and more, making it so smooth. In fact I even managed to go too big on some of the medium sized kickers, which unforunately I missed the sweet spot and landed on the flat! Becoming more and more confident in the air means I've been trying some different grabs, and did some tail grabs the other day, which was super fun (As they say in Canada!). Another thing I tried this week for the first time was the halfpipe. I'd never really fancied it initially, thinking it just looked too big and scary. But now that I've done it I can't understand why no one else does it! It's so addictive. As yet I haven't fallen in the pipe, and just the rhythm you get into is a great feeling, as you do jump after jump. Also, after a few runs it really is exhilarating, dropping in and gradually building up more and more confidence not to speed check before flying up the first wall, and eventually getting out of the top of the pipe. It may not look to impressive from the outside, but it feels great, and is pretty scary. Although you may only be a foot off the top of the wall, the walls are about 10foot high, so you're still going to fall about 11 foot back to the floor!

Anyway, other than riding, I've had a few fun nights recently. Living so close to Lost Lake, we decided to make the most of it and have a BBQ there one sunny evening. Following the BBQ, it was decided more drinking was needed, and so off we headed back to the condo, for the longest hot tub marathon session yet. 3 hours later everyone was pretty wrinkled, but lots of fun was had and drinking done!

Unfortunately my time working on the Harmony Express Chair has come to an end, and it ended with a bit of a whimper! I'd been working on the chair since I started working on the lifts, and I'd been the only person who had worked every day on Harmony when it was open during the spring season. Therefore, as this was the last weekend of operations I was hoping to send it off with a bit of a party atmosphere. Unfortunately this wasn't to be. Although Sunday was fine, rain stopped play on both Saturday and today (Monday). With the rain falling all the way up to the peak, this apparently hugely increases avalanche risk, so there was no choice but to shut it down!

However, today did end up being quite good fun! My task today was basically to tidy up and close Harmony down for the season with a fellow lifty. So although there was no last day fun, my colleague was sled trained, so we were able to take a sled out to the bottom of the lift. With me hanging on for dear life, we tore up the hill, stopping off the hill to check on some other lifty's, where instead of helping set up, everyone took it in turn to ride the sled (Continuing the theme of slightly illicit activities mentioned in this blog, I hope none of my supervisors are reading this!). This being the first time I've actually driven a sled, I can kind of see that they would be kind of fun. It was pretty exhilarating driving down this cat track at roundabouts 90km/h, kinda bouncing all over the place! On the way back from work, with the fully certificated sled driver behind the handle bars, we did nearly crash though! The thing with snowmobiles on slushy slopes, when you're going pretty fast downhill on an off camber slope, it can be pretty difficult to stop, turn, or do pretty much anything! Hence the fact people probably would've laughed seeing a snowmobile gradually slide closer and closer to the edge of the slope, with two guys leaning so far over they're nearly touching the snow to try and get the thing to turn! So that was pretty fun, and I also got to work a half day, but because of Victoria Day today, get paid for double time and a half, meaning I was probably better off today than working a full normal day!

Still, accomodation hunting must continue apace, as time is running out! Lets hope we can find somewhere nice!

Another Year Down the Line

So I'm now writing this from the scarily wrong side of 27. Another few weeks have passed, the snow has receded even further up the mountain and the journey is metamorhpising again into a different phase.

We're well and truly into May now, a month where I would normally be thanking God for the Bank Holidays, perhaps braving the sometimes sunny but cold weather to head down the coast for some early beach fun!

However, this time it's been slightly different. The main event that's happened in the last couple of weeks has been my birthday. Due to the timing of this event it was a joint party, with my birthday being joined by a leaving party for Mel and a slightly early leaving do for Rich. It started off inauspiciously, with me and some of the gang being slightly late over dinner, which in turn meant that half way through dessert I had atext from people waiting outside my door wondering where I was! Cue a quick dash up to my house the party got started. Kind of. For a while there was just about 6 sober people sitting around listening to music. Eventually though the numbers begun to creep up, as the growing South African contingent turned up, followed eventually by a few extra lifties who turned up roundabouts 11. This was the sign for the party to really start, and after a particularly nasty dirty pint, I was ready to party! This meant general bouncing and throwing stuff around, shouting along to the music (Mostly Rage Against The Machine, System of a Down etc!) until roundabouts 4am! I dunno if any of the neighbours were in, but we didn't get visited by the Mounties, so I would guess probably not!

Anyway, the whole thing turned out to be a success, and became moderately famous amongst the lifties on the mountain! The best thing about it was that despite the large number of drinks I had I was completely hangover free the next morning! Yay - this meant that the coast was clear to have an afternoon of snowboarding with Rich. As well as being a birthday board, it was also mine and Rich's last board together. This poignant moment was marked with amazingly cold temperatures, some hail to the face, and a few cm's of fresh to play in! It was a really good sesh, with fun being had, lots of little jumps and spins, and a double black chute to top things off!

It was all rather surreal snowboarding on the first of May with so much snow still around, and with the snow falling at one point. But surreal in a good way. To make my birthday even better, as a special birthday treat, Sheany, who had arrived back in Canada a few days previously, cut her time in Vancouver short to head up and see me and Rich, arriving on the afternoon of the 1st. It was really great to see her again, and hugely appreciated as it meant her losing out on some of the days she'd paid for in the hostel.

The next few days were very good. We had a full house again, even if just for a short period of time. Since the party we'd had Case staying, waiting for his imminent move to Staff Housing, so once again there were four muskateers in the house (Hopefully no one from Alpine Elements is reading this!). The sun was shining, the weather was warm, and we proceeded to walk the entire valley trail over a few days, taking in the sun, water etc etc! This was the first time I'd done this, and it pointed out to me what a stunning place Whistler is, and I think it'll only get better with time. We spent one evening down on the beach at Lost Lake, with people playing frisbee, the still warm sun poking it's head over the surrounding mountains, the smell of bbq'd hanging in the air, and the sounds of chilled out beats, laughter and happiness all around! When the water gets a bit warmer it's going to be awesome down there.

All good things must come to an end though, and last weekend brought the end of the Norfolk duo conquering Canada. Rich had decided it was time to go home, although as he left the period of his absence from Whistler was still slightly in question. The plan seemed to be assess the situation in the UK, and then possibly come back to Canada in a month or so! Well, I wait with baited breath to see what the plan will be, but it sure is the end of an era!

Luckily I haven't been left on my own in the condo, which really would seem pretty strange. Case only moved out today, and Sheany is staying until the end, so I won't be lonely after all! Plus at the moment I am kind of seeing an 18 yr old cheerleader. Is this a sure sign of a mid life crisis? Who knows, but it's another one to cross off the list!

All is pretty good here though. Sad to see Rich head off, but I'll see him before too long. Plus I've got the master bedroom now! Life in the condo with Sheany (and until recently, Case) has been pretty good. The only thing I'm not too sure about is the whole dating thing, as I don't think being attached in Whistler here really suits me!

The snowboarding is still good however. I've had some good days, including last Monday which involved up to a foot of snow in places, and learning to grab my melons more securely off the park kickers. I'm still improving, still riding faster, and having more and more fun up on the slopes, which I reckon must be pretty good considering a big part of my job is actually to snowboard right now, which could have taken the shine off it.

The only downside at the mo is my future plans. Following further contact with my contacts, it seems that the entire arboricultural industry over here is going into meltdown and that no work will be available. I was advised to take up carpentry or driving excavators! This probably means I'll definately be staying in Whistler for a while until I come up with my next master plan!

I still have the same plans, but realise that I may have to do some more creative thinking to sort it all out!