It was still proper cold on Friday night (-20ºC) as I wandered the few blocks west to meet up with work-mates for pizza before we headed to the hockey game over the road at the Rec Center.  The hockey in this game was much better than the previous game I had been to – much faster & open, I was quite enjoying the play.  Unfortunately, when you go to hockey games they spend more time not playing than on the ice.  After the first period (of which there are three, each twenty minutes long) they brought out the Timbits (Tim Hortons must sponsor local hockey, as timbits are little balls of donut goodness that must be made from making the hole in donuts) for a little game.  These were five or six year olds having a little game in the centre of the rink – & possibly the cutest thing I have seen in a long time.  Most of them looked about as good as me on skates & spent a lot of the time dragging themselves off the ice.  It was hilarious.

The second period was pretty good also, even though we were losing (I think this game was a dead rubber – last week of regular season before the playoff & all that) & then came another indeterminable interval.  In two hours we had seen forty minutes of the game – which is just retarded, in two hours you can get through eighty minutes of rugby or ninety minutes of football (soccer).  I’d had enough of the waiting & snippets of bad songs, so it wasn’t difficult to persuade me to pop around to a workmate’s house for a drink or two – which was a pity, as the game was interesting.

For the second day in a row, it started off at -30ºC so I wrapped up with five layers of icebreaker (& outer layers of course) before driving up the hill to get (snowboarder) Alex for a morning at Sunshine.  For a long weekend, it wasn’t overly busy (probably something to do with the frigidness).  I think I’ve been spoilt this year – I wasn’t enjoying the lack of fresh snow & the hard pack was just plain slow.  Nonetheless, it was a gorgeous clear day & we had a good seventeen or so runs in between popping inside to warm up.  Alex thought I would handle the double black diamond South Side Chutes, but I wasn’t overly convinced.  But a bit of encouragement is a good thing, so we ended up at the top of the chutes where there wasn’t a lot of snow & plenty of rocks that slowed my entry down a bit/lot.  Looking at the map, I think we dropped in to Far Side – which wasn’t too bad.  I had one of my little backward falls coming out of a turn, but managed my way down with some long turns.  The snow was friendlier in the bottom half & we passed the camera around a bit.

The chutes run in to Eagle Creek, another black diamond run that is first a pleasant little road-ish ski before dropping in to the much skinnier creek canyon – this was good fun as it was twisty & bumpy.  Avoiding the cliff face (where apparently someone went over unbeknown to them, landed heavily & broke their back) we were eventually back at Goat’s Eye base station.  A couple of nice runs down Scapegoat & we’d had enough of the cold – so we headed home.

Some kind-hearted & smart person had got Megan the wonderfully titled “Killer Bunnies” card game for her birthday.  That’s amusing on many levels with the obvious Monty Python reference (there’s also a weapon called the Trojan Bunny),

& my fear that the plague of domestic bunnies that have infested downtown Canmore will one day turn crazy & started jumping at people’s throats.  The game is quite amusing with many different cards ranging from the Cyber Bunny, the Ebola Virus, Large Prune Danish & so on.  I’m still not completely won over as the winning of the game pretty much comes down to a lottery & the rules & cards are somewhat ambiguous.  Still, it’s a bit of fun.

I managed to get hold of some photos with me in them – thanks Karin.  Here are some that prove I was actually there.

Joel, Lincoln, Kristy, Adam, me, Al, Megan & Finn, Karin (rear to front, left to right) at the lunch stop

Lunchstop

Second (proper) bridge crossing

I think Karin got bored of me stopping to de-snow my skis, so she had to keep herself (& us) amused by falling over

In other news, Lincoln & Al (more Aussies, friends of Joel’s visiting for two months) are moving in to our spare room this weekend – so we’ll have a full house, which should (better) be fun.  I’m off to my second (ice) hockey game shortly – just a local one.  It’s a work function as Lafarge is one of the key sponsors – should be a nice change as we’re in the middle of a kiln shutdown & everyone else is very busy (I just keep doing my little projects) at work.

Two weeks was long enough to give my shoulder a break before I went stir crazy, so on Saturday I joined seven others (Finn came along for the ride too) to cross-country ski the Goat Creek trail to Banff (the trail starts up behind Canmore & runs the length of the other side of Mt Rundle).  Some warm, moist air rolled in from somewhere & unforecast snow fell on us all day.

It was pretty sticky & for most of the first half of the day, I had big clumps of snow sticking to the bottom of my skis – I definitely put too much grip wax was on.  Consequently, I couldn’t glide down the hills for quite some time & had to keep the walk/grip action going.  Before the first creek crossing, most of us were starving – so here was our lunch stop.  All that extra resistance had obviously made me hungry – as well as the lunch I brought, (some of) all the food Kristy & Joel had brought to share was much appreciated – more sandwiches, zucchini slice & ANZAC biscuits.

By this time I’d scraped a lot of the grip wax from my skis & after lunch I was finally able to keep too much snow accumulating & even glide down some hills.  On one particular hill I was sliding quite nicely until the snow built up too much on my right ski & it stopped in a hurry.  Not wanting to put my arm out to break my fall I ended up with a face full of fresh snow – much to Adam & Karin’s amusement.

The snow kept falling & there ended up being quite a bit on the Chariot.  Extra weight for Megan to stoically pull.

Although the trail has a net descent of a few hundred metres, to many of us there seemed to be a lot more climbing than there should be.  But I didn’t mind, as after lunch life was much easier for me as I didn’t have to work downhill as well as up.

Adam, Karin & Megan on one of the descents near the end of the day.

After fifteen or sixteen kilometres, Finn decided that he’d had enough of the inside of the Chariot – so I ended up with the pleasure of towing it while Megan carried Finn.  This I was happy with, as having the Chariot trailing behind me made life a little more interesting.  Five and a half hours later (plenty of stops with a nice big group) we made it to the parking lot at the end – some walked up to the hot springs while three of us returned (in the car parked in the lot the night before) to the trail head to pick up the other cars to return to Banff & pick every one up.

I’m slowly learning how to use my GPS & actually getting out & doing a trail helped to give me something to muck around with.  So here’s a little plot of Saturday’s outing – which you can manipulate a bit.  You can see how much my speed increased in the second part of the day (View Details down in the bottom right).

Sunday, Alex & I headed out to Sunshine for the morning.  It was still snowing a bit & down out of the wind the skiing was pretty good.  But up in the wind the slopes were well scoured out & pretty nasty.  I was pleased how my shoulder fared – not falling on it helped a lot.  After lunch we did a couple of runs before rushing out to beat the avalanche control access road closure.  I had a little time before dashing off to Calgary on an airport run to pick up (another) Alex returning from her weeks of snowboard-cross competitions.  After that somewhat tiring weekend – it’s nice to be sitting at home now on the couch watching a pretty cheesy episode of Chuck.

I’m not sure that neologism is proportioned correctly as I was the only Kiwi there, but more of that lately.  A Chinook blew through most last week & it was ridiculously warm – which made for some nice evening skis at the Nordic Center & a nice break from having to scrape ice off the car in the mornings.  But it was a little annoying as all the snow melted & there were big puddles everywhere which soon refroze & turned walking out of our driveway treacherous.

By the end of the week a big snowfall warning was in effect & another powder Saturday was in the offing – the fourth in a row.  I drove Pete & Donna (Melbourne-ites visiting Megan & Alex) & their friend Mark up to Sunshine nice & early & we quickly had a good few runs in.  It was pretty cold (~-15ºC) which worked out nicely as it wasn’t all that busy.  We all had a few little falls negotiating the powder & the average light, but they were rather inconsequential.  Well they were until I somehow fell directly on my right shoulder on snow that wasn’t so soft.  It was a little sore & while I collected my skis & poles (after having slid 10 metres down the steep slow), the adrenalin wore off & I realised I’d popped it out again.  It was a little hard getting off the run as no-one came down it for ages & it was steep; eventually I made it to a flat section with the help of a couple of boarders & Ski Patrol finally turned up.

There were a few bright sides of this – firstly I got my first ride on a Ski-Doo (even if it was rather painful).  It was a little while before the doctor turned up at the infirmary & they wouldn’t give me any food even though I was starting to feel pretty weak.  I was also complimented on my diet – my blood pressure was 104/60 or something like that when my shoulder was still out & my body was pretty traumatised still.  Eventually the doctor arrived & put my shoulder back in with some method that he called the Captain Kirk method – for reasons that were lost on me as I’m not a Trekkie/Trekker.  With that nice popping sound, I was a lot happier – especially compared to the next guy they brought in.  He’d managed to dislocate his shoulder above his head & was in what could only be described as excruciating pain.  I haven’t heard someone scream so loud & for so long for a long time, if ever.  After the nitrous oxide failed to calm him, it was time for the IV – eventually they got his shoulder back in.

So I had the afternoon off skiing, but wasn’t alone for too long as I went & camped in Trappers – Alex came & visited briefly and then I had a nice long lunch with Anya & Greg before meeting my carload at three & heading off the hill (always fun being in the passenger seat of your car while people drive stick on the wrong side of the road [for them] for the first time).  With Australia Day just passed & Waitangi Day (pretty much NZ Day for those who don’t know) coming up next week we had a little celebration at Joel & Kristy’s – six Aussies, two Canadians & me.  There was Aussie paraphernalia everywhere (amongst it all one NZ flag & I had a stuffed-toy Kiwi pinned to my sling) & much Aussie music completed a great roast lamb dinner & then Aussie & NZ themed cupcakes, pavlova, lamingtons &ANZAC biscuits.

So today was one of those annoying enforced rest days as I contemplate having to rehab my shoulder again & try not to play what-if scenarios over in my head.  I think it’s most irritating as it had been so good over the last few months.  It has been pleasant having a day off watching movies however & relaxing on the couch – although I was looking forward to getting out back-country today.  It’s a gorgeous day out, if a little chilly.  Canmore is looking particularly beautiful today, so it wasn’t too much of a hardship wandering to the grocery store.

Mt Rundle didn’t look too bad either

So I face a couple of weeks doing not much active – if it doesn’t snow next Friday, I might cope.  Just as well I’ve got great friends here – even if it is a stink way to go to get people to do your shoelaces or jacket up for you.  With February approaching there’s only three months left here for me – can’t wait to get on the bike again (haven’t hurt my shoulder doing that) & doing a bit more travelling.