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.

This weekend was work’s Winterfest – really just the Christmas party delayed by a few weeks to avoid the craziness of December.  There aren’t too many places in the Bow Valley that can cater for the Lafarge crowd, so after eliminating the others in Banff & Canmore because they’re rubbish, this year we were at the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis.   Kananaskis Village is about thirty minutes drive from home & I hadn’t been up this way since the snow came & mountain-biking was stopped.  I enjoyed the drive up & back in the moonlight picking out various peaks & passes I had biked up to & over.  Dinner was as all good Christmas dinners should be – huge & delicious.  The highlights of 2010 were amusing & I was somewhat bemused by the plant manager identifying housekeeping as the biggest challenge for this year.  Things must be going pretty well if the largest concern is making sure the piles of clinker & cement & raw mix are kept under control.  Since I’m saving for the next adventure I passed on staying the night, so left all my colleagues at the bar in order to get home for a bit of sleep before another day’s skiing.

My cunning plan of actually getting some sleep didn’t work out so well – but I seemed to have survived the day OK.  Driving back out to Nakiska, I was pleased to be avoiding Sunshine as the traffic from Calgary (opposite direction) was very heavy heading to Sunshine & Lake Louise.  Nakiska is a nice little ski hill that is a legacy from the 1988 Olympics – they held the alpine skiing events there, the skifield was built for that purpose.  The Bow Valley has done pretty well out of those Olympics – the Nordic Center in Canmore is world class & Nakiska seems to be quite popular too as it’s great for beginners & the closest hill to Calgary.  There were insane amounts of kids learning to ski & tweens racing – it was best to avoid the lower slopes.

Accordingly, we (my sort-of boss, Viviane & her fiancee, Alex [yes, yet another one]) spent all morning doing runs off the top lift as the runs were good & the queues were non-existent.  Viviane is one of those people who learnt to ski when they were two years old & Alex was pretty handy too.  So it was good fun trying to keep up with them & learn a little.  All the runs were groomed nicely – it was pleasant to be able to try & concentrate on my technique a little more rather than just trying to stay upright as was the case last weekend (not that I’m complaining about powder).  It was another gorgeous & warm day – didn’t need a down jacket all day, this was helped by my remembering to bring my soft-shell this weekend.

Looking across the Kananaskis valley

Alex – I actually managed an action shot

There’s Skogan Pass behind me – where Alex (C) & I biked over a few months ago

The wind really picked up in the afternoon up the top & blew a lot of the snow off near the top of the lift leaving some pretty nasty ice, so we dropped down the hill a bit for the last couple of hours before I returned home & had a nice big nap, dinner & an hour of skating on the pond with friends & friends of friends (Adele you’ll be intrigued to hear I met a climbing GP from Wanaka here for a few days on vacation).  Must sleep before Sunshine tomorrow (avalanche risk is still pretty high this weekend – so no backcountry for me again).

Just when you thought I couldn’t make this any more boring, I’m going to talk about the weather a bit.  It’s been really weird this week.  For pretty much most of the working week, the mercury sat at or around -20ºC – which wasn’t too unusual or unpleasant.  I managed to get one enjoyable XC ski in at the Nordic Center, where I was surprised to find I wasn’t really all that cold.  Then come Friday, it was still just as cold but a whole lot of moisture actually made it this far (from the Pacific) & dumped a whole heap of snow in the valley.  We don’t get a lot of snow (in Canadian terms, not NZ terms) here in town & it doesn’t usually snow when it’s really cold – somehow we ended up with twenty centimetres on Friday.  I was glad – not least because I finally had cause to wear my winter boots when walking around town (shoes have been fine all winter).  They got a lot up at Sunshine too – I think it took quite a lot of work for Alex to free his car after work, looking at the photo I’m not surprised.

Of course, I was back at Sunshine on Saturday for the second powder-Saturday in a row.  This one was even better than the last.  I joined Megan, Alex & Finn for a morning camped at Goat’s Eye enjoying the powder.  Well, it was me & whoever wasn’t watching Finn at the time.  Here’s everyone waiting for the gondola & looking either happy or unaware & confused at the prospect of all that nice powder.

Alex managed to get quite a nice little break from work, so Megan & I got quite a few good runs in.  My powder skiing is slowly improving – at least this week it was a little denser so one didn’t sink quite as easily (visibility was much better too).  With such good skiing conditions(& it was warm, around 0ºC – the temperature inversion had it much warmer than in town for the second day running), there were more people on the hill than I’d seen all season; consequently, the runs became rather scoured out & bumpy by the end of the morning.  Naturally, I had a few more little falls as Megan merrily lead me through trees & down some new runs (for me).  Can you tell she was excited to be out skiing on such a great day?

With a baby-sitter change, I got in a couple of runs in with Alex and then Megan before we skied out (I enjoyed it again, what’s going on?) around lunch time.  A great morning’s skiing & I was pretty tired out – all that turning in all that powder & the heat really took it out of me.

After a lunch & shower stop at home I was walking around to entertain Finn while Megan finished off her rather elaborate rendition of the Settlers board in cupcakes for Alex’s almost-birthday dinner.  Here’s the creek just out side our backdoor, the ducks seem to have come back now that it’s not -20ºC.

It seems now that Finn has a much better idea than he did six weeks ago of who Mum & Dad are – I no longer cut it as an agreeable person to be holding him for extended periods.  Still Megan finished her masterpiece & cooked a casserole before Joel & Kristy got in from skiing Lake Louise.  The cupcakes looked fantastic & tasted pretty damn good too.

With all the snow in the last few days & the warming of the temperatures, the avalanche risk was high all weekend at & above the tree line.  I wasn’t keen to head out back-country, so decided to go to the hill again with Kurt, whom I’d met before Christmas at an Alpine Club event – I mention that only to show that I do actually know a Canadian here & not just Aussies.  Beside, when you wake up & see this, how can you stay at home?

 

Sunshine conditions have definitely improved a lot in the last few weeks!  The crazy temperature variations were in full swing today – so much so that even though I stood outside for quite a while waiting to be picked up, I didn’t even notice I had forgotten to put my soft-shell on.  It wasn’t until we were in the parking lot that I realised that I didn’t have my jacket.  I survived the day with my down jacket on the outside, I was a little concerned that the high temperature would have all the snow that was landing on me melting  – this turned out not to be the case.

Kurt, it turned out, had been skiing for most of his life – he comprehensively left me behind on many occasions.  At least I was able to entertain him with two big crashes on some more of those really bumpy runs off Goat’s Eye.  By lunchtime I was keen to head up to the village to try out some different runs.  We managed to meet up with Joel & Kristy (in Trappers of course) for the afternoon.  By now the clouds had really come in & it was snowing quite heavily again.  We split up shortly after – I figured Joel could give Kurt a better run for his money & I was happy mucking around on some blue runs with Kristy & Ryan.  It was a good afternoon as we stayed away from the white-out on Standish & kept to some of the lower lifts.  By the time we got back to the gondola base, it was fair puking down – as it was so warm, the flakes were huge & pretty wet.   It snowed all the way back to Banff & then strangely turned to rain – I haven’t seen rain for months.  Near the park gates the temperature had dropped slightly to -1ºC, a few kilometres later nearing home it had plunged to -11ºC.  That was pretty crazy – all the rain water had instantly frozen to the side of the car.  I haven’t mentioned the freezing rain yet either.  Alas, it seems all is back to normal now – it’s touching -20ºC again, in time to go back to work.

Going to local news for a while: I’m now extra pleased that we didn’t go back-country this weekend.  Two skiers got buried in an avalanche up Burstall Pass way yesterday – Adele, you may remember we were up there a few-days-shy-of-a-year ago.  They didn’t survive & weren’t easy to find as they were up there with out avalanche transceivers.  I don’t know a lot about avalanches, but that doesn’t seem particularly smart on many counts.  Interestingly, emergency services were alerted by others in the area activating the SOS function on their SPOT – nice to know it works.