Archive for February 2007
Today Was A Good Day
No, I didn’t have to use my AK, well, I did use my jacket which is an AK but I suspect that Ice Cube was singing about something else.
Today was a good day for us as it snowed all day long. The weather front that we were expecting to drop today though is now meant to come in on Wednesday.
We did the hike that we did yesterday again I got to witness Julian spitting his dummy in quite a major way, muttering under his breath “I didn’t pay 300 bloody dollars just to walk up the bloody hill”. On the way down I argued with more trees than I actually managed to avoid but still got some sweet turns in so emerged smiling.
Rob didn’t quite make it as he out performed everyone on the Shiraz drinking front, there’ll be plenty of soft stuff for us all to enjoy tomorrow anyway, perhaps he’s done himself a favour taking a rest day before hand.
The Monkey Man Commeth…
We spent our first Saturday on the hill today, there were some queues but still nothing like you would find in Europe.
We had a great day, we did our first hike in to the back country and it was beautiful, there was a lot of sweat and a lot of huffing and puffing (particularly from Read). We got to the top and we stopped for about 10 minutes to take in the surroundings before setting off on our ride, we couldn’t hear anything but ourselves, the air was so still and it seemed like the 3 of us were the only people for miles.
The photos that we took are below, unfortunately my digital camera has bitten the dust so my pictures will be a little more spaced out… i.e. they’ll have to wait until I get them developed and then scanned in (yes ther are people that still use film…), still, it brings me closer to buying a digital SLR, something that I have been trying to avoid for some time.
It was exactly this sort of experience that I came for, so different to what I normally experience in London. To get to where we were we had ridden down from the top of Motherlode until the top of Rino’s Run (formerly Long Squaw) and then dropped down in to the gully below where we took the boards off and strapped them to the back packs.
Julian turned up today and with him came 4.5 litres of Shiraz. Things will never change will they.
His arrival has also bought a bit of mellancoly on too. It’s strange. I have 2 great friends here and yet another one turns up and I miss home and in particular Pole.
Tomorrow will be the first day on the hill for Fernandes, I waxed and edged his board for him today and you know what, I’m getting in to it, I always used to shy away from servicing my bike and then when I bought the Santa Cruz I started paying more attention, particularly after the lot at mediasterling kindly bought me a bike stand as a leaving present and now I take enjoyment from doing something like that.
We built this city on Rock and Roll…
We ventured up to the hill a little late today after having a couple of beers in the newly opened bar across from the Hostel. It was snowing on the lower elevations and blue bird up top, described to us as an inversion by one of the locals. Whatever, there’s meant to be some snow coming on Sunday, what’s more, it’s expected to stay around for a week. To say that I am excited is an understatement.
One thing that has not ceased to amaze me since having arrived in Canada is how much the Canadians like to rock, I mean, everywhere I go I hear some form of rock music, they seem to like music that you would find on the power ballards albums that get released in time for Christmas for kids to buy their unsuspecting Dads. The current theme tune to our holiday, and it has become our theme tune only because it is always on at the lodges that we stop at is More Than A Feeling.
Having waxed the board last night I did indeed notice a difference today, it went faster, I ended up on my arse more often.
This led to my most fantastic stack on a snowboard to date. Riding through some fairly tracked out powder to the side of one of the pistes I pulled a fairly sweet toeside turn which yielded a lot of spray, however, as I came round on to the heelside the nose dug in and I ended up somesaulting and landing on my back somehow, my momentum carried me on a little and I watched my feet with the board attached, travelling over my head, almost in slow motion, until I ended up on my knees looking as though I was ready to set off again. It was so good that a couple of locals stopped to congratulate me. I rode off with my tail between my legs.
Monkey boy turns up tomorrow, we rang him today, I really don’t think that Rossland is ready for him. It should prove to be an interesting couple of weeks.
Daytripper
Today, we went to Trail. Trail is a town that I can only describe to you as Deliverance meets Bexhill on Sea. Weird. It’s famed for the largest zinc mine in BC, probably the world.
The purpose of the visit to Trail was for me to get a haircut, Rob suggested that I get a Top Gun, I declined and we left. We did however stop to take in the local waneeta mall. More weirdness.
To update you on the riding that we’ve been doing, there’s been no new snow recently but there’s some promised for Sunday onwards. Rob and I have been trying to ride switch without much success. One of the locals rode past Rob on his arse yesterday and said “I’ve got 2 words for you buddy… HOCKEY PANTS”. I nearly fell over with laughter. Nice bloke though, he stopped and spoke to us for a while and gave us a heads up on where to head for on the hill.
We waxed the boards tonight ready for another day on the hill tomorrow, there’ll be no excuse for my slowness tomorrow other than my lack of talent. I look forward to it though.
I took the film camera with me today so no new photos but I will update with some more soon.
links for 2007-02-01
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Good round up of SCRUM related links
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Some great bugs listed on Dion’s site. Picked this up via http://remark.wordpress.com
