My mind wonders…

Our second day of Cat Skiing with Big Red Cats has been and gone. Having had in excess of 1 metre of snow in the last 5 / 6 days even with a knee that is giving me plenty of grief I wasn’t going to miss out.

What a day. There was almost too much snow (don’t shoot me down just yet, read on…), at least for the level of course that we were doing, some of the inclines were a little too shallow and made it a little hard work to get going. Once you had struggled through the thigh deep powder to get going it was awesome. The front thrid of your board would pop up above the snow, the rest deep beneath you and you would begin effectively aqua plaining. It was an incredible feeling, each turn was so sweet, each tumble I took bringing a giggle from me (trying to get back up didn’t though.), each face shot better than the last, the realisation that you are riding in waist deep powder from time to time. It’s almost indescribable.

Whilst I know that the experience is totally dependant on the weather conditions at the time, I must say though, if you ever get the chance to go, do it. You won’t regret it.

My knee prevented me from doing 3 of the 8 runs which didn’t really matter, the 5 that I had will stay with me forever, I did get the added bonus though of riding in the Cab of the Cat, something that I have always wanted to do. To be bounding down a cat track doing 30ks an hour in one of those vehicles is just incredible.

So not a full day but I still enjoyed it. I’ll be keeping one eye on the weather and one of the stand bys for the rest of our time here that’s for sure.

The tree won. Obviously.

I’ve sustained another injury, this time with a bit more of a story to it. I was riding with Nathan, Craig and a bloke from the hostel Richard, in a set of trees that we know as Stu’s Run, there’d been another 15 cms or so of snow overnight and so I was finding whatever I could to pop off of.

Richard highlighted a jump to Nathan and I, he rode at it first and landed in a heap on the other side, still smiling as there was so much powder to fall in to. Nathan was up next, caught some nice air and rode it out before falling and then to my turn. I’d paid attention to the speed people were taking this time (after the last time, when I hit a lip in Mini Bowls at warp speed and twisted my ankle on landing). Anyway, I got some fairly nice air, landed it and rode out like a hero. Or so I thought, I went in to a heel side turn and didn’t see a small tree poking up. My board went one side of it and my body the other, my front knee taking the full impact.

It hurt so much that I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I couldn’t move for a couple of minutes, in fact Nathan had to release my bindings for me. Not pleasant. I finished off the run and then took Long Squaw home.

It was still an amazing day with plenty of bottomless turns and grins all round.

Today has been less eventful. There was 25cms of snow overnight and it’s snowed all day and I have been sat in the hostel resting and contemplating whether or not I should go Cat Skiing tomorrow. I’ve decided to go, we’ve just spoken to them about a lift in the morning. In their words “It’s deep, mount your bindings back and bring a snorkel.”

I love this place.

Canadians have a tendency to use the word Awesome to describe anything remotely better than ok. Today however, when in lift queues I heard a couple of people describe the conditions as Epic. They were not wrong. In the last 4 days we’ve had about 60cms of snow.

I met Craig and his mate Mike this morning and with the weekenders gone there were hardly any other people about. At the top of Motherlode we headed for Powderfields, at the top there were perhaps 2 or 3 other sets of tracks leading down the hill so we got fresh lines all the way down, at points the snow was over my knees. I’ve said previously that from this trip I wanted at least one powder day and one faceshot. Well the powder days have been plentiful and this morning I got faceshot after faceshot, so many that I stopped counting.

Anyway, the run down was so good that we decided to do another there and then we followed that up with a couple down Orchards which again was just perfect with maybe 6 people having ventured down it before us.

After a quick blast down Mini Bowls I met with Rob and Nathan for some lunch at the Paradise Lodge. After that we headed to Short Squaw, a run that had been recommended by a local and that didn’t disappoint with yet more of the good stuff. I think we did another 5 or 6 runs, each time managing to find fresh tracks before calling it quits at about 3.

I might have said previously that I’d experienced my best day on a snowboard, they’re actually getting hard to distinguish between at the moment, I would have to say though that today currently ranks up there as number 1. I do hope that I get to experience more days like this. If I don’t though, so be it, I’m happy to have been able to experience the ones that I’ve had so far.

The title pretty much describes my last 3 days.

On Thursday we only did 2 runs. We hiked up Mt Roberts twice, the snow was incredible, it took us about an hour to get to the top on the first go, we lunched up there and it was freezing, I mean really cold, my gloves froze up to the extent that they were solid but oh my goodness was it worth it. We dropped off the ridge and in to at least knee deep powder, I got some amazing turns in and even managed to find a couple of lips to drop in off of. I got down to the Paradise Chair and was grinning like a Chessire Cat. It was incredible.

The second turn however was a little more arduous. The legs were burning, the sweat was pouring, my legs were telling me to stop walking, my mind was telling me to carry on… Again though we got to the top and turned in fresh powder, our tracks already covered from the previous run. I will never get bored of this.

We had an amazing day, another best day ever on a snowboard.

Friday came round and we did a few easy runs as there had been some drinking the night before. I think I did one run and decided that I was not an active participant in my eventual emergence at the bottom of the hill so I retired to the Rock Lodge for a bacon and egg bagel followed by a Cheese Burger all washed down with lots of good coffee. Satiated and when the rest of the boys turned up I suggested that we try the hike up Gray Mountain. The hike was incredible, I’m really starting to get in to this touring, if I continue though I will definitely be purchasing some snow shoes. What wasn’t so incredible though was us getting a little lost in the depths of the forest that we rode in to and it taking us a couple of hours to walk ourselves out. There were a few lessons learnt yesterday.

Today however made up for all of our troubles yesterday, we went to the pub last night for some food to celebrate our day and watched 17cms of snow fall in about 3 hours. It was incredible. Today was amazing, we’ve done about 8 or 9 runs, maybe a few more, my legs are aching but the smile is back and with another 20cms due tonight I don’t think it will be dissapearing for a while.

So Saturday came round and with it our first day’s Cat Skiing with Big Red Cats. As I mentioned the other day we had about 10 cms of snow on Friday which made it all the more promising. We weren’t to be disappointed. We were picked up from the hostel at 7.20, a little bit of a rude awakening now that I’ve well and truly got in to holiday mode but still. We got to the hill and were given our Avalanche Transceiver briefing then we loaded in to the vans for the half an hour drive to their base. Once there the kit was transferred to the cats and off we went. The first trip was another half an hour or so. We did about 9 runs through some lovely powder and I even managed to get a face shot in which is something that I have always wanted to do on a snowboard. The day was fantastic, run well and we were well looked after. I look forward to the next one in March.

For the last couple of weeks or so I’ve been experimenting with my stance a little resulting in me riding with a pretty duck stance, mainly because I wanted to try riding switch but also because it’s good to experiment with these things. Anyway, I took Friday off on account of my knee, to give it a chance to rest up before the cat skiing and as Rob’s board was in the repair shop he borrowed mine. He came back at lunch time as he was having such an issue riding it and said that I should consider moving the back binding back in. After some consideration I did so. It’s made a lot of difference, I can hold a heel edge a lot easier in a straight line and it would appear that it is also putting less pressure on the knee which means that for the first time in a while the knee feels ok which is good news.

It was Brian’s, the hostel owners Birthday on Saturday which meant a big night for the hostel, we got ourselves warmed up with some Calimochos before heading over the road to Nowhere Special the local bar. Suffice to say that we all drank a little too much, I did some dancing (never a good sign) and probably spoke a lot of rubbish at anyone that was prepared to listen (perhaps those that weren’t prepared as well). I was found wandering round the hostel late at night by Ali who steered me to my room and showed me my bed before I accused her of poking me in the eye. She hadn’t. More rubbish. Sunday was spent moping round feeling sorry for ourselves. I’m never drinking again. Until the next time that is. At least I can be glad of one thing, there were no tubes / buses to fall asleep on / lose belts / gain action men etc etc…

It’s been a few days since my last update, so a quick round up is in order.

As I mentioned the other day we had about 10 cms of snow the other day and upholding a promise to us Ali and Phil took us out for a tour of the best areas in the powder on the mountain. We did a number of runs, all of which were a lot of fun but with the Paradise Chair down a long run out to the Motherlode chair for the return trip to the top of the mountain. Luckily the chair happened to reopen when we were at the lodge for some refreshments so we all finished up and raced down to gain access to some of the terrain that wouldn’t have been tracked out. We rode a groomer down to the lift and put some fresh tracks down which was a lot of fun and then hit a couple of more runs before our last of the day down Beer Belly. Rob, being the internerd that he is took his GPS device out with him and recorded our data from that data to allow him to load it up in to Google Earth. The picture of our route can be found on his post here.

Yesterday we went up quite late, I took the first lift to the hill which turned out nicely, when the next person stopped Rob stuck his board in the back of the van, he then told Rob that he would have to get in the back, thinking that he could sit in the back of the cab Rob made for the front door only for the driver to say “no, no, the back” as I understand it, the 15 minute drive to the hill was cold, very dark and a completely new experience for Rob. I’ll be sure to be mindful when hitching next time. Anyway, I think we ended up doing 3 runs before calling it quits for the day, we did the hike up to Wolf Ridge again and the conditions were ok but not as good as we had expected, I think both Nathan and Rob left some dummies / toys on there somewhere at various stages of the descent. The hike slightly exacerbated my knee so I called an early halt to the day. I think a trip to the doctors is in order, I will make an appointment for Monday.

The good news though is that there was another 10 cms or so last night with another 5 – 15 due to fall today, I am sat here in the hostel now as I have chosen to take today off to rest my knee before our day with Big Red Cats tomorrow. The forecast is for blue skies tomorrow, which with all of this new snow will make for an amazing day I am sure, I will update you all on my return.

After the hill received around 10 cms of fresh there was nothing that was going to keep me in the hostel for another day, so I ventured back up to the hill.

What a day it was, we did a run down Long Squaw so that I could see how my knee was holding up and it seemed fine so we went up and did Couloirs, then Beer Belly and then having been split up from Rob and Julian I met with Phil and Ali the people running the hostel and did Oil Cans all of which were tree runs with plenty of fresh powder to be had. I spent a lot of time on my arse but did get some really nice turns in in deep powder. I can safely say that today has been the best day I have had on a snowboard so far. I came off the hill at about 2 with that really nice warm afterglow and a very big grin on my face.

The knee has swollen up a bit this evening and is a little painful but it was snowing as I left the hill and there is quite a bit more forecast for tomorrow so I will not be staying back here with the prospect of another day like today.

I came away on this trip just wanting one good day on a hill and to be able to get a wall of powder up from a heelside turn, whilst I didn’t fulfill the latter, I certainly did the first expectation and I now I just want more and more.

We’ve got a day with Big Red Cats on Friday which I am looking forward to immensley so I will stay in the trees tomorrow to try and get some practice in.

Not quite in the Big Brother House but in the Hostel as part of my enforced absence from snowboarding.

The knee is feeling a little better if perhaps a little stiff still, maybe I’ll make it up there for a couple of hours to see how it goes tomorrow.

Really, there is nothing else to report other than that I’ve done a lot of reading and a lot of playing on the Ms. Pac Man Table that they have here.

It’s been good to hear from those that have chosen to comment on the blog, keep them coming. It amused me to find that one of Rob’s posts has been commented on by his Dad. Unfortunately this will be the only comment though as Rob has now disabled them.

Mr Read, if you’re listening, do Fedex the poker table, it would be interesting to see Rob get that back through customs.

Phil and Ali that are running the Mountain Shadow Hostel here in Red kindly took us out for a couple of runs this morning, whilst the conditions were still poor we had a good time, we stopped at the Paradide Lodge for some lunch and then went our own ways. We’d already done a couple of really nice runs on Red itself in the morning and this may sound funny but I found myself going faster because I knew they wouldn’t be waiting for me. We also met with one of Musky’s mates Mike. All three of them were incredibly good riders, I had felt a little nervous about slowing them up when they first suggested it but they were happy buttering at the side of the piste and pulling the odd drop here and there, all in all a good morning anyway and it certainly pushed me a little which is a good thing.

After lunch we took a run down Long Squaw in to Northern Belle and then on to the Motherlode Chair at which point my day changed. On the unload I didn’t quite get myself set up properly and ended up falling over. In the process I managed to twist my already tender knee and as a result, at this moment in time, am in quite a lot of pain. Still, we went to the Flying Steam Shovel pub and got some anaesthetic. Always works for me.

It’s loooking highly unlikely, even with the prospect of fresh snow tomorrow that I will be able to make it up in the morning, my knee is twice it’s normal size and I am barely able to walk on it without inducing some pain. I’ve been taking it a bit easy so as not to ruin my trip to early on, I feel so silly to now be sat here having done what I have done.