GetGeared competition

Now that I’m into my biking (it’s a bit like snowboarding, I’ve reached similar speeds on a snowboard), I’m looking to upgrade some of my safety gear. Particularly Gloves and a Summer Jacket, especially since my crash last year.

GetGeared are running a competition to win £500 to spend at their store.

If you are a biker too, check it out here: http://www.getgeared.co.uk/win-getgeared-vouchers and enter as well. I hope I win though, my gloves are rubbish, and I haven’t got the money to replace those damaged in the accident (stupid insurance companies taking so long for payout!).

Leaving on a jet plane… Again

What can I say about dragging around your own bodyweight in 5 bags, that you can’t figure out for yourselves? Only 2 of the bags have wheels, and on gravel, that doesn’t make a great deal of difference anyway. Had to discard a few items as it was. Ski jacket that was too warm except in temperatures it was immobilised (frozen stiff) in, ski pants that had worn through in places, and a helmet that had interfaced directly with a few too many trees.

I secured some heavy lifting help from a friend who couldn’t get down the mountain in time, then from another in a car who had to depart before I had squeezed everything in the cases I was sitting on, and then my flatmate who suggested I get the shuttle bus to drop me at the other end of town (a capital idea) and then got the driver to wait while I dragged my suitcase and snowboard bag up a 30 degree+ incline. Seriously hard work that. The driver kindly dropped me off near the pickup point (Sobey’s), where I had to drag my bags up an embankment and along a gravel path, in the rain. I had worked out I could put my boot bag on my suitcase, and my nigh-on 2m long ski bag on my snowboard bag. It seems to work. Some local yelled something at me, and I thought he was offering help, but no, seems he just wanted to laugh at me. Thanks Chap.

After waiting a slightly paranoid (being the only person at the pickup point tends to do that for me) 45 mins, the bus arrived. Not much luggage space, so my bags had to go in the isle, while one of the guys asked if we could wait 20 mins while a friend drove down from the resort with his passport. There’s always one. I did a mental check of where mine was. We couldn’t wait as it would already be a little tight on time for one person to catch their flight.

As soon as the bus started, I realised which bus it was. In the last couple of months, it had developed an unpleasant knocking sound in the engine, as if one of the cylinders was not firing properly and the gas was just escaping. I had been wondering when it would break down ever since it started.
About 20 minutes beyond Radium apparently. It had started snowing hard, and I saw what looked like wisps of cloud streaking past the window. I muttered to myself “Please don’t let that be the engine.”, minutes before steam was billowing from the bonnet, and the air vents around the steering wheel. A nice touch I thought. Very atmospheric.
Well we had to turn around, and limp back to Invermere to change buses, by which time, the guy’s forgotten passport had arrived at Tim Horton’s (THE Canadian Coffee shop which is as prolific or more so than Starbucks).

We swapped into a different bus, which had more space for the luggage, dropped half the passengers off in Banff, and reached Calgary airport without further excitement. Whether that girl caught her flight in the end, I know not.

Stayed overnight at a friend’s who collected me, and took me to an excellent Curry house, first curry in almost 6 months! I spent the morning of the next day, wandering around the +15’s in Calgary. In winter, it gets flipping cold, and understandably, few people want to wander the streets for shopping when it’s -30 outside. So there is an enclosed walkway system connecting most of the tower blocks, 15 feet above the ground on the first floor. Pretty cool, if really quite disorientating. It’s not laid out in a grid pattern like the roads, and I stumbled upon a cool food court called the Bankers Way (or something to do with Bankers), and then couldn’t quite remember how I had gotten into the previous Mall. I did a couple of laps inside and out, before overcoming my ingrained nature, and asked a security guard for directions. He wasn’t completely helpful, but I spotted two electronic maps, between which I was able to work out scale and direction, and realised I had been walking past the smallish exit with each loop.

Dragging my bags from end of the airport in Toronto to the other and down a floor, made me believe my decision to pick a hotel with a complimentary airport shuttle, was a wise one. Though my ski bag being nearly 2m long did present difficulties in packing it into the minibus.

While it took a little getting used to, the transit system in Toronto is fairly straight forward. Takes an hour to get to Downtown from my hotel, and I spent my first day (afternoon really, like I was going to get up early on my holiday!), walking around Downtown, in the light rain (felt right at home!), getting an idea for where things were, the scale of the map, and what was on. Due to the rain clouds, the view from the CN Tower would not be terribly far, though it would have been pretty cool being just below the cloud ceiling.

Today, I got up early (10ish, breakfast stops being served at 11), and headed into town. The CN Tower provides an impressive view, one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, with the tallest viewing gallery in the world. The glass floor still feels a little perturbing to stand on, though this time around, there was no small child jumping up and down on the glass (unlike my trip in 2001).

It was amusing hearing people comment about how freaked out they were being up in the SkyPod. One lady wanted to go back down in less than 2 minutes, and some guy found he was better if he walked against the wall, and kept it to his left. Normally I have an issue with heights, but we were in a completely enclosed space, and I felt fairly confident I wasn’t going to fall nearly 400m onto the home base in the Rogers Centre. For a start, the stadium’s roof was closed.

Once I had completed the full tour (don’t bother with the movie and motion theatre, they’re ok, but have nothing to do with the CN Tower), I headed across town to the evening’s show. Medieval Times. A tournament with feats of equestrianism in a dramatisation. Oh, and we got a meal. The costumes were exquisite, the food was pretty good even if I had to eat meat off of the bone with my fingers (I had paid for it, I darn well wasn’t going to leave it!). Swordplay and jousting. Certainly choreographed for the purpose of the story, but in no way diminishes their skill. Grabbing a small hoop on their lances was purely skill, and it was very impressive. Highly recommended show.

The hotel’s keycards have been playing up. Sometimes taking a few tries to work, sometimes requiring me to go back to reception to get it refreshed. After breakfast, I headed back to my room, noticed that the vending machines sign now pointed at some actual vending machines, rather than empty wall sockets, took the Do Not Disturb sign from my lock, and tried the key. It didn’t work. I had planned ahead, and taken the second for just such an event. I must have alternated between the two keys for a couple of minutes, refusing to give up and head to reception, when I heard a voice say “Hello?”. Ah. That would be the occupant of the room I was attempting to gain access to, who didn’t wish to be disturbed. I apologised through the closed door, and went up one floor. I noted that there were no vending machines, removed the Do Not Disturb sign from MY lock, and opened the door. The manifestation of the vending machines should have tipped me off, and if it wasn’t for the DND sign, I would have noticed the door number.

Nearly repeated the fiasco this evening, when someone on the floor below called the lift, and I didn’t check the floor number. This time the presence of the vending machines tipped me off, but the ladies who got in the lift at the same time wanted to go down, and the lift granted their wish first. I got to my door, and neither key worked! I was still trying when the ladies appeared, I commented that I had two and neither were working, then they opened their door on the first try! They laughed when I told them they were just rubbing it in. So I gave up and went to reception. Again.

Snow and Taxes

The season is drawing to a close, only 2 days left… I’m looking forward to getting home, to the people and the stuff I’ve been missing. I know that when I get back, I’m really going to miss the snow!

On thing that does drive me scatty over here, is the sales tax. You only see the pre-tax prices, and there is more than one type of tax, so it’s not always the same percentage added on. This makes it really difficult to work out how much you will actually be spending, especially when you are at the supermarket.

This year was great for snow. All runs bar one (Turnpike 1 – the steepest run) are still open. At the weekend we had 30cm+ in 12 hours, 20 of them in 6 hours. Yesterday we woke up to 25cm at the summit. What a day! It’s a shame that I happen to have been working every single powder day, but I did get 3 really good runs in yesterday. Did a couple of front flips, nose dug into the knee-deep snow, and flipped me over so quickly I landed on my feet and kept going! Yes, I had the camera rolling, but it would have been awesome to have had the 3rd person view.

At the weekend there was a snowboarding competition, the Easy Rider Cup. I entered and competed in the banked slalom in a ride break. There were no prizes for being the fastest, but $50,000 worth of prizes were given out randomly to competitors. Everyone got something, and then we were entered for the grand draw. 16 snowboards to be won. I won a pair of medium female salapets in the first draw (so I’ll be selling those), and then won the biggie in the grand draw… A brand new snowboard, as well as a set of bindings! All that for $25. Nice. It’s next seasons board, so you can’t buy it yet. I still can’t believe I won it!

While I’ve been here, I’ve only visited 3 other ski resorts. Lake Louise, Kicking Horse and Revelstoke. Last week was when I visited Revelstoke with a group of friends. It was snowing heavily on the upper slopes, and raining below the top of the gondola. The snow was knee deep everywhere, and while the visibility wasn’t great, the snowboarding was awesome! Hard work on a trad(itional) cam(ber) board, my left leg was really aching by the end of the day, and I was drenched from the times I went to far and had to board through the rain to the gondola mid-station. IMO Kicking Horse is the best resort I’ve been to over here, though this season at Panorama has been excellent!

Last night was the final Karaoke and Lifty Jug night down at Copper. It was a great night. Most of the Lifties were present, and I sang 4 songs. Moondance, Come Fly With Me, What a Wonderful World, and something from Glee that I still have no idea how it goes, and I’m not sure any of the other Lifties I was ‘singing’ it with knew either. As is the way with large group numbers, the Glee song was less melodic, and more drunken shouting. The other three songs I did solo 😀
Today, it seems all the Lifties made it in who are supposed to be in, most of them are nursing hangovers, one or two of them I’m not sure have actually reached the hangover stage yet. Good job the hill is really quiet today, and that not all the lifts require you to get in the way of heavy things.
A bunch of us will be having fondue tonight, and then on Sunday evening when the lifts have finally shut down, there’s a big Mountain Ops BBQ and beer party. Should be good.

Petroleum & Electricity

Life at a ski resort certainly knows how to keep things interesting. I have been passing things off as ‘probably not too out of place here’ since the middle of the season, but then I stop and think back, and realise ‘no no… that was odd’. Let me start off with the events of Thursday 17th March (St Patrick’s Day).

I was working on the Summit lift. The day had started painfully early (for me, that’s anything before 10:00) as per normal. The morning meeting was filled with tired Lifties and blissfully short of obnoxious ski racers. We’d had our staff hot chocolate, helped out the Champagne Express Lifties on the way up to Summit. All was set up, and guests started being loaded at 9:30 (without any beligerant guests yelling at Tim at 9:15 because he had to wait 15 whole minutes). Quiet mid-week day, so we immediately started on ride breaks. When I returned from mine, I headed straight up to the top so that Dyson could take his break, leaving Rattles at the base to save him having to change into and back out of his ski boots.

At approximately 11:30, I was in the top hut melting the ice from my bindings, when the heater turned itself off in an unusual manner (the fan dropped it’s speed considerably but didn’t actually stop and the heating element started to cool down) and the lift did an emergency stop. I checked my stops and the safety gate, and it wasn’t at my end, I assumed that it was either Rattles or a phantom stop. About a minute later, while I was fiddling with the heater and coming to the conclusion that something wider was amiss, on of the guys from the Summit Hut popped his head in the door to ask if we had also lost power. Hmmmmm… this could be affecting more than just my heater!

The radio (all 3 Summit Lifties have radios) started to go nuts. All lifts on the mountain had stopped! Pretty much everything that required mains electricity at the resort had stopped functioning. The guests nearest the unload ramp were actually staff, so I was keeping them up to date with what was going on, as well as other concerned guests who were at the Summit Hut but came over to ask. The guys on the chair were about 20 feet away from the ramp, and 30 feet off the ground, and were asking me if I reckoned that the snow drift under them was close enough and soft enough for them to drop into. As a Lifty, I couldn’t let them do that, and encouraged them to stay put. One of the summit Ski Patrollers came over to chat and hypothesise, which was helpful.

Around 11:45, we were told that we had lost a phase on our power supply, and it was actually BC Hydro’s fault. They had a faulty power station (we wondered if the beavers had succeeded in their dam building, depriving the power station of it’s water), and their estimate for switch-over to another power station at 11:45. Not much hope on that time-line. It was reported that Invermere had also suffered power loss. Ski Patrollers were assigned to lifts to await instructions for potential evacuation of the lifts, and to advise guests who were not on the lifts, to not head down to the Sunbird chairlift (it’s at least a 20 minute walk uphill to the resort from there when the lift isn’t running).

None of the staff had experienced this situation before (for some, that’s in 30 years of working at the resort), where every single lift on the mountain had stopped at the same time, could not be started, and had to be evacuated. It’s fortunate that it was a mild, sunny, and calm spring day, and not -33C with snow and biting winds. All lifts were equipped with a backup diesel motor for just such an occasion. However, getting these up and running was not a simple case of flipping a switch, and required a lift maintenance staffer (or someone high up in Mountain Ops who knew how) to get it running. There were 5 lifts that needed evacuating, but only three maintenance staff on duty. This obviously presented a few difficulties. The maintenance guys couldn’t just get it started and move on to the next lift, they had to complete the evacuation of the lift, and shut the engine down, before moving to the next lift. Something tells me that Panorama will be reviewing its contingency plans and countermeasures after this.

Some Ski Patrollers had to ski down the lift lines to advise the guests on what was happening, and others to stay at the top to check on guests’ well-being as they got off and to advise them to head down to the village. The lifts moved painfully slowly on the diesel engine, the Summit lift was the last one to be evacuated, and it took quite a while for the evac of the Summit lift to be started. I think it was 12:30 by the time the Summit lift was evacuated. With guests being stuck there for about an hour, we were certainly appreciative of the mild weather. If it had been really cold, we would have had a serious problem on our hands! A Ski Patrol rope evac takes about 20-30mins per chair, and with approximately 250 chairs (not including the chairs heading downhill) stopped, the task would have been monumental, and I imagine a number of people would be suffering some serious health complications.

It seems a couple of staff did actually drop from the Summit chair without injury. I didn’t find out who they were though. We kept receiving revised power on times from BC Hydro, which kept slipping past. All Lifties were told to stay where they were in case the power returned. Unfortunately, as I was anticipating returning to the bottom station before Lunch, my bag containing my sandwiches and my wallet were at the opposite end of the lift to me. The guys at the Summit Hut kindly let me put my lunch on a tab, so I did get something to eat and drink. I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with the Ski Patrollers, in the sun. It’s a hard life! The power didn’t return till after 4pm, by which time only the Mile One Lifties remained, since it is the only lift left running after 4pm (for night skiing). Two bus loads of guests had to be picked up from the bottom of the Sunbird chair.

What a day! Plus it was St Patrick’s day, so a number of people made up for being let off work early, by starting drinking early.

Today I had a family on one chair (at load) ask me at least 5 times if I could slow the chair down for them. I said yes each time (actually more than just the word ‘Yes’ that would have been unfriendly), and it got quite annoying quite quickly (there’s 14 seconds between chairs at Summit). I responded affirmatively to the first couple of requests, just trust that I know how to do my job after 3 months. It’s not exactly difficult. I’m also not going to slow it down the instant that you ask, as that is a waste of everyone’s time, including yours as you wait on the line for nearly a minute. It seems that until they see you actually slow the lift down, people assume that you either a) didn’t hear them (despite having responded to their question), b) didn’t understand what they meant by ‘could you slow the lift down for us, please?’, or c) that you weren’t actually going to slow it down despite having said that you would. A lack of trust I feel.

Had a group of teenagers on snowboards today, who hadn’t quite grasped the complexities of loading a lift. Insomuch-as, waiting at the ‘Wait Here’ sign, checking that the Loading area doesn’t already have people waiting for the next chair, and that the next chair isn’t about to swing round and treat them to a free game of skittles. The four of them paused briefly before proceeding down the ramp, just ahead of the chair that was coming around for the people in front of them. There’s not a lot of time for me to do anything in these cases, and nowadays I normally let them learn from their error of judgement in a way that means they are unlikely to repeat said error. In this case, it may have resulted in people who had done everything correctly being knocked over as well, so I managed to slow the lift down in time, yell at the muppets to get out of the way, and load the preceding guests safely. I then told them off when they managed to get back onto the ramp correctly.

I was told that they didn’t all know how to unload the lift either. One of them tried to skate off the ramp, which meant she expended significantly more effort than was necessary, and wasn’t going fast enough down the ramp to clear the chair as it went around the bullwheel. I’m told it smacked her in the head, catapulting her sideways through the safety gate, triggering an e-stop. Bet she’s glad she wore a helmet. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can really do in time if they do this. By the time you see they aren’t moving quick enough (and this very rarely happens at Summit, I’ve seen it once all season and they were only clipped, not a full on blow), no matter what button you hit, the lift just doesn’t stop that quickly. She was shaken, but not really hurt. So my colleague told her how she needed to unload in order to prevent a re-occurrence. Later, in the same group (different people),  a snowboarder and a snowblader managed to trip each other up, and they faceplanted in a tangled heap on the ramp. Set your board straight, and stand on it, let the chair push you forward and don’t slow down till you are on the flat, away from the chair.

Every now and again, we have a paraplegic skier out on the hill. This guy is amazing! It’s a seat on a single ski with a damping system, and a pair of crutches with little skis on the ends. He’s really good at it. First time to the summit for him though (he has a couple of able bodied friends with him), and as he was arriving at the top station, I wasn’t sure if he wanted it slowed down at all (the other lifts he manages at normal speed), and they gave no indication that they wanted or needed it. Turns out he did need it. He got stuck on the chair, and sailed around the bullwheel. I hit the e-stop, and a split second later his ski tripped the safety gate. I ran over and helped get him off the chair and lower him to the ground. He was fine, no tempers lost, all was ok. My colleague had asked him if he wanted it slowed at the top several times, and would have phoned it through to me, but the guy said he didn’t need it. If I see him again, we will be slowing it, whether he wants it or not. He’s awesome!

When Darkness Falls…

The Aprés Ski this week has been chock full of events. Family Day celebrations on Saturday, all you can eat Pizza night after work on Sunday, a failed attempt to get to the Jam night on hill on Monday, Lifty Jug night around the campfire on Tuesday, Pow Pals session and snacks at Chopper’s Landing on Wednesday, Karaoke night on Thursday, Lifty Curling social on Friday night, and Pre Drinks Drinks on Saturday at a friend’s house (we ended up watching The Curse of the Were-Rabbit on TV).

The Family Day celebrations at the resort included a Rail Jam (people pay a small fee to enter a small competition on a grind rail and grind plate doing tricks), a torchlight parade, and Fireworks. I volunteered to join the torchlight (road flare) parade on my snowboard. That was interesting (more interesting being in it than watching from what I remember on New Years). The flood lights were off, so we were skiing/boarding in the dark, in a line, with only the light of the flares (on sticks) that we were holding. I had my helmet cam (my GoPro) recording so I stayed towards the back for better footage, which meant that I was trying to snowboard, in bad lighting, holding a burning flare, on ice. It was a bit tricky and I had a few sketchy moments, including knocking the flare on the ground which left it hanging flimsily from the gaffa tape, and then ‘gracefully’ sitting down at the end. As soon as the flares were dowsed in the snow, the fireworks display kicked off. It was way better than the New Year’s fireworks display, and I wasn’t nearly as cold!

On Monday, I had a lie-in. It was the Family Day long weekend here in Canada (strangely not celebrated here in BC, so it the Albertans at the resort), so the resort was stupidly busy. I’d seen the number of people on the hill first hand at work on Saturday and Sunday, and since there was no fresh snow, there was nothing pressing to drag me out of bed on my day off. For the morning at least. There was no way I was going to get a free space on a ski lesson this week. On Monday afternoon, however, I went up to demo a pair of skis I had seen at the rental shop. One of the technicians (who I had ridden Taynton Bowl with a couple of weeks previous) was selling an awesome pair of All Mountain skis. One of my colleagues has the same skis, and has been waxing lyrical about them since he bought them a month ago. These had barely been ridden, and he’d decided he wanted pairs of dedicated carving and powder skis. Offering $600 was an extremely good price for skis + bindings. I’d been drooling over a pair of Salomon Lords, all mountain skis, which would be $1200 with bindings, so these were a great find.

I skied with these LIB Tech Freestyle NAS skis for Monday afternoon, and the whole of Tuesday. Loved them! The Magne Traction technology (wavy edges for extra contact points, essentially a serrated edge) gives you great grip, and I kept being surprised when instead of sliding sideways over ice patches, the skis cut in to the ice and I carried on across the slope! I’m a better snowboarder than I am skier, and while I’ll tackle almost any run on a board (there are two runs – double blacks – that I won’t go down here, but one of them I’m warming to), I wouldn’t do anything harder than a groomed black on skis. Until recently. I had a lesson the other week, and improved my turns (so I can now control my speed, rather than just picking up speed to the point that I might as well straight-line it or carve for all the difference my turning made) and was taught how to do moguls!

As a result, I hit greens, then blues, then an ungroomed black, and then tried the Taynton Bowl (all double blacks). Taynton bowl on skis for the first time on Tuesday was a mistake. It was tracked out and cut up, fairly solid snow, and I’m just not skilled enough on skis for that. Andrew and I didn’t so much ski down Taynton as roll down. Hilarious, but not much fun. Oh well. No harm done. I got the price dropped to $550 (£345) and bought the skis yesterday! Awesome price, pretty much what I spent on my board (just the board, bindings were extra later). I actually enjoy skiing again on these things, and I have a lot more confidence in tackling harder runs, and I’m hoping to tackle powder on skis for the first time on Tuesday! I’m stoked!

I will admit that I don’t appreciate the graphics on the skis for anyone who looks at them, and while I can’t do much about the underside, I know I can get a custom print sticker for the top (was considering it for my backup board before I came out), but I’ll deal with that once I’m back in the UK and have the time and resources to design it.

I was going to rent a room with some friends on Monday night so that we could go to the Jam night on the hill (the last bus to town leaves about half an hour after Jam night starts), but due to family day weekend, there were none available. We might try this Monday. If we aren’t too tired after our full day of Skidooing! Yes. That’s right. 5 hours of skidooing, a BBQ lunch and hours (by that we understand it to mean more than 1) of playing in the powder bowls. It’s going to be (expensively) Awesome!

Tuesday night was Lifty Jug night. I think I have explained the Jug system in one of my previous posts. We’ve found that staff jugs in the T-Bar are expensive, and the place is also not all that spacious. After the Lifty Cross Country Skiing night, we discovered that having a campfire in the woods was a lot better, and more popular. Plus a six pack of beer is cheaper than a staff jug, and for me (who doesn’t drink beer) I can get a six pack of cider for less than the price of two bottles in the bar, and not feel left out. I also took marshmallows. A campfire just wouldn’t be complete without toasting marshmallows! Fitzy brought Almonds to roast in the fire as well. It was great to just chill out by the fire, in the snow.

Toasting Marshmallows around the fire

Wednesday is the day that the Pow Pals meet for night skiing. It’s guys meeting up to try tricks and jumps etc. and encourage each other to have a go. Kinda funny to see 20+ snowboarders and a few skiers moving down the slope en masse and hitting the jumps. I was chuffed to land a few 180 jumps!

Pow Pals take the hill

After the Pow Pals session (we hit the grind plates and rails for a while too), we headed up to the Choppers Landing restaurant at RK Heli-Ski. One night in the CopperCity Saloon (henceforth referred to as The Copper), we bumped into the owner of the restaurant, who wanted us to come and try the pace out, in a deal where we get stuff at cost, and we tell the guests about it. Good marketing idea. The lifty who became the contact said there would be about 20 of us. However, it was made an open invite, and over 50 people turned up! The snacks didn’t quite stretch that far, not sure about the jugs of beer either, but they still charged us $20 a head. I don’t think we got our money’s worth, so I can’t start recommending it unfortunately. I understand I wasn’t alone in this opinion, but it was still an enjoyable evening.

Pano staff at Choppers Landing

Thursday night, as everyone knows, is Karaoke night at The Copper. Always good. I try to do a solo song, and a group song. It’s getting into it’s stride now, and lots of people get up there for a sing/shout-a-long. I did a Frankie number (Come Fly With Me) and then joined some of the guys for Green Day’s Basket Case. I think it went quite well. Last week we did Thriller, which was hilarious! Especially trying to do the laugh at the end. 😀

Friday was a Lifty Social, this time we had a go at curling. Kinda like Boule or Bowls, but on ice. I tripped over one of the granite rocks while sweeping vigorously, and a lot of people slipped over. Surprisingly enjoyable, especially when my team (“The Hard Place”) won our group! Did you know that there are only two places in the world that provide the professional granite curling stones, and that they are both in the UK? I knew about the one in Scotland (or should I say, near), but not the one in Wales. Do we even play curling in the UK? I know we have an Olympic team.

A day on the gondola

*Names have been changed to protect identities.
**Times are approximations.

6:12am: Alarm goes off. Snooze alarm.
6:15am: Alarm goes off again. Quit alarm app, and start music. Roll over.
6:30am: Reach for light switch, noting that shoulder injury is not yet healed. Head for shower.
6:59am: Determined to make lunchtime sandwich.
7:02am: Pack sandwich. Run from apartment.
7:04am: Stop running. Knackered.
7:08am: Board shuttlebus.

7:45am: Start journey to Gondola.
7:50am: Arrive at top station. Can’t see Bob1. Bob1 in lift shack with light off. Sneaky. Retrieve keys. Start journey to base station.
8:00am: Green Monster safely navigated. Throw breaker, switch on controls, perform checks. Complete log sheet.
8:15am: Begin guest loading process.
8:20am: Clear Event whiteboard. Attempt to conceive writing method not involving kneeling on floor.
8:22am: Kneel on floor. Transfer day’s events to whiteboard via pen.

8:40am: Start sweeping snow. Realise snow providing grip, ice patches underneath. Stop sweeping, start chipping ice.
8:55am: Wonder if Bob2 will bring morning Hot Chocolate beverage soon.
9:30am: Decide that morning Hot Chocolate beverage is not forthcoming. Feel glum. Continue chipping ice.

9:52am: Arms ache from ice chipping activity. Take seat on stool to Shepard guests, and contemplate whether voice-box can handle greeting them.
10:10am: Crew Chiefs Bob2 and Steve arrive with Hot Chocolate beverage. Much rejoicing ensues. Decide to try smiling.
10:11am: Ask for loo-break. Loo-break granted. Offer radio to Bob2 and reach for Hot Chocolate beverage from Steve. Bob2 declines radio offer, Steve jests about holding on to Hot Chocolate beverage. Nearly miss boarding gondola pod.
10:12am: Attempt to return radio to pocket while holding Hot Chocolate beverage. Juggle Hot Chocolate beverage and radio to remove outer glove without spillage. Resume operation “Return radio to chest pocket without spillage”. Spillage occurs, operation fails. Place Hot Chocolate beverage on floor, wipe sleeve on ski pant leg, return radio to pocket.
10:14am: Greeted by Bob1 at Gondola top. Bob1 comments on own Hot Chocolate beverage.

10:33am: Elderly guest arrives, wanders straight onto concrete, stands in path of pods. Engage guest in conversation while shepherding to queuing area. Two of guest’s group arrive and load, third runs after pods ignoring instruction. Squeezes round barrier as doors close. Shepard guest back to queuing area while enlightening on purpose of barrier. Last two of group arrive and clamber over fencing to gain access to pods. Instruct to take path, not touch control buttons. Help guests down snow bank.

11:14am: Two more guests head to fence shortcut. Give chase, provide instructions to follow path, next time. Retrieve shovel and build snow Walls across shortcut.

11:20am: Nothing of note occurs.

11:35am: Draw up design for weekly programme holder. Product Design degree vaguely useful.
11:38am: Guest makes good point on marking Mountain Friend Tours as free. Grab pen. Append event whiteboard.
11:42am: Realise snow crystals are falling from the sky. Put on second hood.
11:58am: Wonder when lunch relief will arrive. Realise stool legs are not level. Attempt to balance on diagonal two legs.
11:59am: Achieve balance. Lunch relief still not arrived.
12:15pm: Lunch relief arrives. Solace taken in knowledge of short afternoon stint.

1:10pm: Jane1 bounces up, excited over longer term job offer. Chat about snowboarding. Jane1 runs off to obtain Hot Chocolate beverage 2. Rate of snowfall increases.
1:29pm: Jane1 returns with Hot Chocolate beverage 2. All is right with the world.

1:51pm: Drama. Guest inadvertently swings pod onto platform. Prompted to hit stop button by loud scraping sound. Request Bob1 call maintenance. Knock Hot Chocolate beverage. Spillage occurs. Restart gondola to unload guests from third pod.
1:55pm: Bob3 arrives. Checks out grounded pod.
1:56pm: Maintenance arrives. Manipulates pod back into track, does maintenance stuff. Explain what occurred and actions taken. Corrected on actions taken. Restart for unload apparently bad. Third time in three weeks for occurrence. News to me. Lifties must now guide loaded pods into station.
1:59pm: Bob2 and Steve appear. Haul rope checked. Not broken, no damage. Gondola restarted.
2:02pm: Bob1 calls. Pod doors not fully closing. Maintenance does maintenance stuff. Doors fixed.

2:10pm: Start riding pods round station. Play chicken with door closing mechanism. Leave large safety margin. Riding pods between stations not an option.
2:14pm: Chopper lands on helipad. Vanishes in billowing snow cloud.
2:18pm: Watched Bobcat perform wheelie. Probably accidental. Combination of raising bucket and accelerating.
2:29pm: Bobcat raises bucket, performs stoppie then wheelie. Tips snow over itself.
2:42pm: Bob4 arrives on Gondola, heads to Mountain Ops. Afternoon shift will be late.
2:52pm: Bob4 returns for afternoon shift. Job done.

Picture this

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I updated this thing. A lot has been happening, and it’s been pretty hard to find the time to write about it all. So, I’m going to give you some photos and videos (by popular demand) to look at:

I’ve put up some videos on YouTube you can view as well (available in HD).

Rant and Cheese

Well today was pretty frustrating after two fantastic days. Yesterday we had 50cm of snow in 24hours, and since it wasn’t very busy, we got plenty of runs in, and lunch break was awesome.
Today, however, the lower slopes (about 3/4 of the Sunbird lift area) had been rained upon, leaving icy groomed runs and an icy crust over the powder. Then the precipitation kept on coming throughout the day. On the upper slopes, they kept getting tons of fresh snow, we got sleet.
I rode down a couple of the ungroomed runs during ride breaks and lunch, and the top section was nice, but then a quarter of the way down, it was like snowboarding in a slush puppie a foot deep. Without the flavour. Really hard work!
The seats for the Sunbird chair are difficult to flip up at the end of the day. You can’t do it with gloves on, and the sleet had iced over the seats, so that I had to dig my bare fingers into the ice, at speed, to try and get purchase. It’s not exactly comfortable, and it’s generally cold. Oh, and there are 170 chairs on the lift, which takes a little over 16 mins to complete a circuit.
I had to physically move the sharp ends of someone’s ski-poles away from my face, asking them to watch their poles as I like my face unskewered. Then the next guy hit me in the face as he reached for the chair while I was bumping it for him!
Had a bit of a rant with one of my colleagues today. I’m amazed at how many people fail at the simplest of things. I’ve decided we need a sign at all loading stations saying “Stop. Look. Listen.” Stop at the Wait Here sign (self explanitary), Look for oncoming chairs, and Listen to the lift attendant. The fixed grip chairs don’t slow down in the station, and the outer edge is going quickly as it turns around the Bullwheel. The number of people that either fly through the maze, straight into the oncoming chair, or suddenly decide to leap into it’s path having been waiting at the Wait Here sign is truly astounding!
And the thing with the ski poles? There are signs at every load station telling to take straps off of their wrists, hold the poles in one hand and point them forwards (i.e. not at my face). And this is standard procedure at every resort I have ever been to, world over. I’ve been to plenty. So the guy that whinged at me the other day about skiing for 20 years and never having to do that, rubbish. You’re just a stubborn muppet who refuses to obey or read signs. I’ve been skiing for 24 years and it has always been so. French lifties will have no compunction about informing you as to your disobedience.
Rant over for the day.
This evening should be good though. Hosting a cheese fondue night. Hopefully someone can source a fondue set.

Happy New Year

Yesterday was a great day. Overnight, the resort had 7cm of snow. Not a huge amount, but very welcome after quite a few days without any. A shame I had to work, but since the resort is not very busy at the moment, we get more opportunity for ride breaks. There are normally 3 people assigned to a lift when you can run it with just two, this allows us to swap around, cover lunches, and when it’s less busy, we can go on a ride break.

Working on the Summit lift, I dropped into Tight Spots for my ride break, which involves a fairly steep slope with trees. Not many people had gotten to the run at that time, so there was still plenty of fresh snow on the run (Black Single Diamond), and it was fantastic! I’m going to have to get a decent helmet-mounted video camera soon, so that I can show you these runs. It was a fairly quiet day, so we got to recognize the folks that kept going up, which makes our 5 second conversations easier and less repetitive.

For my lunch break, I decided that I wanted to try one of the Black Double Diamond runs in the Extreme Dream Zone, if I could find where exactly they were. They have vague sign posts, and aren’t really marked, it’s a sort of ‘jump off here and fight gravity’ kind of thing. I got my app running which tracks where I go, speed and altitude via the GPS on my iPhone (Ski Tracks, best 59p ever spent), and decided to try the music side of things. I hadn’t used this part of the app before, and didn’t realise that you need to create a playlist within the app, rather than just selecting one already on the ipod app. I ended up only selecting one song. I tried out Trigger, which starts off being about / <- that steep! Crazy stuff. Trees everywhere. I think either people didn’t realise the run was there, or were scared of it, and so there was still plenty of untouched powder for me to taste. Fantastic run! After my one song ran out, I pressed play on the remote to carry on, and ended up with two Hillsong United songs. Kinda strange, snowboarding down a tree-studded cliff face (slight exaggeration, but only slight), singing along to Christian worship songs. It worked though.

I still had time left in my lunch break for one more run, so I decided to try Tree Time (I could see untouched powder between the trees from the lift). What a great run! It ends where it ‘meets’ Canadian way (the Cat Track to the bottom of the Summit lift), and I say ‘meets’, but where I came out of the trees, it was a 12 foot drop to the run, which is kind of flat. I stood up there for a good couple of minutes trying to decide if I could land it, and waiting for people to go past. I made it. I actually still had time for one more quick run, so I went for Tight Spots again. It was all going well, until I got to the trees that are much closer together (would be a great POV video), where it’s tricky to find areas to bleed off speed, and some gaps are only marginally wider than my board. It was fun up until the point where I attacked a tree and found a tree root. With my knee. Who woulda thunk it? A tree root next to a tree. Crafty little blighter.

Apart from a fair bruising (and subsequent swelling),  I didn’t do any significant damage to my board, or myself (I actually bruised both knees, but I didn’t notice the other until later, what with the tree root and all), so I carried on.

Sweep was interesting. No reduction in range of movement with my knee, it just hurts in certain situations (like when approaching trees, or kneeling on hard surfaces). We found a group of 7, coming down Canadian Way, and had to escort them down the rest of the mountain. They were so slow, we had to keep stopping, and we are supposed to be traversing, calling out, and listening for a response anyway, which doesn’t exactly make it a speed run. We learnt that one of them had only started snowboarding that day! He was doing really well for a beginner, but his friends (one of whom was supposedly teaching him) really shouldn’t have taken him to this part of the mountain, and certainly not at the end of the day. But we got them down safely.

Thank God I didn’t break anything. Also for sandwich bags and an abundance of snow with which to make a snow/ice-pack. Definitely injury day. Bailed a jump on the Showoff run on the way home, and bruised my lower back, then tried to catch a falling cheese grater at home, where I only succeeded in grating my little finger. I can’t recommend that course of action really.

Today was pretty fun for runs as well. Working on the Sunbird chairlift, it was pretty warm (-2C or so) and it snowed all day, which kept us busy and thus (overly) warm. I tried out Heaven Can Wait, which is a mogul-ly blue, with plenty of soft snow on top. Really nice run today. Not so much a couple of days ago. At the end of the day, I was swapping station, heading down Outrider (our designated run for when wearing uniform), finding some lovely powder on the side of the run. Towards the end of the run, there is a wide, somewhat flat corner with a lot of powder to the left (it tends to stay that way as you loose a lit of speed in powder, and if you stop, it’s really hard work getting back to the run), and I strayed into it staying only a few feet away from the run. It was going beautifully until the nose of my board dug in, and flipped me head first, on my back, where I quickly buried my head in the snow. I think only my legs were sticking out, and straight up. If only someone had been filming it! I considered dribbling to find which way was up, but I just pushed the snow off of my face, and then flopped back to the run like a flying fish that had landed on someone’s deck while taking a flying leap into the ill-recommended.

New Year’s Eve was good. I did have to work both it and New Year’s Day. But the fireworks at the resort were great, and I really didn’t understand the glowing torch procession coming down the slope. My feet were so darn cold by the time the fireworks had finished, I could have done with hopping back into the hot tubs. Went to the CopperCity Saloon once we got back into town, which was fun. Didn’t have much to drink and left not long after midnight (due to not having any money, and having to work the next day), but still had a good time.

I’ll need to get some more photos up here, but not tonight. I need sleep, and possibly another snow-pack.

Oddness at the lifts – part 1

I maintain the motion that being a Lifty is the best job on the mountain. You do get some surprises, some interesting things, some amusing things, some scary things, and other plain annoying things that happen while working.

You know that you need to keep an eye on kids, to make sure they don’t do anything daft or dangerous. Working the Gondola, a kid noticed that the groove the pods ran in was lower than the main platform and had a solid bottom to it. I turned around from talking to a guest, to find he was putting his leg in it. Fortunately his Dad got him out of there sharpish, and the Gondola pods were a long way away. Behaviour to be expected of an inquisitive child. I was really quite surprised, however, after having a good chat to a grandmother, to find her stepping down into the groove and slipping the other side of a barrier, moments before the pods rushed in, to take a good photograph! Well, I assume it was a good photograph. I would have thought it would have been just as good from the safe side of the barrier. Oi! Barriers are generally there for a reason, often for safety purposes. Since when am I supposed to keep a close eye on grandparents and make sure they don’t do anything daft?

The Gondola is a freebie, and I have seen a few dogs being taken on-board. Even saw a pair wearing little slippers to keep their paws warm. Not sure how effective that was, as one slipper came off one of the dogs’ feet, and it didn’t even pause. Standing at the top station as one set of pods came in, there was just one guy in there, I looked away for but a moment, and suddenly there was a dog on the platform, yet none of the doors had opened yet! I was confused for a second as to where it had come from, but it had managed to squeeze under the doors, not wanting to wait.

I think that the Summit lift is my favourite to work on. Beautiful views. Catch the sunshine (much needed when it is -20). Good pace to the spacing of the chairs, and getting to help with the mountain sweep at the end of the day (snowboarding down set runs to the bottom of the mountain, to make sure there are no guests left on the mountain). The day before the resort opened, I was helping set up the lift, and at some point we stopped the lift, and took a 10 minute break. Shovelling snow is hard work! Unfortunately we didn’t notice that our boss and one of the crew chiefs were still on the lift, part way up. The crew chief we were working with got a phone call, asking why we had stopped the lift. Ooops. We could actually still see them on the chair. That earned our crew chief a jug (you mess up in some manner, and you have to buy a jug of beer for everyone on staff jug night).

I’ve been jugged twice in the space of two days. One for colliding with a guest (see previous post), and the other for mistakenly (yes, mistakenly) picking someone else’s snowboard boots from the drying wall, and wearing them all day without realising that they weren’t mine, or that they were half a size larger than mine. My boots are almost identical! I can now spot the difference.

At the bottom of the lift today, I noticed a flurry of movement on the run to the lift queue, and looked up to see one guy crash into another, which sent the recipient skidding off of the side of the run, leaving a ski behind. I was concerned as it’s a fair drop the the run below (which I only learnt was there about a week ago, aptly named ‘Hideaway’), but then I saw the other guys around laughing, and the recipient’s head and shoulders appeared with a grin.

Some people don’t seem to understand simple hand signals, or they just aren’t paying attention, both of which are dangerous. The amount of times I have held my hand up as if to say ‘Stop there, don’t come forward’, and people have just started forward when there isn’t enough time for them to get to the loading point before the chair tries to take their legs out from under them. Pay attention people. It moves quickly, especially the outside edge as it turns around the bullwheel, and it’s attached to a steel cable so is unlikely to stop if you are under it.

Had one guy try to jump forward at the last minute when there were three people already lined up waiting for the seat to reach them, before realising he wasn’t going to make it and jumping off the side of the ramp so as not to get collected. His excuse? ‘I though my friend was going to make it, but she didn’t go’. Evidently failing to notice that it is a 4 person chairlift, and 3 people were already lined up, which puts paid to another 2 people getting on. It’s a Quad, not a Quint.

The unload ramp has quite a steep and high drop off (at the bottom of the ramp, the chair would pass over your head without you having to duck), and it has caught a few people out so far. I was up there a few days ago, and some guy came to ask me a question, distracting me as a lady failed to get off in time. This is why we have the safety gate. She was only 4 feet ( as opposed to 8 feet) off the ground when the lift stopped (I had also hit the stop button a split second before), so she was able to drop down. Quite why she then decided to try and squeeze underneath the stopped chair, rather than going around the side which would have been easier, I don’t know. Most direct route I suppose.

The other day, some guy decided that in order for him to ask me a question, he should head down the side of the loading ramp, through the path of the chair at it’s fastest point, with his snowboard still attached, narrowly missing the oncoming chair. I answered his question, and politely asked him to not do that again lest the chair give him a sound beating. Tunnel vision?

I have now seen two people, on separate occasions, wearing a cow suit, complete with udders. One went so far as to wear a cowbell. Strange guests we have. One kid today managed to get his tongue stuck to the frame of one of the other chairlifts. Not sure how they removed him. One foot on the restraining bar, grab his ears and pull? It was -20C this morning, so why would you lick the frame of the chairlift? Guess he won’t be doing that stunt again in a hurry.