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.
Life at a Resort 