Ski day 23: More crowds, more celebs

Vert: 5,450 m   YTD cum vert: 121,950 m
Runs: 10    YTD cum runs: 290


I'm late with my posting as on Saturday we had to go into Calgary to watch basketball, and got home really late. We were busy Sunday (more on that in a separate post), so two days after I actually skied it (and reported it on Powderwatch here), here's the fun stuff that happened Saturday.


We were slammed with people at the gondola in the morning. Lines were fierce from 9:15 to 11:00, and I was on "Tokyo Subway Stuffing" duty again. The bright side of this was that EVERY celebrity on the hill had to go past me (as I was making space for them to pass through the crowd), and though I could take no pictures, I did get high fives/fist bumps from Alec Baldwin, Ed Begley Jr., Alicia Silverstone, Cheryl Hines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Edward James Olmos, Paul Mitchell and others. But I was seriously tired by 11.


At 11 another SnowHost and I were released for a fast dash up to the top, and were cleared to use the VIP access line that the celebs were using. We slid into line behind a celeb (we didn't know who it was from behind) and his handler (Sunshine-supplied staff to ski with). We were content to let the celeb ride by himself but he insisted on us coming with him (he actually took my skis into the gondola with him...).


We spent the 20 min gondola ride chatting about skiing. I thought we were riding with Peter Fonda, but when he started talking about skiing Whistler and living in New Zealand, I started having my doubts. I figured out much later in the day it was Kevin Sorbo, star of the Hercules and Andromeda TV series. Turns out he has a place in Deer Valley, Utah, and since I LOVE skiing Utah, we had lots to talk about for the 20 min ride. Had I known it was him, I might have asked about his aneurysm that led to several strokes.


The powder in the afternoon was great (how can you turn down knee deep shots in my favourite chutes?). The fact that both the Dinos basketball teams lost to Saskatchewan that evening was less fun. And the fact that we had to drive back home from watching the losses in a raging blizzard with no viz and 60 km speeds for part of the drive was really less fun.