Happenings at Jello's House

Newspapers are my Life

2012-02-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

I used to be a loyal newspaper reader, and by what I read in the paper, one of the few. Around the dinner hour every night, I used to read my Calgary Herald cover to cover, and it was a very peaceful half hour of my day. One of my favourite things is to lay in bed on Saturday morning (heck, any morning) and spend an hour with the paper and a good cup of coffee. For me, it has always been so. I started reading the Toronto Star everyday when I was about 8, and until I moved to the mountains where I have to drive into town to get a daily paper, I was still going strong reading my paper every day. I was even strange enough to collect every paper if I was away, and read them in order, 2 and 3 weeks at a sitting.

For me, reading the paper is a tactile thing. Newspapers deliver me more than just what I want. Every time I read one I am drawn to read something I had no idea I would be interested in. Sometimes it’s fashion, sometimes it’s about a happening somewhere in the world. But I read it because I stumble across it in the paper.

This is why I am astounded when I read that increasingly, people are getting their news from the internet, and newspaper readership is down. Don’t get me wrong – I use the ‘net to find news on interests I have that are so esoteric that no newspaper in their right mind would carry it (Formula 1 Racing. Canadian University Basketball, goings on at Apple, the oil and gas industry). But you can skim Yahoo or Reuters, or Google all the news you want and not get the newspaper “experience”.

I am getting increasingly puzzled by the newspaper business. On the one hand, I read that conventional readership of newspapers in general is on decline. Then on every street corner, more newspapers appear, and seem to do so weekly. At last check in Calgary, there’s the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Sun, the Globe & Mail, the National Post, 24, Metro, Dose and FFW. Do we need 7 papers? Competition is generally good, but it seems we have a burning desire to deforest British Columbia in the process. Walking through downtown Calgary, every day I saw the free ones (Metro, 24 and Dose) blowing in the breeze. I guess folks figure they’re free, so chucking them isn’t a problem.

Worse, these free papers are just scaled down versions of their parents. Take 24 for instance. It’s owned by the Sun. I haven’t figured out why if you read the Sun you want to read 24, and if you don’t like the Sun (as I don’t) why you would like 24. The content is the same, just shorter. Isn’t two of the same thing just a waste of paper? Metro is the world’s largest paper; we even looked at Metro in Amsterdam (thought it was written in some foreign language there). It’s amazing how little content they can pack into a free 20-page paper.

I subscribed to the Financial Post for a while. Then they got rid of the Saturday only subscription (for the same price, they were willing to give me 6 papers a week, which I didn’t want). I would try to pick a Saturday Post on the newsstand or in a local box, but it was typically sold out. When I called and complained, they told me they were printing fewer papers because circulation was dwindling. I told them their circulation was dwindling because they were printing fewer papers.

Then the folks who own the Herald bought the Financial Post, renamed it the National Post, and got rid of most of the financial news that I wanted. It became the “National Herald,” so I stopped reading it entirely. It feels like 80% of the content is the same, and the extra 20% is about Toronto. Like I care. I also don’t read the Globe & Mail, which I affectionately refer to as “Toronto’s National Newspaper.” Nothing quite like reading about galleries and theatre openings, getting excited to go see them, then discovering they’re in my old home town. My brother happens to write for the Globe, and even he always wonders why anyone outside of metro Toronto wants to read it.

When I’m traveling, I always read the local paper, and by local, I mean the paper of the city I’m in. USA Today has had a huge influence on the way newspapers are designed and written (for instance, check out the “Five Minute Herald.” Does it strike you as being strange that they’re trying to convince you that you just need to read one page to get everything in the whole paper? Isn’t this self defeating?). Personally, I think USA Today is vacuous, content-free fluff, and I only read it if it’s free (and even then, it’s only worthy of 5 minutes). When I lived in Houston, I used to be amused at how the Sunday Chronicle was available as early as Friday, and was over 2” thick.

My favourite “local” paper is The Maui News. It’s only about 5 pages long on a Monday, and it grows to 30 pages by Sunday, then shrinks again. They publish every Letter to the Editor they get, and many are hilarious, if for no other reason that how badly written they are. They report the local news, and just enough out of state news to remind you that you came to Maui to avoid the news.

In the mountains where I live, we have three local free weekly papers: The Rocky Mountain Outlook, The Canmore Leader and the Banff Crag and Canyon. Okay, it’s more like 2½ papers, because the Leader and the Crag and Canyon are the same paper with a different cover. The Outlook is a well written, full of interesting things, and well edited. The Leader’s a pile of badly written, badly edited, content-free crap, but I would expect that since it’s owned by The Sun which is the same. The Leader even contains the Calgary Sun’s Sunday Homes section (because of all the Canmore and Banff folks who really have a secret desire to move to a condo in Airdrie). Neither paper reports on anything that isn’t specifically related to Banff & Canmore. It’s as if the outside world doesn’t exist here.

But I miss my daily Herald. When I moved out to the mountains, I asked if they did home delivery out here. It took them a month (and 3 calls from me) to come back with the answer that they were unsure. They transferred my subscription to my new address, then told me to call them if the paper didn’t show up. It never did. So occasionally, I try to buy one in town. I can’t because it’s normally sold out (especially the Friday & Saturday issues).

Perhaps that’s why the newspaper business is in trouble.

Ski Day 35: Vintage pricing, vintage skis

2012-02-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

Vert: 6,775 m YTD cum vert: 204,585 m

Runs: 21 YTD cum runs: 460

Mt. Norquay was having Tooney Thursday again, where lift prices are a measly $2 (one person I talked to was sure it was a typo -- they though it was going to be $2 per run). They started doing this last year to celebrate their 85th anniversary, and were charging just 85¢ at that time. Even though it's 135% of the price from last year, two bucks is a deal no matter how you slice it.

It brought out a fair crowd, many of whom I spoke with that don't get skiing that often. I get it. Skiing's not cheap. Norquay's regular daily lift prices are $59 (plus GST), Sunshine and Lake Louise are $83.95 (including GST). A couple of areas in the US (Vail and Deer Valley) are over $100. And sure, you can get discounts with cards and multi day passes, but skiing is still pretty expensive.

Perhaps that's why Tooney Thursday brought out the biggest collection of vintage skis I have seen in one day. You can tell "vintage" skis. They're long and straight. "Modern" skis are shorter, fatter and have shape to them. This link gives a bit of info about the differences and how they came about. Vintage skis are ones owned by people who ski perhaps once a year and have done for 30 years. Their skis are 25 years old or more (modern shaped skis emerged in 1992). Given the cost of skis, some of the folks who can only afford to come skiing on Tooney Thursday can only afford to use their 25 year old gear.

The downside with 25 year old ski gear is IT'S NOT SAFE. The problem is the bindings, which only have a useful life of 10 years. Bindings have springs in them to hold you in, and screws to adjust the tension of those to specific DIN settings. The setting is based on your height & weight, plus your skiing ability. The right setting insures your skis release when you fall, and don't release when they shouldn't. The springs on bindings that are 10 years old or more don't work right. Being an engineer, I know it's because metal fatigue changes the spring constant. In short, the spring "remembers" it is shorter than it should be. So 10+ year old bindings don't release in predictable ways. They may pop off. Or more likely, they won't release at all. Ski technicians in shops aren't allowed to fix, change, adjust or reinstall bindings more than 10 years old for this reason. On a binding more than 10 years old, the DIN setting is meaningless.

Now, when I tell this to folks on skis that look like they came from a museum (because that's where they belong), they typically answer:

"Well, I never fall, so it doesn't matter". Sure. When the skis come off because the binding let them, you'll fall, it will be unexpected, and it will hurt.
"I fell recently. They came off just like they're supposed to". Or "I test release them periodically by kicking my foot out. They're fine". Neither one of those is a valid test. Neither proves they'll release when you need them to. All they prove is that the spring still works. Given that it's metal, it will keep working for about 500 years. Just not very predictably.
"I unscrew the springs every summer, and re-tighten them every winter". Minor problem is that is not enough to insure the spring constant stays the same and the spring works predictably.
"I like the way these skis ski". I guarantee you'll like the new ones better. There's a reason they're no longer made. The new ones are easier, for one.

If your bindings are more than 10 years old, chuck them, because skiing injuries tend to be pretty severe and can be debilitating. If your skis are more than 20 years old, throw them away. If you're not sure their age, take them to a shop and ask the tech. If you can't afford new skis, rent.

Because even though skiing isn't cheap, it's really false economy to run the unnecessary risk that old bindings give you.

Lazy Days

2012-02-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

We awoke this morning after sleeping badly last night for reasons that escape both of us (but could have to do with visits from the cat at 4 AM, 6 AM and 8 AM). It dawned clear and cold (-15°). Those of you who read my other blog will know from this post that Sunshine had spring-like conditions this past weekend, and now has re-frozen to some pretty firm conditions that take warm sun (or new snow) to repair. We have had neither, and today wasn't going to help.

So we rolled over. And awoke just before noon.

As I wrote here, one of the joys of retirement is you get to get up when you want, and today we didn't want. So it was a lazy day instead of a ski day. I spent most of the afternoon planning our next vacation (a month long road trip to the South Eastern US). KC spend the afternoon sewing. We watched/played with an incredible National Film Board interactive video on the life of Bear 71, who hung out in my neighborhood for the last 11 years.

Retirement rocks.

Now, if I could just get my cat into "retirement mode".

Ski days 33 & 34: Amy and Gabby

2012-02-06T18:03:00.001-07:00

Day 33 vert: 7,085 m Day 33 runs: 13
Day 34 vert: 8,705 m Day 34 runs: 17
YTD cum vert: 197,810 m YTD cum runs: 439

When you become a regular somewhere -- anywhere -- you get to know some of the people who work there, and they get to know you.

Our favourite place to eat lunch at Sunshine is the Chimney Corner in the Sunshine Mountain Lodge. Good food, good service, a lengthy menu, nice views -- it has it all. Please go. And when you go, ask to be seated in the section of one of my friends, Amy or Gabby. The Chimney Corner has lots of good servers, but these two are the "best of the best of the best".

Gabby hails from Australia, Amy from England. Both ladies are drop dead gorgeous, both greet you with huge smiles, both are super friendly, both will take the time to chat if you have time. Both will get you in and out fast if you're in a hurry, or let you take your time if you're not. Both will come by quickly when you arrive, get you something to drink while you study the menu, and both give great advice if you can't decide what to have. Want the cheque? No waiting around with these two.

And did I mention they have great smiles?

As a SnowHost, my job is to help people have the best day possible on the mountain. People (snowboarders in particular) complain about the flats at Sunshine. I can tell them how to avoid every one of them. I get comments about lift lines, and I can tell you how to avoid those, too. On my other blog, I provide advice on how to get the most riding out of the mountain, like this post.

I also hear people complain about some of the service at Sunshine. You want the best service on the mountain? Go see Amy or Gabby, especially if you're there mid week. Tell them I sent you.

Ski days 29-32: Powder and critters

2012-02-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Day 29 vert: 5,270 m Day 29 runs: 13
Day 30 vert: 8,170 m Day 30 runs: 15
Day 31 vert: 8,105 m Day 31 runs: 16
Day 32 vert: 8,350 m Day 32 runs: 16
YTD cum vert: 182,020 m YTD cum runs: 409

I am behind in my personal blogging, because mostly, we've been skiing and that means my other blog posts for the 4 days here, here, here and here cover the days.

It's not that "all we do is ski" (though I broke 500,000 vertical feet this week). We have arranged a renter for our condo, which is good, and we continue to make it ready for her. I have almost finished setting up my music room in our new house; the guitars are here, the keyboard's ready but I need to figure a place for my electronic drum kit.

And we have been taking care of the critters in the neighbourhood. This week we had a really good one: a Marten. Normally called Pine Martens around here, they're actually an American Marten. This dude is seriously cute.

In my tree, looking curious

He's a top notch predator, and he puts my squirrels into a tizzy because he eats them. They have a habit in my neighbourhood of building nests inside houses, which is fine up to the point where they bring in the dead squirrel to eat.

Ski day 28: Running into my fans

2012-01-28T00:03:00.001-07:00

Vert: 6,325 m YTD cum vert: 152,125 m
Runs: 13 YTD cum runs: 349

More epic powder on the hill today.

Yours truly, lower Rock Ledges

All this snow is starting to grow on me. See my full snow report here.

In at lunch today, we sat next to a trio of fine gentlemen up for their weekly ski (normally Wednesday, but this week, Friday). We got to talking about getting real time, unbiased snow condition information. We discussed Craig's Fernie site, which was the inspiration for a lot of my blogging about Sunshine's conditions. And it turns out one of them is a reader of my blogs.

I'm proud to know that I have at least 5 readers:

The gentleman I met today
Edwin, from the Netherlands
My (may as well be) sister-in-law, who reads me every Thursday
The ever lovely Shannon (heck of a Facebook picture, girl)
The also lovely (especially in killer red heels and a paper bag) Astrid.

I don't count Karen. She has to read me to correct my typos.

Who knows, one day I may break 10 readers. Here's hoping.

Ski day 27: More like Ski day 26½

2012-01-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Vert: 3,640 m YTD cum vert: 145,800 m
Runs: 5 YTD cum runs: 336

As I explain on my other blog here, we only got a half day in today because the wind shut the Gondola down while we were at lunch, and we went for lunch at the Gondola base, not on the top.

Some days are frustrating when you only get a half day in. Almost exactly a year ago, we had one of those days. Today was not one of those days. Sure, we were disappointed that we didn't get to stick around to continue enjoying the fantastic snow conditions, but we had a wicked 5 runs in the morning -- at least 2 of which ranked up there for me as among the best of the year. I mean, how can you turn this down?

On my way to the untracked on the left

I got a pile of first tracks in today -- some on every run. Better that than leaving because it's miserable as we did a few weeks ago.

Ski day 26: Repetitiveness-sly the same

2012-01-23T18:57:00.001-07:00

Vert: 6,535 m YTD cum vert: 142,160 m
Runs: 15 YTD cum runs: 331

More overcast spoiling the viz. More wind with the resulting blowing snow harming the viz. More falling snow further harming the viz. More being unable to see an inch in front of your nose on Divide.

Lower Angel near the top of Barner's Bowl

See my full snow report here.

While snow quality is on a par with the stellar stuff we had last year, my stats tell me the weather this year hasn't been very good. We've only had 8 sunny days out of 26; the rest have ranged from overcast to downright miserable. Based on the forecast for Calgary (chinooking +8° in a day or so), I'm not expecting it to improve soon.

Ski day 25: Avi awareness days

2012-01-21T19:40:00.001-07:00

Vert: 6,295 m YTD cum vert: 135,625 m
Runs: 11 YTD cum runs: 316

Today was Avalanche Awareness Days at Sunshine. I was SnowHosting, so didn't get to spend nearly as much time with the displays and avalanche experts as I would have liked. But I did get to meet some of the avalanche puppies. Here's Cai, Sunshine's dog, who is in training.

Very sweet, and very enthusiastic

Here's Caz, the Parks Canada dog, with his handler.

Also a sweetie. Also enthusiastic

We saw these guys up on the his yesterday training. They were at the base of the Divide chair, and you could hear them barking clear to the top of the chair.

I got to do a fun hill tour today. My guest, a very nice lady pharmacist from Edmonton, was a bit familiar with the hill, but "always skied the same runs" and wanted some insider tips on new places to go, especially on days like today when the viz was pretty poor (see my full snow report on my other blog here). This was a lot of fun, as she was a pretty good skier, and although I'm not allowed to take her a lot of places, I can certainly tell her about them and show them off.

Ski day 22: Waking up when you want to

2012-01-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

Vert: 7,410 m TYD cum vert: 129,360 m
Runs: 15 YTD cum runs: 305

It has been (weather-wise) a hideous, no good, rotten, very bad week, with daily temps starting at -32° or so and rising to a mere -25°. This has kept us in the house, doing chores, such as finishing hanging art, organizing the basement, unpacking boxes (it's only been 5 months since we moved), closing out basketball stuff, wiring the home theatre room, hanging lights, and chipping off other such items on our to-do list.

However, the word was that it would warm up today, and it did. It was -15° when we left the house this morning, -10° when we hit the Sunshine parking lot, and -5° up on the mountain. You can see my ski & condition report for today here. It was a nice day despite the cruddy viz. So we finally got back to skiing, and almost skied the entire hill.

But we spent the rest of the week "sleeping in." I put quotes around that as I'm not sure what is "normal" wake-up time is. If we're going skiing, it's ~8:00. If I'm SnowHosting, it's 6:45. If KC is coming with me on a SnowHost day, it's 6:30. If we have chores to do, it's ~9:00. But if we're not going skiing, and we're on our own sched, we wake up when we wake up. The cat (photo above) likes to bug us for a play or a cuddle around 8:20 after his automatic feeder gives him breakfast. But just because he comes to say hi, doesn't mean we respond.

So this week's wake-ups were 9:20, 9:40 and 10:15. This is one of the many joys of retirement: you get to wake up when you want to. If you're a dude who's an early riser and thinks the best time of the day is 5 AM, go for it. Like sleeping in? Give up on the alarms, buy black out curtains, and hang in there until you have to.

KC and I are not morning people. Accordingly, I think we have 30 years of sleeping in to catch up on. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Snow and animals

2012-01-16T19:20:00.001-07:00

It snowed Saturday night, and has turned bitterly cold, with the high today of -24°. This was a great opportunity to try out something that came with the house when we bought it: a huge mother of a snowblower.

Hard at work on the driveway

It's certainly faster than shoveling, and less work, too. But it's not NO work; maneuvering that beast was a pain.

On our way home today, we found a coyote sauntering up our road.

Foraging across from my house

He was very pretty and looked pretty healthy, but didn't stick around long.

High-tailing it down my road

Jim Cuddy in Concert

2012-01-16T19:12:00.001-07:00

One the list of great things about living where I live: The Banff Centre. A mere 20 min down the road, the place attracts world class talent into its small venues. During the summer, we saw Blue Rodeo in concert in their outdoor amphitheater. Jim Cuddy, one of the frontmen for Blue Rodeo, brought his solo tour through town this weekend. He played the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary last night. Capacity: 2,700. He played the Centre's Eric Harvie Theatre last night. Capacity: 960. We were in the 4th row. The place wasn't full.

Mr. Cuddy & the band

Colin Cripps: Lead guitar & background vocals

Anne Lindsay, fiddle & background vocals

Jim & Colin

The whole crew

The concert was great, and Jim played a full 2 hrs including encores. The last encore song could have been best of all. Playing the song Wash Me Down from his new album Skyscraper Soul, Jim, Colin, Anne & supporting act Devon Paisley came out and did an un-miked, acoustic version right at the front of the stage. It was wicked.

A killer foursome

If that was great, it was even better that Jim hung around after the show to sign autographs.

Right after he shook my hand...

I'm not a groupie, but Jim is great whether he is with Blue Rodeo or on his own.

Ski day 23: More crowds, more celebs

2012-01-16T18:48:00.001-07:00

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.

Ski day 22: Almost helping celebrities

2012-01-14T00:26:00.000-07:00

Vert: 4,500 m YTD cum vert: 116,500 m
Runs: 9 YTD cum runs: 280

They called in a bunch of extra SnowHosts today to help with the celebrity function happening at Sunshine this weekend. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Waterkeeper Alliance folks are in town for a fundraiser.

We didn't have to do that much; we helped out the VIP guests get prepped at the base, and did a few private mountain tours for them. We were also on-call for overflow afternoon guiding, but our services were never needed. But we did get to see the celebrities coming out of lunch as we were waiting.

Ed Begley Jr.

An awful shot of Alec Baldwin

Lorenzo Lamas, Alicia Silverstone, Paul Mitchell (of hair care fame), Marcia Gay Harden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kenny Loggins all went past. Probably a bunch more went past, too, but dressed for skiing, people are generally incognito, as KC demonstrates.

Is that a famous person in Bye Bye Bowl?

I did get to take three of the VIP folks through a field of untracked boot top powder, which they liked immensely. Interesting VIPs. Two were from Texas, and one was from Canmore...

Ski day 21: Hardpack express

2012-01-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Vert: 7,520 m YTD cum vert: 112,300 m
Runs: 22 YTD cum runs: 271

I normally ski at Sunshine, but today was a special day. The second Thursday of every month, lift tickets at Mt. Norquay are only $2. That's not a typo. Two bucks. A single tooney (and GST is included, so it's really $2, not $2.10). I figure I'm worth that splurge, and depending on conditions, I like some of Norquay's runs, and I really like the fact that I can see my house from the top.

The downside to Norquay is that prevalence of two basic conditions:

Icy, groomed, man-made hardpack, frequently on VERY steep terrain.
Monster mega natural snow moguls on VERY steep terrain

My brother is a bigger fan of the former than me. After all, it's what Ontario skiing is all about. Here's an example of the first condition: the top of the Mystic Chair, looking down Giv'er Grandi (named after Thomas Grandi, former Canadian World Cup Downhiller and my neighbour).

A lot of straight down. Cascade Mtn in the background

Here's an example of the latter: yours truly crashing Memorial Bowl off the North American Chair...

Big Bumps

...or here, the lower part of Lone Pine.

1,000 vertical feet of big bumps and small trees.

What Norquay excels in is stellar views, such as these two shots from the top of the North American chair.

Banff townsite. My house is in the trees in the distance

Looking down Lone Pine

Where else can you get a shot like this?

KC with Banff as a backdrop

They also have tubing, which I understand is VERY popular.

The tube park at the base of Lone Pine

Norquay isn't a place I can spend a whole lot of time. For me, it's too small and lacks the snow quality that I get at Sunshine. But they have certainly carved out some niches and do them very well:

Race training. The man made snow coupled with steep terrain makes this a natural
Selling hourly lift tickets. Being so close to Banff, visitors can come up for as few as 3 hours.
Tubing. Again, close to Banff and very popular
Night skiing. See tubing.

And they do $2 Thursdays, a value you just gotta check out.

Ski day 20: Blown away

2012-01-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

Vert: 2,230 m YTD cum vert: 104,780 m
Runs: 3 YTD cum runs: 249

The joy of being a season's pass holder is that we don't have to stick around if we don't like things. Today was one of the days where this comes in handy. Had we driven up and paid full price for the day, we would have stayed to get our money's worth. But as it was, we were home for lunch.

And this was the case because the winds were blowing stink, slowing chair rides, making the traverses tough, blowing snow off things and making them very hard pack, reducing the viz, and generally making life miserable. See my full snow report and more photos here.

The top of Sunshine Coast. Very crowded.

On the bright side, we got work done at home this afternoon...

Ski day 19: Riding with old friends

2012-01-07T19:07:00.003-07:00

Vert: 4,935 m YTD cum vert: 102,550 m
Runs: 13 YTD cum runs: 246

As SnowHost, I occasionally run into folks I know in the Gondola lineup. Today, I ran into my friends Andy and Shannon with their kids. Andy used to work for me, and has been skiing Sunshine far longer than I have. The whole family are very good skiers. Their kids have even run laps in the Dive.

So this afternoon, having no tours to lead, I hooked up with them, and we ran some fun stuff all over the mountain, including some pretty gnarly pitches I'm not allowed to take tours on.

Shannon attacks Upper OS Pitch

Rocketing by me

Joining the family at the bottom

In the afternoon, Andy led me to places he skied as a kid.

Volkswagon sized moguls on Donkey's Tail

No wonder he's better than me.

See my other blog here for a snow report on the day.

Ski day 18: Powder pigging

2012-01-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Vert: 7,710 m YTD cum vert: 97,615 m
Runs: 13 YTD cum runs: 233

Tons of powder on the hill today after 24 cm overnight and 21 cm yesterday. Here's me enjoying it, too...

Powder on Scapegoat

Watched an interesting situation unfold in the Creekside Restaurant at lunch today. The place was basically empty, as usual. A dad and 3 young kids came in, and dad ordered 2 hotdogs, one with fries and one with poutine, for the kids. About 15 minutes later, he was joined by another dad, and they ordered a beer. They drank their beer, which took another 15 min. Then they decided they had to leave. And yet... their hot dogs never arrived. Twice they asked about them. Twice the waitress said "I'll check" but never got back to them. Finally the manager intervened, apologized, and comped their beer.

How long does it take to make a hot dog? How about fries? Apparently more than 30 min.

Last year, I gave some reviews of the restaurants at Sunshine. While I still recommend the Creekside, I've noticed the service this year isn't as good as it used to be.

Ski day 17: Drips

2012-01-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Vert: 5,840 m YTD cum vert: 89,905 m
Runs: 13 YTD cum runs: 220

You can see on my other blog here what kind of day it was on the slopes. As a rule of thumb, if there's a chinook wind warming up Calgary, it's windy and snowing at Sunshine, which is exactly what was happening. The data I look at says that it was downright hot in Calgary today, setting a record at +15° C. Well, that heat made it all the way to the mountains where it is above zero and raining (snowing up at Sunshine's altitude, but rain down where I live in the valley bottoms).

This is making a mess of my driveway (currently a sheet of ice about 2" thick, now so polished you can skate on it). The snow is melting on my roof, and most of it is coming down the eavestrough, though there's still ice partially blocking some of them. Unfortunately, water is also showing up where I don't want it. Like, for instance, my bedroom window.

Drips forming

Now I don't know what the source of the water is, but I'm betting my roof is leaking. I'm betting, too, that there was some ice inside my attic which is melting with the above zero temps, and running down whatever vapour barrier I have up there to the window header, where it's running down both the inside and outside of the window.

Ah well. Yet more work to do in the spring, and yet another problem my home inspector failed to note.

BTW: I rode the lift with two folks from IJmuiden today...

Ski Day 16 Stats, and Visits with my Daughter

2012-01-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

Vert: 8,105 m YTD cum vert: 84,065 m
Runs: 15 YTD cum runs: 207

I don't have much to add to my snow condition report on my other blog here other than to expand further on KC's crash. We had hit some deep snow in the trees attempting to traverse to Gold Gladerunner, and it was "interesting" to cross. KC opted to just drop down through the trees on the top left of the photo below...

...while I continued traversing. I got to the bottom of the pitch and no KC. Finally I saw her way back up the hill waving one ski in the air. She had made 2 turns and then faceplanted into a big powder drift, losing a ski in the process. I skied down, rode back up, then skied back down to help. The first problem was finding her in the trees. The second problem was finding her ski, which was buried 2' down in powder. Only took us 30 min of poking around in the snow. We were glad it was sunny.

I was off-loading photos from KC's camera today and found that she had taken pictures of the day my daughter visited last week. The weather wasn't the best, but we dragged her out for our first ever walk in the forest around our neighbourhood that turned out to be more of a hike than I expected, and longer, too -- probably about 5 km.

My beautiful daughter

Mt. Rundle. My house in in the forest, centre left

We wandered up onto a ridge that overlooks the Bow Valley.

Canmore is below the gap in the middle

We found a wolf track and lots of other tracks that were probably bobcat. We also found lots of trees riddled with woodpecker holes.

My daughter and I, and a tree full of holes

Another woodpecker tree

Ski day 15: Hugs and basketball

2011-12-31T19:12:00.000-07:00

Vert: 8,500 m YTD cum vert: 75,960 m
Runs: 13 YTD cum runs: 192

Today as a SnowHost, I got to play "Tokyo Subway Stuffer", packing people into the morning gondola line. This results in high efficiency loading, less congestion around the gondola base, and really does get folks on the hill faster. All my best photos from the day are up on my other blog here, so I won't re-post them.

At the end of the day, I was at the top of the ski out thanking people for coming, wishing them a safe trip down and a happy new year. I was hugged by three women, too. There's a perk of my job I never was told about.

A brief basketball update:

I know at least one reader of my blog is interested in the goings on with my local basketball teams.

My girls won their Christmas tournament, beating teams from the University of Toronto, University of Victoria and Royal Military College. Toronto has spent 5 of the first 7 weeks in the season in the top 10 ranked teams in the country, up as high as 8th. UVic was a powerhouse last year but has not been ranked in the top 10 this year. In late November, in regular season play, we beat the University of British Columbia, who have not been ranked below 5th in the nation so far this season. We're in a VERY tough division, with 3 top 10 ranked teams vying for play off spots with us (Regina, Saskatchewan and Alberta). But things are looking good.

The boys lost all 3 games over Christmas against California NAIA schools, the Azuza Pacific Cougars (losing 96-58), the Concordia Irvine Eagles (110-67), and the Biola Eagles (80-65). On the bright side, Dino's star import Boris Bakovic played a bit. Josh Owens-Thomas continues to play well, getting 28 min/game and averaging 6.9 ppg. Daan Wiersum is playing much less, managing only 5.8 min/game and 0.5 ppg. But then our coach likes to play his seniors and keep his freshman players on the bench. A lot. The Dinos have not done well thus far in regular season play, and I think it will take a near miracle to get us into the playoffs. Maybe Boris' return will help. The coach has also brought up two folks who played for us last year to assist. Here's hoping.

Happy new year to all.

Ski day 14: Rescues

2011-12-30T18:23:00.001-07:00

Vert: 5,435 m YTD cum vert: 67,460 m

Runs: 12 YTD cum runs: 179

SnowHosts have a bunch of jobs, including greeting and helping people at the base area, helping folks plan their day up at the map board, doing mountain tours and helping out at the ski out.

But we also do something call "courtesy patrol" where we search the mountain for people in need of help. Help can range from giving advice on routes off the mountain, to where to eat lunch, to how to get from Point A to Point B without walking (mostly for snowboarders). But the most important help we offer is to riders in distress.

Today I was on courtesy patrol, and (at the time) leading a snowboarder to the best way to access the ski out from the Angel Chair. I happened upon an accident scene, mere seconds after the accident happened. One quick call and I had patrol on scene offering medical assistance within 4 minutes of my arriving at the scene. In fact, it took me longer to get my skis off, cross them to form an X, pull off my helmet and gloves, and call the accident in to dispatch, than it did for patrol to get there after the call.

Once patrol arrives, I'm at their beck and call to help in any way needed. Given the location of the accident, they asked me to stay uphill and direct riders away from the accident scene.

Patrol on scene

So for a rather chilly and breezy 25 minutes, I swept folks from the scene as another patroller with a toboggan arrived. They packed the young man up and took him to the infirmary. I hope he'll be OK, but as he and I discussed, I think he's going to miss playing a few of his upcoming hockey games.

See my other blog here for an update of conditions today.

Ski Day 13: Skiing while recovering from eating

2011-12-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

Vert: 4,275 m YTD cum vert: 62,025 m
Runs: 11 YTD cum runs: 167

The Christmas eve tradition in our house it to make lobster. I have posted about this before, and we're still at it.

Ben, of Ben & Jerry. Yes, we name them

A few years back I started a new tradition: the making of home made lobster stock with the shells on Christmas Day. This has now begat a Boxing day tradition: the making of lobster risotto...

Partially cooked

...with the fresh lobster stock...

...and the meat squeezed from the legs of the lobsters.

Yum!

For today's ski report, see my other blog here. I played tourguide to 2 folks from Ontario today, so got a bit of skiing in and covered most of the mountain.

Ski day 12: Smiles on tour

2011-12-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

Vert: 4,520 m YTD cum vert: 57,750 m
Runs: 14 YTD cum runs: 156

I was SnowHosting today, and got to lead my first ever mountain tour, for 6 nice folks from Ontario. It helps a lot that I grew up and learned to ski in Ontario, because I know what their mountains are like and have skied many of them. There are many things that differentiate Western skiing from Eastern skiing.

The first is vertical per run. This is the first year that my vertical per run has dropped below 400 m (1,300 feet). Last year my average vertical per run was 560 m (1,837 vertical feet) in 850 runs. Folks from ontario are used to at most 210 m (750 feet) per run. So my tour group was impressed but very tired at the end of only 10 runs.

The second thing that differentiates our skiing is snow. Ontario has mostly man made snow. Sunshine has no man made snow (except on the last tiny bit of the ski out). Ontario skiers don't get the "deep powder" experience that we westerners get all the time. So it was seriously fun taking them to a special stash of untracked powder we Snowhosts know of but save for tours. I even let them all get first turns in 20 cm (boot top deep) powder. The expressions on their face during and after the run were worth the price of admission. One fell, laughing her head off the whole time. They all had an awesome time.

The really funny part is that today wasn't a great day (see my other blog here for a report on the ski conditions). But it was great for them. And that's why I'm a SnowHost.

No pictures today as my camera batteries died on the first photo.

Dec 23: Ski Day 11, and Christmas presents to us

2011-12-23T22:11:00.001-07:00

Vert: 7,755 m YTD cum vert: 53,230 m
Runs: 16 YTD cum runs: 142

KC and I took the last 3 days to give ourselves a Christmas present and finally move us (and our cat) into our new house, spending our first night here a mere 129 days after we took possession. There is still much to do. Ignoring our art (about 20 unpacked boxes), we still have at least a dozen boxes not yet unpacked. Despite the construction of a new bedroom closet...

Red doors. Cool.

...my stuff still resides in 3 different chests of drawers and now 4 closets. We still have much to organize, despite adding an entry closet this week, too.

The new Pax wardrobe/front closet -- already full

The hardwood in the little bathroom looks great.

Still work to be done, but the floor rocks

The living room with furniture looks much better than without furniture.

We still have lots to do. There's boxes to unpack, clothes to organize, a kitchen to re-arrange, lights to get and install, lights to replace, a kitchen to re-work, art to unpack and hang, a West Wing to clear out, and much, much more. But...

We Are Now Home

To celebrate, we took a day off to go skiing, a snow report for which can be seen on my other blog here.

I'm SnowHosting tomorrow, again Tuesday and next Friday. Christmas is always busy on the hills with guests from all over the world. Today we rode chairs with folks from Denmark, Birmingham and San Diego.

Ski day 10: Powder again

2011-12-19T22:29:00.001-07:00

Vert: 6,800 m YTD cum vert: 45,475 m

Runs: 14 YTD cum runs: 126

We were in Calgary on Sunday and missed a day of dumping snow. I'm OK with that now since I can go get it on Monday. And while the weekend warriors got most of the fresh lines, there were still a few to go around, like these in Bye Bye Bowl.

There's a rock band in the middle, but it's otherwise great

KC and I both had separate huge crashes today. I went barreling into a powder field and wasn't aware of the lip on the entrance; I took air and planted it doing about 40 km/hr. KC was coming down on the right side of the photo above and got caught in a track and tumbled in the deep powder. Took her a while to get up, too.

See my other blog for more photos and a better snow report.

The next few days are moving days for us. Tomorrow, we have to go back to town to get some stuff, then we spend Wednesday & Thursday moving out of the West Wing and into the house. I'll post some photos Wednesday of the hardwood repairs.

Ski Day 9: Windy

2011-12-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

Vert: 4,635 m YTD cum vert: 38,365 m
Runs: 10 YTD cum runs: 112

Man, it was blowing stink today up at Sunshine. The winds at Kananaskis Ridgetop at 7 AM had already broken 135 km/hr. Today was a SnowHost day for me, and I worked the ticket and stairs area for a few hours, then got some runs off the newly opened Goat's Eye that were soft just like velvet. But this afternoon, chairs closed like storm doors in the winds. We didn't have any tour customers this afternoon, so we did touring practice (I did OK, but made one mistake in picking a gathering point).

KC fought for an hour to get Coldplay tickets this morning while I was off ~~having fun~~ working. She now dislikes Ticketmaster as much as I do.

See photos from today on the hill at my other blog here.

Ski Day 8: More powder, and a brief house update

2011-12-16T18:11:00.001-07:00

Vert: 5,180 m YTD cum vert: 34,040 m
Runs: 19 YTD cum runs: 102

We were late arriving today as we spent some time at home trying to get half-decent tickets for Coldplay through the various pre-sales I knew were on. I had lots of opportunities to get nosebleed seats. Big whoop.

So we got to the hill just before lunch, and there was still plenty of powder around from the snow that fell last night. We arrived at 11:15 and parked closer than we ever do when we get there at 8:45 on a Saturday. So at least one reason there was still a lot of powder around was a lack of crowd. Gotta love mid-week skiing.

KC crashing the trees

Me coming out of the trees

See my other blog at Powderwatch.com for a full snow report.

A House Update:

I should have taken pictures yesterday, as the hardwood was installed in the living room, and they started putting it down in the bathroom, too. We move the couch and some other living room furniture from the West Wing to the house, and checked to confirm that my furniture layout that works on paper will in fact work in real life. Today, hardwood installation was to have been completed. All that is now left is a bit of touch up painting, one missing light fixture, and the re-installation of the toilet that was removed to install the hardwood.

We sorted out the plan to move everything else from The West Wing to the house, and we will be installed by the evening of December 22nd. I ski the 23rd, and SnowHost the 24th, so our Christmas present to ourselves is to spend the first nights in our new home.

Ski Day 7: In and out, up and down

2011-12-13T18:02:00.001-07:00

Vert: 6,130 m YTD cum vert: 28,860 m
Runs: 17 YTD cum runs: 83

The day started off sunny and a bit warmer than yesterday.

Middle World Cup Downhill

But clouds rolled in as the day progressed...

Cirrus and lenticulars to start

...then it pretty much socked in just after lunch with high clouds that did a real number on the viz.

Divide from the top of Standish

So while we spent the morning playing in the powder that still remained from Sunday's night's snowfall, we spent the afternoon down low having fun at Wawa crashing trees and at Standish crashing moguls on shorter runs. My rule of thumb is that every mogul run I do takes at least 2 runs off my run count for the day, and at this early point in the season, it's more like 3 or 4. So we didn't stay long. It did however start to clear up about 3:30.

Blue sky over Wawa Ridge (from the top of Standish)

See a full snow report on my other blog at Powderwatch.com.

Ski Day 6: Chilly powder

2011-12-12T18:06:00.001-07:00

Vert: 7,295 m YTD cum vert: 22,730 m

Runs: 20 YTD cum runs: 66

Finally a "full" day of skiing, after several abbreviated days.

It snowed on Sunday but we chose to skip skiing and work on the house. It was overcast with no viz anyway, and according to the radar I kept looking at, most of the snow was falling to the east anyway. For instance, at the West Wing, we probably had 8 cm; at our house 10 min up the road, it was more like 4 cm. But the snow crept into the mountains as the afternoon progressed yesterday according to the radar, and Sunshine was reporting 7 cm on the report this AM. Plus, it was another bright blue sky day. Hmmn... blue sky plus powder? A good combo.

Acres of fluff

A small cloud kept wrapping itself around the top of Divide. It wasn't thick enough to spoil the viz, and it made for some very nifty runs.

Riding the chair up into it

The view from in it

Down into the gray

KC crashing turns below it

We found tons of untracked powder all day, with depths ranging from 5 cm to 10 cm. Looks like it fell with very little wind, as there was no buildup near any snowfence I saw.

The only downside to 5-10 cm is that it can hide hazards without giving them enough coverage to be safe. Accordingly, we hit some rocks today. In addition, it felt pretty cold. It was only -13° to -8° in the afternoon, which isn't cold in my books. But it sure felt chilly.

Last night up on the hill was the Sunshine Staff Christmas Party. I thought about going but chose not to for various reasons. Everyone I talked to today all really enjoyed it, and said they did a great job with the food and the party itself. Next year.

Ski Day 5: Real SnowHosting

2011-12-10T18:41:00.000-07:00

Vert: 4,410 m YTD cum vert: 15,435 m
Runs: 15 YTD cum runs: 46

So my first day SnowHosting was a training day. My second day was filling in for others on training, and was only a half day fill for the morning. Today was my first real day.

I started this morning at the Map Board in the Village. I was really glad we skied yesterday, as the primary questions we get there are "where's the best conditions?" and "I'm rusty and would like to start somewhere easy". So for 2 hrs, I helped folks plan their day to get the best conditions, getting time for a one run break.

Early AM on Strawberry

At 11 it's lunch for us at the Staff Cafeteria, since at 11:45 it's time to start gathering for tours. We had a couple of tour groups today, so we went on a 2½ mountain tour showing off powder stashes and the best routes around the mountain to some guests in from Denmark.

World Cup Downhill

Top of Angel

Tin Can Alley looking at why Goat's Eye isn't open

At the end of the tour, I got 15 minutes off to warm up at Goat's Eye Garden before it was time to head to Jackrabbit.

Our job there is the prevent people getting mad at us. Despite 2 signs there, a lot of folks don't know how to access the ski out, and it's our job to point them in the right direction (while stopping them from going on runs that look like the ski out but are in fact uphill slogs that involve walking. People who have to walk uphill get mad at us. Especially snowboarders). So for an hour from 3 to 4, I helped about 300 guests find their way down, re-connecting with some of the people I helped at the map board this morning.

Then it was a patrol run down the ski out, where I found downed signage to fix and stranded guests who were walking down the ski out to help.

My day started at 8:15 and I finally got back to the parking lot at 4:20. Now I'm weary.

But it was fun.

Ski Day 4: Sunny thinness

2011-12-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

Vert: 5,140 m YTD cum vert: 11,025 m
Runs: 13 YTD cum runs: 31

I think KC is learning to like midweek skiing. Few crowds, no lines at our favourite lunch haunts, getting up "late" (a lizardly 8 AM wakeup call had us in the parking lot at 10:05), riding what you want and quitting when you feel like it.

Today was one of those days where we bailed early, mostly since the light was fading. It's impressive how low the sun is at 2 PM. We were riding Angel chair and the sun was barely above Standish Ridge. I guess it's one of the downsides of skiing in December.

Still, it was a beautifully sunny day, and we searched and found some nice powdery tracks. We started our day on Wawa, as I was checking out potential tour routes that I may have to guide one day in my role as SnowHost.

AM sun on Wawa

We were all over the mountain though didn't ride Standish today.

Obligatory shot from top of Divide

We found some great lines today, including over descending into TeePee Town. Here's some pictures taken from the Angel chair:

Lower OS Pitch; very nice

Access to TP Bowl

As I mention over on my blog at Powderwatch, if you knew where to go, it was a great day. However, since we haven't had snow since last weekend, and need a bunch more, the coverage is starting to get thin in spots. So if you didn't know where to go, it was dicy in places.

Ski Day 3: Skiing the impossible

2011-12-08T15:19:00.002-07:00

Vert: 755 m YTD cum vert: 5,885 m
Runs: 5 YTD cum runs: 18

As a Sunshine lover and SnowHost, I rarely ski elsewhere. Sure, we have our annual trip to Big White, but since the 07/08 season, I have put in exactly one day elsewhere (Norquay) -- and on that day, I tried to go to Sunshine but it was closed due to high winds, so Norquay was a "back up plan". Today, I got to go somewhere few people do:

Fortress Mountain

Now there's a name that brings back fond memories for a lot of folks. Lots of people liked the place, and were sad when past owner RCR (owners of Lake Louise and others) shut it down. Banff Rail Company bought the place and nearly managed to run it for a year or so. Then it was taken over by a different owner group, though it has never re-opened. For the last few years, not much has been going on there. The owners argued with the Provincial Government over an old bridge on the access road. Movies have been shot there (including Inception), and the movie makers re-built the bridge. But on-going negotiations between the owner group and the Government have meant the place hasn't yet re-opened.

Well, it so happens I know one of the principles of the new owner group, and Rob kindly invited me to go up sled skiing with him today (the lifts don't operate at this point). What a kick; you get to ski your very own personal ski resort. Not only that, because they are currently shooting both a movie and a TV commercial up there...

Unhappy camera-jib equipped car

...it's a personal ski area with groomed runs. I just wish the conditions were better (gosh, I'm demanding).

As I explain on my other blog at Powderwatch.com, there was a wind crust I had to avoid. We couldn't ski the old Frontside as that was in the way of the Nissan commercial being filmed. We couldn't ski the Farside because that was where "The Bourne Legacy" was being filmed. But the best snow was on the Backside anyway. How do I know this? Because as part of the safety protocol, they have two ski patrollers there supporting the various film shoots. They check conditions and assess avalanche hazard daily.

By the way, the two patrollers? Chris Chevalier and Rowan Harper, two of the folks involved in the issues at Sunshine last year. No, we didn't talk about any of that, nor do I find it interesting, and nor would I post about it even if I did.

So on the Backside, there was a bunch of blow in snow sitting on the crust which made for really sweet turns (so long as I didn't break through the crust). And as I was the only one skiing today, all the tracks were mine. Fresh, untracked pow every run. Since you may not remember Fortress, here's a trail map to look at.

I started out on Enchanted Forest (#29)...

Shame for the flat light

...which was sweet but still a little windblown. So Rob took me to Palisade (#20), which was super nice from top to bottom, so good that I took 3 runs on it.

Run 1

Run 2

Run 3

It was around here that Rob's snowmobile started to get unhappy with "Check Engine" lights on and blue smoke, so we had to call it a day even though it was only lunch.

The left side of Farside, and the Fortress

Near the base of the Backside Chair

The top of the old Curve T-Bar looking down the valley

The main part of the Farside

It's a very rare privilege to be able to ski Fortress, and I want to thank Rob for taking me up there. There's a chance that they will start a Cat Skiing operation there when all the movies are done in February. If they do, check it out. And cross your fingers that this little gem of a hill re-opens. Soon.

Ski Day 2: Blue Sky & Early Season Pow

2011-12-04T19:20:00.002-07:00

Vert: 3,605 m YTD Cum Vert: 5,160 m
Runs: 10 YTD Cum Runs: 13

Today was my first official day actually SnowHosting (at least for part of it). I did the "meet & greet" part of our job at the Borgeau Base area, helping folks at the ticket window. While I was doing that...

Yours truly on the right

...KC (who came in early with me) was bagging first tracks on Divide.

Now there's a dream start to the day

As you can see, it snowed last night. As I mention in last night's post, we had to go to Calgary for the evening last night. KC left early to do some running around, and I went in after SnowHosting. On my way in, the weather was fine to Hwy 22, then from there to Westhills, it was a blizzard with snow covered roads and 50 km/hr. In town, KC got stuck in the Calgary traffic, which was paralyzed by the bad weather. The drive home was MUCH worse, with a blizzard the whole way, crappy viz and a LOT of snow on the roads. The traffic was light, which was fortunate, because plows had not been out and the lanes were missing. There was a semi-truck jackknifed on the highway. There were folks doing 40 km/hr. There were folks driving in the middle of the road. There was one plow. Fun times, and a 50 min drive turned into a 90 min "experience".

Unfortunately, the heavy snow stopped at Lac Des Arcs (I say "unfortunately" from a skiing perspective. It would have been nice if had not snowed at all from a driving perspective). But Sunshine and the rest of the mountains still got some, making yesterday's nice conditions very sweet indeed. Add to that a bluebird sunny day with little wind and moderate winter temps and you have the makings for a very sweet day indeed.

11:30 AM - Compare to the first tracks photo above

Sun, snow and no crowds

From way over on Standish at 1:30.

It was a great day. More snow allowing the opening of more terrain would have made it better. Now, looking at my stats, this is the earliest in the season we have ever skied (first days in the last 5 years: Dec 5, Dec 12, Dec 18, Dec 22 & Dec 30). So taking that into consideration, I'd call this a pretty awesome early season day.

Ski Day 1: Just a taste

2011-12-04T00:28:00.001-07:00

Vert: 1,550 m
Runs: 3

This will be but a brief update as it is late and I am up early in the AM.

Saturday was my first day as a SnowHost at Sunshine Village, and as expected, it was an orientation/training/paperwork day. Your first day with new companies is always spent filling in forms and listening to managers, and Sunshine is no exception. But I also got a look see into all the back offices, and got tours through the Infirmary, Mountain Operations, all the rental places, and offices inside cubbyholes I never knew existed. Very cool, and I'll say, man, are the "offices" these folks use tiny. For instance, all the SnowHosts share a space the size of a broom closet.

Since my on-hill time was mostly orientation, we only took two runs to talk about on-hill tour planning and execution. I have posted a more detailed review of the ski conditions over on my other blog at Powderwatch.com, but I didn't have time when I wrote it to post pictures.

The terrain park, still a ways from opening

The top half of Divide, in pretty nice shape

A fuzzy Quartz Ridge from the top of Divide.

I had to run into Calgary tonight, and much to my surprise, ran into a huge blizzard just outside of the city. It dumped on the city for several hours, leaving me with about 6" of snow on my car, then I drove back through the same raging blizzard to get home. The roads sucked both ways, and I don't think I broke 80 km/hr all the way.

Tomorrow is my first actual SnowHosting workday. Should be fun!

So close we can taste it

2011-12-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

We left for Maui with work left to do on the house. Much was indeed done while we were gone, but alas, some is still ongoing.

The electrical was a bigger job than anyone imagined as the house appears to have been wired by a drunken monkey with schizophrenia high on LSD, using a roll of electrical tape and speaker wire. Every time the electrician tried to fix an obvious problem, a new one would be found. Examples:

Yesterday, for reasons we have not yet figured out, the light switches in the bedroom no longer control the bedroom light. They did the previous day. All that happened was that the electrician wired up a new light. In a different room. On a different circuit.
We had a 3 way switch wired incorrectly. It took over 2 hours for the electrician to find out what the guy had done. He had cross-wired hot wires with ground in one of the junctions. The "switch" was not opening and closing a circuit, it was just breaking the connection to ground. The circuit was hot at all times. Nothing short of a fire waiting to happen.

In addition to this obvious set of headaches, it turns out that while we now have a lot of lighting installed, we do not, in fact, have the light bulbs. The bulbs we need (MR-16's in a mix of 20W, 35W, 50W, shielded & unshielded) are sold out at all the shops in town including the newly opened Canadian Tire. The Canadian Tire lighting manager said he sold out within 4 days of opening 2 weeks ago, and now they're all on back order. Light bulbs are an hour's drive away.

Still, the final painting is underway, and our new hardwood has arrived so we can fix the floor. If I were an optimist, I'd say we can move in starting next week.

But it may be the week after. Or the week after that.

Hoops without snow

2011-11-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

My Dinos are a few weeks into their regular season though I have not as yet made a game (two this weekend, though). It's cold and snowy in Calgary. Not in Maui, which among other things is the home to one of the premier pre-season NCAA basketball tournaments, the EA Sports Maui Invitational.

2,400 seats. 30% smaller than Calgary's gym, similar to Groningen

I don't follow the NCAA, but catch good basketball when I can, and so I asked my NCAA following friends and went to two tournament games.

First up: Michigan vs Memphis, both top 25 ranked teams.

#1 Jackson fires a long one for Memphis

Michigan took Memphis fairly easily by killing them in the transition game. Head to head, it was pretty even, but when Michigan went fast, Memphis couldn't get organized. Final 73-61. Tim Hardaway Jr. was a standout for Michigan (His dad was in the crowd; he played for Golden State, Miami Heat, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets and the Indiana Pacers, and was the 2nd fastest player in NBA history to make 5,000 points).

Next: Duke vs Tennessee.

Tipoff

Tennessee's #34 Maymon & #0 Makanjuola rebound

Two Plumlees play for Duke, brothers #5 Mason & #21 Myles

Duke had their hands full with Tennessee, but won in the end. Tennessee stayed with them or led the whole first half, and had Tennessee's shooting been better in the first half they would have taken it in a walk. But the first half shots didn't fall, and Duke finally won by 10, 77-67. Duke's Austin Rivers (son of NBA coach Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics) was a player to watch. He doesn't pass it off enough, but he's got a great outside shot and a constant willingness to drive to the net. Mason Plumlee plays just like Ross Bekkering, who used to play for Calgary but now plays in Holland (or he would it he were not injured).

#0 Rivers with Mason Plumlee & #34 Kelly

But an absolute highlight for me was seeing Coach K. of Duke, as of last week the winningest coach in NCAA history with now 904 victories.

Mike Krzyzewski

The man is a legend.

I got to pet a turtle! I got to pet a turtle!

2011-11-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

I always recommend visitors to Maui go to the Maui Ocean Centre. While not that large, it's a great aquarium and a nice place to spend the better part of a day. You get a chance to clearly see some of the critters you see in the oceans here, only in MUCH clearer water, and you even get to see nocturnal guys during the day.

My typical snorkeling view, with Tangs, Idols and Unicornfish

Banded Coral shrimp, a nocturnal dude

An Hawaiian Turkeyfish, another nocturnal dude

Amenemomees. Or something like that.

Seahorses are pretty common, though where I don't know

Frogfish. Masters of camouflage

Whitemouth Moray. I see a lot of these.

A napping octopus

I learned today that octopus only live 10-14 months, which I think makes seeing them all the more fun. So far this trip we've seen about 5.

Moon jellyfish. The only jellies I see here are bad ones.

We lucked out at some of the things happening at the aquarium today. We watched 25 lbs of food being prepared for the big pelagic tank with all the rays, sharks and giant trevalleys, and got to see feeding time.

Stingrays, but not the kind I have seen here

But the best part of all was getting to spend time with and shake hands with young green sea turtles, who we swim with all the time (we saw 14 the other day, and at one point were swimming with 5 at once). The MOC is part of a breeding and release program for these guys. They get hatchlings, raise them until they're about 2 or so, then let them go. Today was "weigh day" for the 6 18 month old dudes they have, so they pull them out of the enclosure, and get checked over by a vet. You're also allowed (under a watchful vet's eye) to touch them.

Measure time

An impatient patient

"Look mom, I'm an albatross!"

"Can I go back in the water now?"

It was VERY cool to be able to touch these guys, and they are much softer than I thought they would be (OK, except for the shells). They're endangered, so it's illegal to touch them in the wild (and they're usually covered in algae anyway).

I think that petting a turtle is right up there as the high point of this vacation. Also good was the pass-by of a group of spinner dolphins earlier in the week. I tried valiantly to get some good shots, but this was the best I could do.

Two spinners at the surface

Birds and pigs

2011-11-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

It's always fun to go birdwatching in Maui, especially to find native birds, most of whom are rare or endangered. They become endangered by habitat loss (the result of turning the islands into resorts, planting non-native trees that mean native bugs have no homes), and competition from non-native birds.

For the first time, we got to the Kealia Pond wetland, and saw the rare Hawaiian Stilt, or Ae'o (as he is known in Hawaii). They're rare (only about 1,800 left), but not in Kealia Pond.

About 50 of them hiding from the wind

We went birding upcountry on our favourite trail and found (but could not photograph) some 'Apapane (a red and black nectar feeder that likes trees that are very rare) and 'Alauahio (a high speed green tennis ball of a bird), but did get shots of 'Amakihi.

Hangin' in a mamane tree

The curved beak is a giveaway

We hike this trail every time we are on Maui, and every time, there is more damage from the feral pigs and goats up there at the 6,000' level. This time, for the first time ever, we saw the pigs, and not just once, but we had two different sightings.

Not very big, and in a hurry

We were surprised at how small they are, being no more than about 12" tall and 24" long.

It's been REALLY busy on the island. Here's one of the beaches we were on.

People as far as the eye can see

Jam packed with tourists. Don't you just hate paradise?

Shades of Gilligan's Island

2011-11-02T22:24:00.000-06:00

Last month, a 49' boat sailing from San Diego to Honolulu got into trouble 700 miles north east of Hilo on the Big Island. Too far away from land for the Coast Guard, a cruise ship went out of it's way to perform a rescue. The story and a cool video of the rescue is available here.

Once abandoned, the boat drifted, and it beached itself this week on Maui. We had to go find it. It ended up on a beach we haven't been to before (!) where it is quite the tourist attraction.

Beached

Worse for wear

The crowds

It was an interesting beach, complete with sand dunes ready for dune jumping...

Shades of Oregon

...and low flying aircraft.

Under the runway

It was a "local's beach" not frequented by tourists. What this means is that there was lots of trash. Shame that. I always find it interesting that the locals treat their island very badly, then complain (in the paper, anyway) about the tourist wrecking the island. I've always found its the other way around.

Maui first days

2011-10-29T21:24:00.000-06:00

After a typically long and uneventful trip we are ensconced once again in paradise. Yesterday was grocery/supplies day, so today was the first day to hang on the beach, our main activity here.

My home away from home for the next month

Our first snorkeling swim was a good one, with 7 turtles, 1 eel and an octopus to watch. I'd show you the photos, but...

As I wrote in this post, last year Karen bought me the Kodak Playsport waterproof camera, which leaked the third time I used it. I sent it back to Kodak after getting home, they allegedly fixed it and sent it back. I hated the thing so much I haven't used it since. I took it swimming today, took 2 pictures and it died. Why? It leaked. Again. But not just a bit. It was FULL of water this time.

Water fills the display

When I got out of the water and opened the two doors, water poured out. The battery is now shot. Which is fine, because when I got home, I threw the thing away. It's a piece of junk, and has been since the day Karen bought it for me.

Finishing the projects

2011-10-24T19:02:00.000-06:00

We're off to Maui in a matter of days, and so our projects are coming to a close. Sadly, we will be a week short of being able to move into our new house, but it's getting so close we can taste it.

We finished building and hanging gates for the fence.

Yours truly building the gates

One built and hung, one waiting for a hangin'

Both hung, and both as straight as pumpkins...

...but with the boards hung, you can't tell how crooked things are

We are now totally finished the shed. Knowing we had squirrels living in my attic, we knew they would take up residence under the shed. Well, either them or Pine Martins. Or skunks. Or a bobcat. Or any one of the many other critters who live here (we keep finding coyote poop in our front yard). Accordingly, we had to seal the underside with wire fencing, which as to be sunk 6-10" into the ground.

Fencing installed

Finished. Totally.

The painting has progressed as far as it can. We initiated the construction of a closet last week that won't be built for a week or so, plus we found some cruddy wallboard that needed fixing. After those two projects are done, then the painting can finish. We have ordered the hardwood bits to fix the floor, and the tile for the front entryway. Today we finished selecting lights and ordered all of them; they should also arrive while we're gone.

So with luck, we will come back to a house we can live in. That only took 3½ months to get ready.

Welcome to Canmore time.

Festival of Eagles and Birds of Prey

2011-10-24T18:37:00.001-06:00

A few weeks back, Canmore held it's annual Festival of Eagles. A lot of golden eagles migrate right past town, though they are up 4,000' in the air when they do so. However, if you know what you're looking for and have a good set of binoculars or a spotting scope, you can see them. At the downtown event, they had spotting scopes set up and we saw 4 in the space of a half hour; later that day I saw 3 more. On the peak day so far this year (about 2 weeks ago), they saw 553 at an official observation station not far from here. So far, some 2,400 have been sighted during this migration. I got no photos of them because they are mere pinpricks in the sky.

But the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation always comes to the festival giving you an opportunity to get up close and personal with golden eagles and other raptors, all of whom are injured in some way and not releasable back to the wild.

Spirit, the blind golden eagle

Burrowing Owl

Kes, the American Kestral

A barn owl

There's nothing wrong with the barn owl, but they're not native here, so his release isn't permitted.

At the Festival, we (and 78 others!) had an opportunity to go on a birding walk with Ben Gadd, who is a truly wonderful person and an exceptionally knowledgeable naturalist. We are the proud owners of several of his books, which he was kind enough to autograph for us. There weren't a lot of regular birds out, but we did see the rare Humanbird flying over town.

A paraglider coming in for a landing

The paragliders launch off Mt. Lady MacDondald where we hiked last week.

Late season hiking on Mt. Lady Macdonald

2011-10-18T18:27:00.002-06:00

We have been frantically working to get outside chores done before the snow flies and we head to Maui. Accordingly, we have not had a chance to get out hiking for almost 3 weeks, so today, given the nice weather forecast, we decided to get up a mountain.

Mt. Lady Macdonald towers over Canmore on the north-east side of the valley. About a decade ago, someone built a teahouse and a helipad near the top with the hope of starting a business, but alas, the folks of Canmore didn't want a slew of helicopters flying up and down so the venture failed, leaving a bunch of parts on the mountain. Like a fire lookout, these things become magnets for hikers, and the trail up Lady Mac is very popular.

You start up the Cougar Creek and get a foreshortened view of the goal.

Straight up to the top

The trail basically grinds relentlessly upwards, but on the bright side, offers better and better views as you ascend.

Canmore below. Hal Ling across the valley

It's an interesting trail. At one point, it weaves through a boulder field.

KC weaves through the rocks

Suddenly you break out to stunning views up the valley.

The full length of Mt. Rundle

From this point, you can also see up the mountain to the peak and the destination.

The teahouse is on the bench in the centre ahead

Not far past this you get your first actual view of the structure.

The teahouse in advance disrepair

KC's final steps up

The patio on the roof

The gazebo below the teahouse

The views from this place are stunning. The coolest part of all is that we could see both of our houses.

Dead Man's Flats

Harvie Heights, in the trees on the lower left, this side of the highway

It was a pretty good wildlife day, with lots of birds. We saw chickadees and nuthatches, got dive bombed by a flock of waxwings, and saw a Townsend's Solitaire.

We saw him on the way up and he was still there on the way down

We saw plenty of squirrels and chipmunks...

Cheeks not full, for a change

...and although they would no pose for photos, we saw two pikas, which made my day.

Mt. Lady Mac is a better trail than Ha Ling, a trail I would never do again. Lady Mac's trail is more interesting, and while it's a bit longer, it seems less strenuous to get to a very similar view of the Bow Valley. I'd do this one again.

Shed done, and other reno updates

2011-10-13T18:48:00.000-06:00

Two more days finished the shed, for a total of 8 days from when we started to work on the foundations. It took all Tuesday day to do the shingling...

Art shot

Crawling around and nailing between my legs

...and most Wednesday day to make the doors and door frames.

The finished product

They gave us just short of EXACTLY enough shingles to do the roof. After using all they gave me, I would have liked to have another course across the top, we threw away exactly 2 pieces, an 8" (that got wrecked) and a 4", and we were forced to use a 4" piece (which you're not supposed to do). It sprinkled rain on us right near the end but we got it done.

The doors fit much better than I thought they would and were a lot easier to hang, too.

We made a bunch of mistakes but despite this, it still looks OK and is very functional. It did take much more time and work than we thought, and probably would have been overall easier to build with 3 people than 2, but we got it done. Next job is to hang gates for the fence between the shed and the fence.

Our painters continue to plug along. Yesterday, they unearthed some rotten wallboard from what is obviously a leak in the ceiling (though how recent the leak is, is unclear). Looks like we will have to pull that section of roof apart and fix it when we reno the kitchen next year.

We also concluded that the "right" thing to do in our bedroom is to build a proper closet, rather than to put up wardrobes as I mentioned in this post from some 7 weeks ago. So we'll see if we can get that kicked off tomorrow.

We also finally met with a lighting guy. He told us it's almost impossible for us to have lights installed by the time we head to Maui, and so our thoughts of moving in officially by then are now officially dead and gone by the wayside. Accordingly, we remain residents of Dead Man's Flats until December.

Two more days of shed building

2011-10-10T19:59:00.000-06:00

I actually thought that building the shed would take 2-3 days after the foundations were ready. Now, "days" in my world start at 10 AM and usually end at 5-ish (in part because it's only about 4° at 10 AM, and about zero at 8 AM), but still, I thought it wouldn't take that much time for actual construction.

Yesterday, we started putting on the exterior cladding. First comes the back wall...

Just the back wall

...then the front wall, which goes up as a sheet...

Why not build a cube instead of a gable roof? Hmmmn...

...from which the door and roofline are cut out.

Carefully peering from up high

Next comes the walls. Since we're building an 8 x 10 shed, the walls are made of 4 pieces.

One panel

It was right around here that we found out that the shed was really not square, and really not straight. We had 4 x 8 side panels that wouldn't fit on the studs without being at an angle. But we worked at it a bit and took some liberties, and got them up.

2 Panels

The exterior cladding is up

But things really started going south when we put the first roof panel on, which was the last thing we did yesterday.

The roof starts

If we lined up the roof with the end of the end truss, it wouldn't overlap the roof joist 8' away. If we canted it so it was straight and true according to the trusses, it overhung the eave on one end by 3". So today we jigged and jagged, wiggled and futzed with it, and got all the roof on. But we ended up with a huge gap in the middle because we couldn't make the roof panels meet while getting everything else lined up with the trusses. We also had a 2" gap on one side we haven't figured out how to fix.

Guess we got some fillin' to do

Next went up the soffits...

One side

...then the first of the fascia boards.

Front & right side fascia on. Subfacia 2x4 on the left

So after 3 days, we have just finished Step 7 of the instructions. There are 11 steps. The want us to put on corner protection next, but the weather forecast says it's supposed to rain starting tomorrow night, so we have to get the shingles on next.

End of Day 3

From the back yard

Here's hoping the rain holds off until we can shingle. And that we can fill the gaps in the roof. Somehow.

Project Shed continues

2011-10-08T19:13:00.000-06:00

The shed (or more precisely, a pile of lumber and some instructions) was delivered late Thursday morning in the pouring rain. By the time we got it all into the garage, most of the wood we needed to paint was soaking wet, and it took a couple of hours to dry. Accordingly, we could get very little painted Thursday. In fact, all we got accomplished was painting 4 of the 8 sheets that will clad the exterior, on the one side that needed painting.

4 lonely sheets

Friday, we spent the better part of 6 hours painting in bursts of 45 minutes with 20 minute breaks for drying time, glad to be in garage away from the rain and at least partially warm. Our inventory:

The other four 4x8 exterior sheets, one side
Both sides of nineteen 8' 1x3's that are trim and door bits
Both sides of four 6' 1x6's that are for the front and back soffits
Both sides of two 12' 1x6's that are the side soffits

Most of the boards

It dawned sub zero this morning and very foggy, but the sun burned the fog off by 10:30. The rain that fell down for two solid days low fell as snow "up high", making the mountains now very white. "Up high" is only about 600 m above the valley level, and word has it that there was over 50 cm of accumulation above 2,000 m.

Ship's Prow from the West Wing first thing Saturday

The Three Sisters at 6 PM

Mt Collembola at 6 PM

We were only able to start construction at 11. Yes, we made more than a few mistakes, had to pull a few nails, invent a few instructions, and had to recut some things, so we were slower than people who know what they were doing would take. But we got all the framing done.

The first 3 frames up

Yours truly, Carpenter Dude

Framing done

Tomorrow comes the exterior cladding, and I suspect we won't have the whole thing finished until Monday. Maybe even later than that.

A story of sheds

2011-10-05T19:30:00.001-06:00

We're still stuck with little to do as the painters continue to plug away and we can't move more stuff in. But our annual trip to Maui is looming, as is winter. Looking at the garage the other day, we came to the conclusion that until we build the shed we knew we needed, no car could park in the garage. The shed had to be built before we head to Maui, as it will be serious winter when we get back. We needed the shed now. So we initiated yet another project: "The Shed."

We went first on Monday to the lumber yards in town. There's two. One doesn't do shed packages, and I'm just not "handy" enough to do it without a package (though someone should tell their web site dude and catalog maker, because both say they do sell shed packages). The other didn't have any in stock, nor did they know the price. This morning we called, and after 2 days, they still didn't have a price, but they did know it would be at least 2 weeks before we could get one delivered. That's bad timing, as we're gone in just over 3 weeks, and we have to have the thing built before we leave. Did I mention that we have nothing to do now?

Instead we called my favourite lumber yard in Calgary. Yes, they have shed packages (actually, a pile of lumber and an instruction book). Yes, they are in stock (because it's a pile of lumber; nothing is pre-built). And aside from a high delivery charge, could deliver it tomorrow (when it's supposed to rain here). Obviously these guys do not work on Canmore time.

This afternoon we started assembling the skid foundation system, which isn't much: six flagstones and two 4x4s. But you gotta get them level, and the space we chose is very slightly not level. So some had to be fully sunk into the ground, some get to sit on the ground, and a few are in between.

Right side nearly done; left side still to do

The shed has to be painted before the winter. Our painters tell us outdoor painting is basically over for the year, as our lows are getting down to 0° these days (it's snowing as I type this on the mountains about 600 m above me, but raining down here in the valley). We're going to try to paint the thing in the garage Thursday and Friday where we can keep it warm enough, then build on the weekend when it's supposed to be sunny.

Getting rid of the tenants

2011-10-05T19:08:00.001-06:00

The kind folks from the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation came by a few days ago and sealed up two holes the squirrels were using to get into our attic. Turned out there was not just one way in, but two. In addition to an obvious gap in the roofing under an eave, they also chewed a hole under another eave.

The AIWC folks aren't into trapping them, but rather evicting them. So rather than use traps, they seal up their holes...

The hole they chewed blocked by wire

...except for one, where they put a one way exit door.

The door near the now fenced off main entrance

They leave but can't get back in. We know the door was used yesterday but not today. We know there's a mom with at least 3 kids, and we have seen all four in the last 2 days.

Two kids playing in the tree

A very bold one who likes to talk to us

So we're pretty sure they're gone from their nest in our roof. Now the AIWC folks come back, remove the door, and seal up the hole. Problem solved with a 1 year guarantee that they won't get back in.

Zero mortality. No squirrels in the attic. How cool is that?

Dino's Mens BBall Roster Announced

2011-10-01T17:01:00.001-06:00

An update came out this week on Wayne Thomas' site with an updated roster for the 2011/12 Dino's Mens Basketball Team. I subsequently corresponded with Wayne to get the scoop on the folks not returning, too.

On the roster, at guard (R=returning, N=New):
Andrew McGuinness (R)
Jarred Ogunbemi-Jackson (R)
Keenan Milburn (R)
Nebojsa Kuljic (R)
Josh Owen-Thomas (N)
Matteo Belusci (N)

On the roster at forward:
Dustin Reading (R)
Tyler Fiddler (R)
Patrick Walker (R)
Matt Letkmann (R)
Josh Wolfram (R)
Daan Wiersum (N)
Boris Bakovic (N)
Roderick Iyekekpolar (N)

Not retuning from last year, and why:
Andy Rochon: His shoulder injuries never got much better. Taking a Masters of Coaching in West Virginia.
Jordan Flagel: Decided the effort wasn't worth it given the tiny bit of court time he got last year. I loved his energy and speed on the court.
Trevor Debolt: See Jordan. I think this is a great loss for the team.
Phil Labongo: Went back to Winnipeg for family reasons. Tough decision for him, I think, but the right one.
Daryus Sconers: Not a "returnee"; good recruiting resulted in one import too many. Went back to Phoenix.
Brad Clark: Taking the year off from basketball.
Youri Annisovets: Had trouble fitting in with the team.
Greg Farineau: Not sure. Came to the team from SAIT as a 3rd year

The pile is gone

2011-09-30T19:18:00.000-06:00

When I looked at the pile of dirt -- all 351 cubic feet of it -- at 2:30 PM yesterday, I honestly thought it would only take a couple of hours to help gravity get it all back in the hole. Wrong. In three hours yesterday, we only got it about 60% done. And it got harder today as we got closer to level ground, as gravity could no longer help.

We started this morning at 11, and at 5 PM (with some breaks, but not as many as yesterday), the pile was gone, and the hole was re-filled.

Raking the last bits of dirt

Compare this to yesterday

I calculated we would not have enough dirt to re-fill the hole, and I was right. We pulled a 4' wide, 8' deep culvert from the hole, which is the same volume as about 16" of dirt in a 10' wide hole. Plus, we did not put a bunch of really big boulders back in the hole, and the dirt has not yet settled. It's supposed to rain for the next 2 days, which will help the settling process, but the short answer is we still need about 3 cubic yards of dirt to fill the hole. Next year.

My painter continues to plug along, and today basically finished the exterior work, which was only the exteriors of the two doors.

The front

The back

He also did a scratch coat on a large section of the paneled wall. The small test section he did yesterday looked great, so we expanded.

Looking great

Now we are tired, and most every muscle in our bodies hurt from 2 days of digging.

Fire and Water

2011-09-29T23:51:00.002-06:00

Mr. Well Guy II, Aaron Drilling from Calgary, arrived today and did a fantabulous job of getting my well back into working order. Want to change out a wellhead in a pit and add a casing extension to raise your wellhead up and get rid of the pit? (Note: that last statement was to aid Google in it's search terms). Here's how it was done, and what happened to us in a chronology of photos.

Step 1: Remove the pit
See this post for details.

Step 2: Pull the pump.
I'm a retired reservoir engineer who did a bunch of time as a production engineer. I understand about pumps (a bit, though my buddy Swade has me cleanly in this department). I thought they would need a rig of some kind to pull the pump. Nope. The fine gentleman from Aaron's and I did it by hand. The data I had on this well was nonsense; it's only 60' deep (not the +100' I was told), and the pump was only set about 50' down. So when we pulled it, the pump and the "tubing" (2" poly) fit in my yard.

Tubing hanger and pump seal in the foreground

It was obvious that the problem causing the well to be contaminated with surface runoff was the fact that there was no seal on the tubing hanger (in fact, there was one heck of a gap). Any crap or fluid that fell or seeped into the sump/pit was destined to fall into the well. This had nothing to do with seals around the casing, as I was told was part of the problem.

Step 3: Cut the Casing

So to clean up the problem of the casing not being closed to surface runoff, you cut the casing off clean.

Easily cut with a wheel

Step 4: Weld on the casing extension

Aaron's then took a 10' section of new casing and welded it on.

Bright light from the arc welder

The fun part about this step was making sure the new casing was straight, because balancing a 10' steel pole 7" in diameter on a hole is not the easiest thing to do.

Step 5: Add the pit adaptor

My well used to be down 7' in a culvert. In truth, it's called a "pit". Pits are nasty. While I have had at least 3 people down in my pit in the last few months, technically I knew that going down there is considered "entry into confined spaces". I know what trials and tribulations there are in sending employees down into confined spaces. But the folks who went down there did all the dirty work necessary, cutting the water line and the electrical connections.

The old wellhead/tubing hanger was replaced by a pit adaptor. To install this, first you drill a hole in the new casing.

Drilling the hole

Then you strap on a pit adaptor, which is a spiffy connector that straps to the casing as a takeoff for the downhole water lines.

Pit adaptor strapped to the casing. New connections almost in place.

Step 6: Cut the casing to the correct length

Here's Aaron's performing gymnastics to cut the casing off.

Cut is 18" above grade

Step 7: Re-run the pump

We chose to replace all the poly and all the cable leading to the pump. Yes, it was only 2 years old, but it was just 50' in length and cheap to upgrade. The pump itself probably only weighs 15 lbs/7 kg. So it slides into the well just fine.

Pump in hand, off to the ladder to run it

At the top of the tubing, a new tubing hanger is installed. It has a fitting that slips in the pit adaptor, and "dogs" (a set of 3 arms) that force pressure onto the tubing to make sure it connects to the pit adaptor. Wish I had a photo of it. The tubing hanger has a 1" steel rod temporarily attached to it, and this is used to guide the fitting into the pit adaptor, and a simple bit of cord sets the dogs which apply pressure to the fitting to insure no leaks. This is similar to a retrievable bridge plug in the oil and gas biz. I wish I had taken a picture.

Step 8: Start refilling the hole

We had a backhoe to dig it out. We could not get one to fill it back in. Here's what it looked like when the backhoe was done.

Culvert moments from being removed. Note the dirt pile

So we started scraping the dirt back into the hole. By my calculations, 351 cu. ft, 13 cu. yds, or 10 cubic meters of rocks, dirt, rocks, sod, rocks, tree roots, rocks and more rocks.

Yours truly hard at work

Did I mention there were a lot of rocks? We started at 2:30 PM, and with a LOT of breaks, by 5:00, the pile looked like this with the hole about 60% filled.

We have to fill the hole about halfway up the red part on the casing

A 6:00 pm view. Lots left.

Hard work.

But we were not the only ones hard at work today. The painters started. They got a lot of prep done, including priming the front door...

Outside

Inside

...and filling a billion holes inside.

Lots of little fixes

On top of that, our fireplace guys were here all day, and our fireplace is now installed and done.

Dudes on the roof, fixing the chimney & bugging the squirrels

The finished thing

Today was a hectic day, but a lot got accomplished in great part due to Aaron Drilling. Got a well problem? Call them. They rock. We called Tuesday PM and they were here today. After three months of frustrations with Mr. Well Guy 1, they are my heros. I wish I had known about them in the first place.

Tomorrow, we finish filling the hole.

Unexpected tenants

2011-09-29T19:22:00.001-06:00

I posted a few weeks back about my new neighbours. It turns out we have a lot of neighbours, and this week, we learned that we also have tenants. On Monday we heard noises in our roof, including the scampering of little feet, scratching and chewing.

Today, we learned a mom squirrel and at least 3 babies have found a way into our attic. While working in the yard, we watched them come and go.

Two kids near the entrance under the eave

Tragically, much as I love squirrels, they are not welcome in my attic. In addition, we are zoned R1 and are not allowed to have tenants in our house under the local bylaws. We contacted an ~~exterminator~~ eviction squad today.

If it makes you feel any better, squirrel mortality is about 78% in the first year in the wild.

A really big hole, and other progress

2011-09-27T19:03:00.000-06:00

Mr. Backhoe Dude showed up this afternoon, and in the space of about an hour, dug a 7' deep, 10' wide hole in the yard to get out the culvert surrounding our water well's wellhead.

The digging starts

Deeper...

Still 2' to go

Checking the water connections are clear

Out she comes

Bye bye culvert

Excited to be rid of the culvert, I called Mr. Well Guy. He seemed nonplussed. He still wanted bentonite, still wanted me to disassemble the fence so he could drive in, still was non-committal about when he would come, wasn't happy that the excavation was done while he wasn't there, etc...

So I fired him. Loser.

Within an hour, KC had found a new guy out of Calgary (Mr. Well Guy II) who promised to be here Thursday to put everything back together again. And I'm betting he will actually show up.

The gasfitter dude also came today, and set up connections for both the new fireplace insert...

Through the floor and exposed was the only way

The basement tie in

...and the BBQ bib.

Wow. It's a tap!

He also kindly disconnected and removed the gas fired heater in the garage. It was only installed circa 1962.

Ah, progress.

Too-friendly squirrels

2011-09-27T18:46:00.000-06:00

We were outside today and noticed a baby squirrel cowering in the corner of the deck. We didn't seem to bother him until we came very close, and he scampered around trying to avoid us. He came up against the tree in our deck but didn't seem to want to climb it. But he was VERY interested in KC. So instead of climbing the tree, he started to climb her.

Up her legs to the tummy

Around to the back

On the shoulder

Having gerbils was good practice for this. The only trick was he didn't want to (or couldn't) leave, and he hung on to her for quite a while. He tried climbing in her hair. He went around her neck twice. Finally, KC backed up to the tree, and I got a canoe paddle (no, I was actually being nice), but we couldn't coax him to climb onto the tree. Finally he wriggled down her and back on the deck, where he promptly tried to hide in our garage, then attempted to get to where we think they nest in our neighbours yard, but couldn't figure out how to climb the fence.

After a while his mom showed up, but she couldn't teach him to climb either. But like all moms, she yelled at him a lot.

Projects

2011-09-26T19:22:00.000-06:00

When we bought our new house, we knew we had a few projects which had to get done before we moved in. The list:

Install a new front door
Remove the wood burning stove
Install a gas burning fireplace insert into the wood burning fireplace
Remove the fake ceiling beams and prep to...
Paint the place from top to bottom
Fix the water well by raising the casing and packing it with bentonite.

We actually initiated all of them in early July.

Here's their status. All are taking much longer than expected. The reason for the delay is what we have come to refer to as "Canmore Time". This is a timeline that makes West Coasters seem like they are in a hurry. As KC has concluded

"tomorrow" in Canmore Time is actually "in a few days";
"Monday" in Canmore Time is actually "maybe Wednesday if I don't go hiking"
"next week" in Canmore Time is actually "in a few weeks";
"next month" may be as late as the spring if it involves frost.

The front door:

Installed September 13th. See this post.

The wood burning stove:

Removed last week, going from this:

What it was

...to this.

What it is

The stove was removed only two weeks after we got the quote to get it done. Now, it did take close to 7 weeks to get the quote, but it happened pretty fast after that.

Now, of course, inside every big problem is a little problem trying to get out. Here, the little problem is obvious: there was no flooring under the heat shield. Now we need 12 square feet of hardwood that was originally installed in 1979. We are fortunate that it is still being made, but finding a supplier is proving difficult even though the company is now owned by Armstrong Flooring.

The gas burning fireplace:

It arrived early last week.

Box 1 of 6

The gasfitter said last week he would be here today to install the gas line for it. Today became tomorrow. After the gas line, the chimney needs to be cleaned out before the sleeve can be put inside it. Then it can be installed. I'm guessing 2 more weeks.

Removing stuff to prep for painting:

My contractor, Bogdan's Construction (the only guy I have met who doesn't work on "Canmore Time") came last week and pulled everything out.

The office before

Beams gone. We took the closet out in August

Before

Beams gone

So we are ready for the painters.

Painting:

Three weeks ago, we got some quotes and picked a contractor. We were torn in selecting because one was much less expensive but had a poorer timeline. One was ready to start immediately but had a substantially higher price. Three weeks ago, the contractor we selected said they said they would be here tomorrow, Sept 27. Today, tomorrow became Thursday.

The water well:

Yeuch. This has been the project to nowhere. The wellhead for our water well sits 7' down in a culvert.

The broken rotting cover on the culvert

Crap flows into the culvert (especially when it rains) and leaks down beside the well casing, contaminating our water. We need to weld a 7' extension on the casing raising the wellhead, then pack the hole with bentonite clay to seal the casing.

Initially, I was told to do all this work by a consultant with Integrated Environments in Calgary. I asked this consultant for a list of contractors who could do the work in the Canmore area. He promised to send me a list. I sent him 3 e-mails (he never replied), left 4 phone messages (that were never returned), and spoke with his secretary twice. Nada. I gave up dealing with these idiots.

So in late July I called a water well guy in Cochrane, who's a gruff old dude who has been in the water well business for 15 years since retiring from Shell. He did some work on the well for the previous owner. Initially, he didn't want to do the work, because he didn't think it necessary. But I convinced him to do it, and he made it clear he knew what needed to be done.

He finally showed up on September 9th with a casing extension and a welder. But despite having been here before to do work on the well for the previous owner, he brought nothing to deal with the culvert. He said it needed to be dug out (he could have mentioned this before). A quick call to Bogdan caused him to try to track down a bobcat/excavator guy. There was a chance Mr. Bobcat Guy could come on the 10th. So Mr. Well Guy disconnected our water system.

That was 17 days ago, and we have not had water since.

Mr. Bobcat Guy came over last Thursday (the 22nd), and said he could dig the culvert out "Friday or Saturday". In Canmore time, that means maybe it will happen sometime this week. Maybe. Mr. Bobcat Guy said he didn't need Mr. Well Guy to be there to get the culvert out. Hmmn.

Bogdan bothers both Mr. Well Guy and Mr. Bobcat Guy daily. Both are noncommittal. Getting this well work done is like pushing a rope uphill.

So if you come to visit, pee first.

Enjoying the Fall on Lawson

2011-09-24T18:47:00.003-06:00

It was an awesome fall day. In fact, it was more like mid-July than the late part of September. The skies were blue, the sun brilliant, the temps were a balmy 25° at the top at lunch and 28° at the end of the day. So we took the day off to go climb a mountain. We didn't quite make it to the top, though.

We headed way down south to climb the south end of Mt. Lawson, a "new" trail described by Gillean on Page 306 of Volume 1 of her new guidebook. The hike starts along a road beside a diversion ditch of a creek, which reminded me a LOT of hiking on Maui.

The diverted creek. Today's objective: climb the mountain in the background

The creek in the ditch

The ditch

In many ways, the hike is like the Hunchback Hills, which also follows a route up a ridge. The "path" is great in spots, absent in spots, but not typically hard to find it you lose it. It runs right up against the cliff on the right side in the photo above, occasionally with spectacular drop offs.

The Opals on the other side of the valley

Mt. Wintour and the Opals

Yet another wicked drop-off

As we got higher, we also started getting views back to the Lower Kananasakis Lakes...

The sun glistens

...plus across the valley to the larches on Kent Ridge.

We got excited as to what we would find at the top

We got to the top of the first summit to find a few larches in splendid colour, but not much in the way of views...

Larches in colour

...except up to the next summit.

It just gets steeper

From here the trail grunts up a 55° grass slope...

Very steep grass. Tougher on the way down, actually

...then flattens on more grass & dryas.

Great views & great walking

This, however, didn't last long. We arrived at the last pitch before the summit. Acres and acres of moderately stable scree.

A lot of rock. Easier at first.

A 40° slope on one side, a cliff on the other, and unstable scree

We started up this bit but after about 5 minutes didn't like the exposure, so we turned and bailed, following the Ryder Family Motto:

Be Chicken and Live

Me beating a hasty retreat

KC doing likewise

We were happy to eat lunch on the "grassy knoll" some 30 vertical meters short of the summit with this view.

KC and the Kananaskis Lakes

This was an interesting hike, but I had hoped for more larches. It was a magnificent day, and even better in that we had the place to ourselves. On our way home, we saw the Galatea parking lot full to overflowing with cars, as well as several other popular spots. The hike gave us a great overview of King Ridge, directly across the valley, which is on my list of "things to do".

King Ridge. Up on the right, then across.

It was a wildlife-free day. A few birds (chickadees, crows and gray jays), one chipmunk, some elk and sheep poop were all we saw.

Gillean says:

I'm betting this route up the south ridge will become enormously popular with experienced hikers; there's a rudimentary trail most of the way, the gradient is gentle most of the way, a rock ridge at the top adds spice, the summit is an unusual viewpoint, and lastly there's the option of going farther.

There's no real evidence that she'll win the bet so far. The trail comes and goes a lot, and after a year of the book being out, the trail doesn't show signs of being "enormously popular." The gradient is consistent and not too steep except in spots. The rock ridge at the top defeated us, and I suspect would bother a lot of people (it was reminiscent of Tent Ridge but harder). Never got to the option of going farther.

But the views at the top are wonderful. And on a busy day in the mountains, it was just us. Kinda nice to find places like this.

Tara & Kirk's Wedding

2011-09-18T14:51:00.000-06:00

The daughter of a good friend of mine got married in town this weekend. The ceremony was held in a meadow in Banff, and the reception at the Canmore Nordic Centre.

The bridesmaids and the bride arrive

Proud mom & dad with beautiful daughter

A very happy day

Vow time

The vows

The happy couple signing the register

The ceremony was great, though I think everyone would have liked it to have been a bit warmer than 8°, and preferred that it had not rained. The reception was a blast, with WAY too much food, lots of dancing until the wee hours of the morning, lots of catching up with old friends, one of the best Best Man speeches I have heard in a long time, and making the acquaintance of lots of new friends, too (yes, I still need an apartment in Montreal for the grand prix).

Both KC and I want to thank Tara and Kirk for inviting us, and most importantly, for holding it within near staggering distance of our house(s).

West Wind Pass with New Friends

2011-09-18T14:40:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine was getting married in town this weekend, and I offered to guide a hike for interested visitors. At 11:50 PM on Friday night, I got a note from one of the guests saying she had arranged for a group to go hiking at 9 AM on Saturday morning. She asked if I would lead it. At 12:20 AM, I said sure. I'm a big believer in advance planning, as you can see.

Turns out I had 10 folks, mostly from the Montreal and Ottawa areas, few of whom had spent much time in the my mountains. The morning did not dawn well. At 8 AM, it was a balmy 5° in the valley and there was a localized storm bringing rain to Canmore and snow up in the mountains. On the bright side, it wasn't a big storm, and because the sunrise was good, we were treated to a rare rainbow in the west.

Dark clouds brew but the sun is shining

We headed to West Wind Pass, which is a wonderful intro hike for folks new to my mountains. Many of these folks were runners, as it turns out, and most really liked the workout.

The crew emerges from the forest

Eight of the 10 happened to be lawyers.

8 lawyers on the edge of a cliff? Tempting...

It also turned out that they cleaned up VERY well. Here's a small selection of them at the wedding reception the same evening.

Wow.

It's a darn good job they didn't look like this on the trail, for I would have just fallen off the cliffs in awe.

They seemed to like my hike selection, and more importantly the snacks we brought for them at the top, and the chocolate we had for them at the end of the hike. I was glad to be able to show them all my great back yard.

Tryst Lake: Moose and almost Pikas

2011-09-15T21:17:00.001-06:00

We went down Hwy. 742 today to do an afternoon hike up to Tryst Lake. Tryst is in the valley below the Tent Ridge Horseshoe hike that we did a few years back, and while picnicking at the Engadine Overlook, we saw two folks way up high on the ridge doing the horseshoe hike.

On our way down to the hike, we saw a mom and a calf moose snacking in Gap Lake.

Gangly critters.

The hike has a 1.9 km start down an uninspired logging road. The start is shared with the various hikes accessed via the Commonwealth Lakes. This is a great section to mountain bike if you're going that far, though I probably wouldn't bring bikes just to do the Tryst hike.

Commonwealth Peak, I think

Once you leave this ~~road~~ trail, you start a steady climb up a the valley of a pretty creek.

Reminiscent of Old Goat creek

Unfortunately, the trail starts being part of the creek bed...

Trail? Creek? Is there a difference?

...and in many places is overgrown with willows. The higher you get, the better the views back across the valley get.

Mt Engadine, the Tower & Mt. Galatea

Mt. Engadine & the Tower. Mt. Buller on the left

The trail only climbs ~250 m but it sure feels like more. It just gets steeper and steeper. Finally you break through to the lake.

The Fist and Tryst Lake

The two main peaks of Tent Ridge

There's no outlet stream. The lake just leaks out the bottom. We went exploring to the far end of the lake to check out the higher basin.

Just a whole lot of rock

We heard several pikas and found a midden, but despite hunting for about 20 min, we found no pikas. :-(

The view straight back over the lake from here is the familiar crenelated summit of Mt. Chester.

Mt. Chester

Mt Chester in the sunshine

Around here it started to rain. That's twice in two days it started to rain on us at the point furthest away from our start. The not-really-nice trail on the way up turned into a greasy mess on the way down, and I torqued my ankle on a slippery bit (not serious). Thank goodness for trekking poles.

This was not a bad selection for an afternoon jaunt. The trailhead's just 45 min south of Canmore on Hwy 742, and it only takes a little over an hour to get to the lake. It would have been better had we been able to track down some pikas, though.

Wandering while stuck

2011-09-14T19:22:00.000-06:00

Until the painters are done and the fireplace installed and the water well fixed, we're not moving in to our new home. And since we're ready for all those jobs to happen (even if they're not ready for us), we are stuck with little work to do. The weather this week hasn't been too conducive to hiking, but this afternoon it turned nice and warmed up to 18° or so in the sunshine, so we did a lap of the woods near the West Wing.

The first thing we found? Evidence of bears.

Bear poop full of berries

A stump ripped apart for the ant colony

The signs of fall are clear.

Ripe red rose hips

Willows turning red

The river is down from torrential levels and has assumed it's proper turquoise colour.

Fast flowing but still

How many times have I posted this view of Grotto?

Looking back to the Sisters and the Ehagay Nakoda Range

We saw lots of deer and elk tracks in the mud of the river bank, and a bunch of canids, too, but it's hard to tell if they're domestic dogs, coyotes or wolves. It's also pine cone collecting season for the dozens of squirrels we ran into, each of which had to yell at us for a minute or two.

A staring contest. I won.

It was a really nice afternoon. Right up to the point where it started raining.

That towering cu wasn't the only one around

And of course it started raining when we were farthest away from home. Fortunately, it was a sun shower, and "farthest away" was only about 2 km, and the shower was light. But it lasted all the way home.

I adore my door

2011-09-14T19:07:00.000-06:00

Way back in the beginning of July, we started our house project with 4 jobs to get done before we could move in. A biggie was replacing our front door, which was a glass sliding patio door. In typical fashion of our house, it was installed backwards, with the slider on the outside, instead of the inside (meaning you could never securly lock the door).

It took us longer than we expected to select the door we wanted, and then even longer than that to get it ordered. The initial price on the door we wanted was north of $5,000, which neither us nor our supplier could believe. We made some minor adjustments to the design and the price dropped to under $1,500, which caused even more confusion, for neither we nor our supplier could believe such a dramatic price drop had occurred with so minor a change being made. In the end, we ordered a door that was almost the same as our initial spec at less than half the cost.

It finally arrived late last week, and was mostly installed yesterday.

The old door removed

The hole

The new door as shipped

Installed, mostly

We still have to get casing for it and it will be painted as part of painting the rest of the house.

If you look carefully, the style of glass we selected is Mondrian. This was in honour of Piet Mondrian and our Amsterdam trip. Piet was an influential Dutch artist, and we saw some of his work in Amsterdam and The Hague. The inside glass is a little more textured than we wanted, and the glass is just in shades of gray instead of bold blues, reds, yellows and blacks, but it's still a nice reminder.

Replacing the door is very exciting for us, as it feels as if we are finally making progress on getting our new home ready to occupy. We came very close to getting the work we need done on the water well last week, but were foiled by lack of access to a backhoe, and in the meantime, we have no water. We finally contracted with painters, but they won't start for almost 2 weeks. Fireplace guy is still taking his own sweet time getting my fireplace installed.

So our other projects aren't going so well, and as a result, the door to us is a big deal. How the mighty have fallen.

Blue Rodeo in Banff, and a Review of the New Shaw Amphitheater

2011-09-13T19:41:00.000-06:00

After planting trees, we zipped into Banff to catch the Blue Rodeo outdoor concert at the brand new Shaw Amphitheater at the Banff Centre. It was an excellent concert that went on just short of 2 hours plus had an opening act. We were up close and had pretty good sightlines.

Jim Cuddy

Greg Keillor

The last few times I've seen Blue Rodeo, the same thing happens: Greg plays with the band less and less. He probably was only on stage for 40 min of the 2 hrs, missing playing on some stalwart Rodeo tunes like Till I Am Myself Again. Don't know why he does this.

This was the "big event" that launched the brand new Shaw Amphitheater. It's not worth reviewing the concert, but it is worth reviewing the venue just in case you ever come here for a concert.

They have a "no lawn chair" policy. This had better morph to a "festival chairs only" policy PDQ. There is nowhere you can comfortably sit without one at the venue. Still, despit the no chairs policy, they were letting people in with all kinds of chairs.

Right in front of the stage and set down about 5' from the stage is a big semicircular paved area. If you want to see a concert -- any concert -- from this space, plan on standing. Folks did put down blankets but that didn't last long. It is impossible to get comfortable, so within minutes, they stand. Some people put up full size chairs down here. They just got in the way of the people standing.

Behind this concrete mosh pit is a set of about 10 concrete steps 18" or so high in the next arc of the semicircle. Sit on the 2nd tier or higher and you can see clearly over the tops of the folks standing in the mosh pit. But you front row folks will be standing. These concrete steps are very hard and very cold and without the right thing to sit on (a blanket ain't it) are really uncomfortable. But a legless festival chair, or one of those "folded in half thermarest" chairs allows for a backrest and the steps are perfect for your legs. Plus, there's ample space between you and the row in front.

Behind the concrete steps is a 2 m wide flat walkway they keep clear. Then comes the grass. The fact that it had been recently sodded was abundantly clear. Sit within 10' of the walkway, and the endless traffic on the walkway is in your way the whole concert. The slope of the grass isn't really conducive to chairs of any kind without leaning back a lot. The grass is damp and will make any fabric you sit on (like, say, your pants) wet. I'm not sure I would want to watch a concert from the grass.

The amphitheater is angled such that the setting sun crosses behind and to the right of the stage. So if you sit on the right hand side, the sun is in your eyes coming in from about 45° to your right. Really annoying.

Sit on the left and you start in the shade of the stage, which I was jealous of at the start. But pretty soon you're looking almost straight into the sun.

So the only advice I can offer is to bring a peaked cap. My Tilley hat was excellent in blocking the sun coming in from the side and not obstructing my view of the stage. Folks on the left side couldn't look at the band for about 20 minutes. Jim Cuddy's shadow was 10 rows high.

The concert ended just before 8 PM and the sun was annoying everyone from about 6 PM onward, and was especially bad between 7:15 and 7:30 as it was getting ready to set. And when the sun set, the temperature dropped from 24° to 16° in 9 minutes.

They were selling beer, wine and food, but they won't let you into the seating area with it. Some people snuck stuff down but security kicked them out. They seem to be less prohibitive of food than of alcohol.

So I don't know who designed this venue, but it's not that concert-goer friendly. Bring a festival chair. Sit on the concrete steps at or above the 3rd row. Sit on the right side. Bring a hat.

And enjoy the show.

Tree Planting

2011-09-13T19:01:00.000-06:00

There's a wildlife underpass about 700 m from The West Wing which was put in with funds left over from Canada hosting the G8 Summit way back in 2002. All of the wildlife crossings here have cameras to record photos of the wildlife that use it, and ours averages some 40 animal/animal group crossings a month. One of the things that makes the crossings work better is when they are more natural, and to that end, a call went up a few weeks ago for helping to plant some trees near our underpass.

Our job was to dig up trees in one area, move them to the underpass and replant them. It was a Parks initiative, promoted by Bow Valley Wildsmart. Almost 30 volunteers showed up, and we dug up two truckloads -- almost 80 -- baby conifer trees and some bushes from a densely forested area beside the highway about 3 km away.

Two trucks of trees and a bunch of diggers

Getting the trees out was no fun. These trees are impressive in that they seem to be able to grow in what is essentially a gravel/rock field. It took pickaxes to bust up the ground enough to get them out.

Where we planted them looked (at first glance) much nicer...

Next to the highway, the underpass about 50 m away

...but in fact there was but only 6" of "topsoil" and then one whole heck of a lot more rocks requiring more pickaxes.

The red flagged ones are new

We planted ~40 here, plus there's ~30 were planted last year

About 15 are planted here, plus 10 from last year

I thought 80 trees would make a bigger difference. I suspect to fill up this space, we'll have to keep doing this for years. I'm OK with that. Like the animals, I'm in it for the long run.

We also cut down about 500 invasive, non-native thistles, too. Barely a dent, but it's something.

I was impressed that it took so little time to fill up the two trucks. But when you have 10 teams of 3 people digging at the rate of about 6 trees per hour, that's 80 trees in slightly under 90 minutes. We were able to water them in after replanting faster than we could get water out of the tanks, too. Ah, what a dedicated army of volunteers can accomplish.

I'm hoping the next bear I meet thanks me for it. Or ignores me. Yeah, that would be better.

Crap in the Cupboard and a Hole in the Wall

2011-09-10T17:59:00.000-06:00

I thought we were done finding crap left behind by the previous owner of our house. Um, no. This week, we braved looking into a "cupboard" that is above one of our only two closets. Turns out it's an attic space. And it was full of crap.

KC in the Cupboard

A view into the attic

So what was in here? Well, thankfully, less than was in the crawl space.

4 years of National Geographic magazines, 1979-1983
A bunch of books, mostly old school books dated 1980-1984, but some novels and a LOT of kids books
a TI-99/4a computer in it's original box (I checked. Yes there is an active user group for this computer, which was discontinued in 1984. It's worth about $15)
A suite of geophysical maps to Pemex's Oro field, dated 1983
Kid's school assignments from 1980-1985
A few stuffed animals

Our new house is a "handyman special" built by a guy who didn't pay much attention to, oh, the electrical code. For instance, we plugged in something and fried its electronics. I got out my tester and sure enough, it was 220 V, but with a standard 110 V plug instead of a proper 220 V plug. I took some wall sconces down to aid in painting, and found he had extended the wires with a portion of a lamp cord (conveniently not marked black and white). We have light switches that do strange things. We have plumbing pipes tied up to the ceiling using rope and bits of rags instead of pipe hanging strapping. Yeah, our new home was previously managed by a "do it yourselfer". I'm waiting to find the duct tape.

And we took a mirror down in our hideously green-painted bathroom to aid in painting it a much less offensive colour. And discovered...

The mirror hanging in place

...where the spare toilet paper is stored.

Just a hole cut in the drywall