Ski day 14: Rescues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.