mushing video

Mushing

A big day today... we were up early and waiting in the line for the lift to open at 8.30. The snow that had come in yesterday afternoon didn't continue all night, but there was a good top-up of about 10-15 cm and everything still looked nice and fresh as we were on our way up.

We sqeezed in 2 quick runs, one of which Jase found an ungroomed run which had no tracks on it yet so he was very happy with that :)

Then it was time to go mushing on the dog sled. We took the shuttle up and walked a little way until we saw some of the dogs up ahead. All together there were 40 dogs, all chained up in their individual areas, with space enough for a small wooden kennel, and a circle of about 3 metres diameter where they could walk around. They were all very keen to meet us and were trying to get our attention by barking and yelping all at once.

Our favourites were called Mousse and Marble, and another girl called Screamer, who was very timid but had a really sweet nature.

Jase had to help our guides pick out the dogs for our sled (we needed 8 in total) and run them one-by-one down through the middle of all the other dogs, ready to be harnessed up. Every time a dog was chosen the rest of them would bark and howl in jealousy, then when the guide came back to choose the next one, they were all on their best behaviour, and started crying and pleading to be picked.

There was another sled on the tour with us, a lady and her daughter from Ippswitch, Qld. Lots of Aussies here.

So after our lesson on how to handle the sled and the dogs we were on our way... I was first to do the mushing. The commands were "Ready" to get going, "Whoa" to stop, and "Hike" to spur them up a hill. It was so much concentration that I didn't really even take in the scenery for the first bit, but I soon started to get the hang of it. Until, a tight corner and the sled with Jase cocooned in it nearly toppled over and I lost my grip on the handle! Luckily there was a bit of a steep hill so the dogs were a bit slow up there and I quickly ran back up and got control of them (and Jase in the runaway sled) .... N.

Neri thought it was hilarious, but the number one rule we were told was "don't let go of the sled" so i was stuck in this runaway sled yelling out whoaaa at the top of my lungs with no control over the dogs. It was lucky that we reached an uphill so that they slowed down or who knows where i would have ended up.

Sledding was really fun, the dogs seem to enjoy it too. neri mushed us all the way to the lake where we had a break and warmed up in the hut. I mushed us all the way back, which was mainly downhill and required a lot of hard breaking so that the dogs wouldn't go too fast. At one point i let off the brakes too much and we almost overtook the dogs on a downhill. Luckily i used my superior skill to maintain control and not let go of the sled.

We got back to the kennels and said our goodbyes to the dogs... they were all really friendly.
There was a bit of a walk back to the bus stop, through boot deep powder, where we caught the bus back to the resort.

A quick lunch and we were out snowboarding again for the rest of the afternoon.

Warmer today and the snow wasn't great by the time we made it back out (we have been very spoilt though the past few days) but we still had fun and found some tree runs with fresh tracks here and there. The sunset was amazing, orange sun just breaking through the fog and casting this magic light onto the mountains as we did our last run.



we've attached some pics and a little video of the sledding.

-Jase

Boxing Day laziness

Last night we had an early Christmas dinner at our lodge, they had a special menu with a main meal of turkey with cranberry sauce and roast vegies. It reminded me of Christmas at home, but definitely a very different experience when it's all white and snowing outside! As we were sitting in the restaurant I kept seeing the horse-pulled sleigh going up and down the main street, and finally was able to snap a photo after we had finished dinner and went outside. It was a very quiet night in the village, all the pubs and shops closed early so there wasn't much left for us to do than to head home and have an early night.

We woke up today very sore from the past two days... every muscle was complaining as we got moving and ready to head up the mountain again. The temps were colder than it has been so far and I was having trouble keeping warm despite my multiple layers as the icy wind was making its way through somehow. The conditions were pretty ordinary, hardpack groomers with a trace layer of fresh snow... all this combined with uncooperative legs didn't make for a very fun time.

We decided to head over to one of the other peaks, Mt Morrissey, which turned out to be quite protected and more fresh stashes to be found on either sides of the runs. It was better over there but still some flat spots to tackle on a few of the trails.

Heading back up the main lift after lunch we thought we'd try out one of the upper mountain lifts, as surely there was still powder around up there. On our way up we were beginning to question our decision as it was complete white-out... one of those times when you don't know which way is down the mountain and you just have to point your board a few different ways until gravity does its work.

Despite the lack of visibility, the snow was untracked... that icy wind I was talking about before had blown all the powder into one of the bowls... the turns we had there made it all worthwhile!!

It was still a long ride back to the village and by that stage we were both happy to call it a day.

Tomorrow we are going dog sledding which we are both really looking forward to, although, it's been snowing all arvo and the forecast says it'll continue all night, so it looks like we'll miss an epic powder morning. Oh well, there's more snow due Sat/Sat night so hopefully Sunday will be just as good!

Stay tuned for some photos after our dog sledding adventure!!

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and is looking forward to New Years Eve!

love Neri.xx

Thanks Santa...

For those of you who don't ski or snowboard i'm going to apologise as for the next few weeks this is about all we will be writing about... for those of you who do, feel free to read on... we've had some awesome conditions already!

Last night we had dinner at "Powder Hounds" restaurant... very busy as it was xmas eve so we spent an hour waiting for our food. We were both sore and tired from our first day snowboarding so had an early night.

I woke up at 4am ready to hit the mountain... couldn't really sleep when i checked the report and we had 15cm of fresh snow overnight! The best xmas present i could hope for!

Neri and i got our act together and made it to the lifts early this time. The mountain was dead empty, and as we approached the top we couldn't believe our eyes... untracked snow everywhere and nobody around.

I'm learning quickly that when they report 15cm it is more like 30cm up top. Our first run was straight under the lift at full speed on a layer of boot to knee deep powder, face shots the whole way down... epic!

I got a bit too excited and ventured into the trees and fell over... neri zoomed ahead. The call from the chairlift by some random guy was "Catch up with your girlfriend!" how embarrassing.

From there we went to the top of Crystal chair and tackled some of the steeper runs which were also covered with fresh snow. Once again, only saw one or two people on the run.

As the day went on we found more and more fresh lines, a few times we followed the fresh snow into some flat spots were we literally had to "swim" out. Luckily the snow is so dry that you can pretty much kick your way through, even when we were waist deep.

Not much more to be said other than this was one of the best days i've ever had snowboarding.
By 2pm we were soooo tired and rode back to our hotel.

We got plenty of pics, but in most of them you can't even see us through the cloud of white snow...

That's it for now, more snowboarding tomorrow and then a day off to go dog sledding on Saturday!

Hope that everyone back home had a great holiday / christmas / birthday... we miss everyone but it is very nice to be up in the mountains at this time of year.

-Jase

Sun Peaks - Snowboarding xmas eve!

This morning we woke up, had a look out the window and it was snowing quite heavily! Not windy at all and temps had warmed right up to -16 degrees.

We unpacked all our snow gear, got the boards and headed out.

Neri had a quick look at the trail map but we really didn't know what to expect as we arrived at night and could not really see the mountain.

We got on the first lift we could find and made our way to the top... it was so exciting to see that below there was still a lot of untracked powder and not many people around. They had reported 3cm overnight, but this was very modest... on top of the big dump they had two days ago there was some very deep sections in amongst the trees and to the sides of the groomers.

We had a few runs, and quickly realised how unfit we were... we did one run which seemed like it went on for ever. Amazing groomer with an amazingly light and dry layer of powder snow on top. By the bottom we couldn't feel our faces or our legs but we had the biggest smiles!

We've seen the "best snow on the planet" in Utah, and also riden in Niseko but this stuff was just as light and dry (although nowhere near as deep yet). We were watching the perfect snowflakes build up on our jackets as we rode up the lifts, they were so light they were just stacking up like cotton wool.

Headed in for lunch early at around 11:30 and had a couple of "B52s" which is some kind of coffee with baileys and stuff in it... whatever it was it tasted really good and got us pumped to get back out there.

The afternoon was even better than the morning as we did some seriously leg burning runs... one in particular on Mt Morrissey i collapsed at the bottom after so many deep turns and could hardly breath as my bandana on my face froze solid from all the snow hitting it.

There were a few moments of getting stuck in flat spots but other than that we are both really impressed with the mountain.
It is not huge in terms of size, and it is not the steepest / most challenging but it is definitely fun and best of all there are no crowds at all!

Highlight for neri was seeing some deer eating in the snow right under the chairlift... for those of you who know neri and how she reacts to seeing animals in the wild... she was giggling for a good few minutes.

A few pics attached (neri is in dark jacket and i'm in white jacket)... still snowing outside so hopefully we get some more fresh pow to ride tomorrow.

Special note to Tim from heresy snowbarding - This snowboard is amazing in these conditions... loving it. Thanks again.

Hope you are all having happy holidays! We are ;)

-Jase

Niagara Falls

Sitting in our lodge in Sun Peaks at the moment, 8:00am 24 December... more on Sun Peaks later but first lets backtrack a few days...

We decided to spend our second day in Toronto going out to see Niagara Falls. We ordered a hire car for 9:30am in the morning. We had no idea what kind of car were were going to get, and the last thing we were expecting was a Chrysler PT Cruiser, which is what we got. Funny little car...

We headed to queen street to a nice little crépe cafe and had breakfast. We made sure to buy a parking ticket from the machine so that we weren't booked. Anyway we had a really nice breakfast, headed back out to the car where we found a little yellow ticket under the wiper!? Somehow we managed to get a ticket for $100.00 for parking in front of a fire hydrant that we couldn't even see because it was covered in about 1.5m of snow! Needless to say i was not happy and wanted to dispute the ticket but we had limited time and made the decision to press on for Niagara.

The drive was about 1.5 hours and there was not a whole lot to see so neri had a nap while a navigated the cruiser through the snowy highway. We arrived in Niagara and as we expected it was a tourist mecca. Casinos, billboards, hotels, tourists everywhere which was a shame because the natural beauty of the falls was amazing. We spent some time taking photos and throwing blocks of ice into the water to watch them go fall over the falls.

By this stage we were starving and there was a restaurant (imagine a Niagara RSL club) with waterfront views of the falls called Elements. We had lunch by the window which was nice, but unfortunately the food left a lot to be desired. -j

After checking out the cheesy souvenier shops we made the trek back home. We were both glad we saw the falls, it would be very different in summer with hundreds more tourists and many other attractions open (like the 'maid of the mist') but the ice covering the trees all around and the backdrop of ice and snow made for a beautiful sight.

So after making it back to downtown Toronto we wanted to try and dispute the parking ticket from that morning. Unfortunately we had no idea how the traffic would affect us (not to mention a few wrong turns slowing us down a bit) and we missed the 4.30pm deadline. We spoke to the hotel and hire car people but there was really nothing they could do. If we weren't leaving so early the next day we could have probably got out of it, but we were leaving at 7.30am so again would miss the timeframe as the office opened at 8.30. We bit the bullet and paid the ticket.

First task of the evening was upgrading our smaller luggage bag, as our big one was pushing the 50 pound (23 kg) weight limit. On our drive back to the hotel we drove through chinatown, and had noticed some shops had luggage bags out the front. We set out to walk from our hotel to pick one up. After the 15 min walk we found the shop and agreed to get one for $40. Jase was a bit dubious to the quality of the bag but we thought it couldn't be that bad..... Until we had walked all the way back to the hotel, and realised the handle had come apart from underneath and it was broken!! The shop was about to close so we caught a cab back down there for $10, and raced down the street to find our shop again... and almost ran straight past it! They had packed up almost everything and had just about locked the doors but we luckily recognised it and told them what had happened. They gladly swapped it with another, and for all our trouble they gave us a "gift" of two luggage locks. Wooooow.

After all the commotion we were looking forward to having dinner and enjoying our last night in Toronto. We walked up to a little place called 'John's Italian Caffe', on Derek's recommendation. The meals there were awesome, really good pasta and fresh veggies and flavours... AND also a really, really yummy apple pie with ice cream... Thanks Derek!

Even though were were tired we decided to head to al bar called the Bovine to check it out.... We couldn't remember the number but kept walking until we saw a place with junk stuck all over the front. We had found the right place. Inside was even weirder with many crazy things hanging from the ceiling and walls, and a few people sitting at the bar. For a monday night there wasn't much going on so after one drink we caught a cab home.

We had an early start the next morning, picked up at 7.30 to head for the airport. Due to delays the previous day our flight, which was originally scheduled for 9.25am didn't depart until 11.15. We finally boarded and got ready for the 4 1/2 flight across to British Columbia. -N


We were separated on the flight but someone was nice enough to swap seats with Neri so we ended up sitting next to each other. The woman sitting next to me had a cat on board in a carry on bag! It was apparently drugged up but kept waking up and crying. There was also a puppy on board... a lot of people traveling for Christmas so they bring their animals with them. I had no idea you could even take your pets on a plane but i don't think our Milly would handle it too well.


We landed in Kelowna BC amongst beautiful mountains, collected our luggage and hopped on the bus to Sun Peaks, another 3 hour drive...

The drive was long, but the scenery was mind blowing... as the sun went down we headed towards Sun Peaks, we turned off the highway and began the climb up narrow winding roads lined by tall trees covered in snow.

Neri spotted some deer playing in the snow on the way up... the natural beauty felt worlds away from the busy streets of Toronto.

In the distance we could see some houses covered in christmas lights and as we got closer we realised this was the village!


We checked in to our lodge, right in the centre of the village and a short walk to the lifts.

We had pizza for dinner, saw santa riding through the village on his sleigh (no sign of rudolf, just some cold horses) and got some things from the supermarket before we crashed early, exhausted from the long day of travel.

This morning it is snowing lightly, -16 degrees and we are headed up the mountain... can't wait to get back on the snowboard!

Toronto

Yesterday we caught the train from Montreal to Toronto... we thought we'd try the train so that we could take in some scenery on the way, but unfortunately the weather was really bad again and for most of the 5.5 hour trip all we could see was white out the windows. Other than that (and the delays) the train trip was not too bad.

Worst part was collecting the luggage. One thing we notice everywhere around the world is that people are the same when it comes to picking up their baggage. Everyone fights for a good viewing position thinking that surely their bags are going to be the first ones off the line. I was stuck behind "Mr giant shoulders with a cow skin poncho" and couldn't see a thing, but managed to spot our luggage through a gap and to his disgust I had to awkwardly fight to the front of the crowd to collect it.

Next challenge is getting a large cab that takes our snowboards, which we did, but he wouldn't take us to our hotel without charging us an extra $10, meaning the 3 minute trip cost us $20.

Anyway enough complaining, we made it to the hotel and it is really nice, clean and modern. We can see the city ice skating rink from our window and are keen to try this out, even though i'm sure we'll come back cold and wet!

Last night, on Derek's recommendation, we went out to a restaurant / bar in Toronto called Rivoli. We were starving after a long day of travel and the food was great, not greasy or over cheesy and more like what we would expect to find at a good restaurant at home. Being a Sunday night it wasn't too busy but there were still quite a few of people around.

Upstairs they had Karaoke, run by some guy who looked like a failed lead singer from an 80's hair metal band. We had a few drinks and watched before heading down to another pub which was empty and then decided to head back to the hotel.

I thought that i had experienced cold before on this trip, but last night it was -12 with a windchill of -23, and we sure as hell weren't going to walk all the way back to the hotel so we caught a cab.

This morning we are getting a hire car and driving to Niagra Falls. Will probably head out again in the city tonight before we leave by plane for Sun Peaks tomorrow! I've had my share of seeing cities for the moment so can't wait to get to the mountains.

-J