Sunshine village new years eve (day)

Had a fun day today snowboarding at Sunshine Village...

Woke up to find it was snowing again... jumped in the car and drove 15mins to Sunshine.

Some awesome scenery on the way, the drive was easy in our little Toyota Yaris... they do a good job of clearing the roads.

We arrived to find that the car park was full so we ended up having to park a fair way out and get the bus into the village.

Hopped on the bus and we were at the base of the gondola in no time.

The gondola ride was about 20 minutes all the way to the top (well the top of the gondola is actually the base of the village) and by the time we got there, the weather had really closed in. It was -16 degrees with a freezing wind... and to make matters worse we had forgotten our bandanas (for our faces) in the hotel.

Most of the good runs here are steep open bowls at the top of the mountain but on our way up our first lift the cold was almost unbearable and the visibility was horrible (neri said the tip of my nose turned white and she thought i had frostbite).

On our first run down from the top we couldn't see further than about 2 metres in front of us which is always scary when you are on a steep, windblown run and don't know where you are going.

As we got lower the visibility improved but the crowds got worse. I was riding in straight line and a decent speed when some other guy came flying into me sending me rolling down the hill right under the chair lift! The runs were so crowded in places that it was dangerous.

Bottom of the first run our faces were so cold that we had to go in and buy some new face masks. Words can't explain how relieving it was to put them on. It made the long lift rides a little bit more bearable.

One thing we noticed here is that the black runs vary a lot in difficulty. Lots of challenging terrain which is good, but one black run will be an open bowl which feels like an easy blue run, and then the next black will be a shear cliff face.

We found this out the hard way as i lead neri down what i thought would be an easy black.

With the poor visibility i totally missed the sign that said "warning avalanche danger" and "warning cliff face" and rode straight down a short and extremely steep cliff, having to drop off a decent sized rock or two on my way down.

I got to the bottom and looked up to find neri edging across the top of the cliff trying to find a better route. Full credit to her because she found a much better way down avoiding any rocks or near death experiences.

This made us realise that given the conditions we had to find some tree runs for protection from the weather, so after quick lunch we made our way down the mountain to some of the mellower runs through the trees, which were much better.

We spent the rest of the arvo, until lifts closed, riding through the trees on a fresh layer of about 5-10cm of powder mixed in with some moguls.

Rode the whole way down to the car park amongst some stunning scenery (would be more stunning if it was clear!) negotiating the hordes of people who had the same idea.

Back to the car and a short drive home through the blizzard and now we are getting ready to head out for New Years eve. A lot of places are asking $100 for tickets, and we are fast running out of money so we are just going to try and find somewhere where we can have dinner, then find a free pub or something and watch the fireworks show they fire from the mountains.

Saw some more wild deer roaming around out the front of our lodge on the way in which was also cool.

Overall we both loved Sunshine Village, in comparison to Sun Peaks there is a lot more challenging terrain, but also a lot more crowds. Hopefully we can get back there soon when the weather clears up.

-J

Sun Peaks to Banff on the eve of NYE

Our last night in Sun Peaks was a quiet one, dinner at the local's hang-out, Bottoms, and then back home for a relatively early one. Waking up this morning I was not in the mood to pack, but we sucked it up and did the job, hoping our luggage would come in under the weight limit for our flight.

After checking out of our lodge we wandered around the village, filling in time until our shuttle arrived to take us to Kamloops Airport.

When we had almost arrived our driver mentioned that he had driven through the same road earlier this morning and had seen a herd of big-horned sheep on the side of the road.... I was very excited at the prospect of seeing some wildlife, and sure enough, we came to the next corner and there they were! Sadly I didn't get a chance to take a photo because this guy on our shuttle started complaining that he had a plane to catch in 30 minutes blah blah blah.... I was very happy to note that when we did arrive at the airport he was actually on the same flight as we were, and he also had to wait in the long check-in line as he didn't know how to use the internet and check-in the day before. We, on the other hand, were able to go straight to the express line and checked our bags in within 2 minutes. HA!!

The flight was short, around 45 mins, and before we knew it we had arrived in Calgary. The city has a different feel to any other we have been to so far, we could see some high-rise buildings in the distance, but mostly the land feels very open and flat, and cold... snow everywhere!! We picked up our hire car, a blue yaris sedan, and begun our 1 1/2 hour drive to Banff. As we drove further the night sky was amazing, the moon just a tiny slice in the twilight, with a pinkish haze on the horizon... very pretty.

We found our lodge with no trouble and checked into our room, which is bigger than any we've had yet. Took the short walk to the main drag and had a meal at Wild Bill's Steakhouse.... they love the wild west theme over here, but I have to admit we love it too.... Almost as much as mexican ;)

Looking forward to tomorrow, we don't yet have a plan for which mountain we'll hit, or what we're going to do for NYE, but stay tuned for the details soon.

Happy New Year to you all, I hope everyone is well and happy and has an awesome New Years celebration!! We are missing everyone lots but we also know that the next two weeks are going to fly and we'll be home before we know it!

Take care and be good...

love Neri.xx

Last day riding in sun peaks

Just came in after another day on the mountain, forgot the camera today so no pics.

Had a late start today as there was no new snow overnight. We had a quick breakfast in the cafe on the mountain and then went to join the lift lines which we pretty hectic today.

The main lift was at a complete stop, with people stranded on it for a few hours so everyone headed to the only working lift from the base. It started to snow heavily while we were in line and ended up taking about half an hour to get on.

We found out later that the reason the lift stopped was because a young girl broke her leg dismounting and they couldn't move her until the ambulance arrived.

With no new snow the runs were hard packed and again, visibility was an issue up high so we spent most of the day taking it easy on the groomers.

Tomorrow morning we check out and fly to Calgary where we pick up our car and drive to Banff.

Even though we loved Sun Peaks, we explored just about every run over the past 6 days and are ready to move on to somewhere new.

Had some days that we will never forget here – we were very lucky to get such good early season snow.

More updates from Banff tomorrow.

-J

Some sun in sun peaks

Last night we had pizza for dinner and headed out to "bottoms" bar for a few drinks. They have a bell at the bar there and whenever someone rings it they have to buy everyone sitting at the bar a shot. Neri and i were just having a quiet drink when this guy decided to ring it meaning that we had a shot of jager in front of us, free of charge.

It was a saturday night and the village was starting to fill up with more people meaning it was pretty rowdy at the bar.

The weather has also warmed up a little meaning more people are out and about in the village.

Woke up a little late this morning, looked out the window and there was some sunny skies, something we hadn't seen here yet.

It was nice to be able to see the whole mountain, although at times the clouds came right over again making it hard to see.
We made our way up to the "West bowl" tbar for the first time (all the other days visibility was too poor up there) only to have the tbar break down on us on the first run. We waited a while for them to fix it but eventually gave up and headed back to Crystal bowl, which surprisingly still had fresh snow in sections.

We did eventually get back up there but by then the visibility was terrible. We were better off on the lower half of the mountain or in the trees.

The rest of the day was spent cruising around the mountain... we did a run called "5 mile" a few times which as the name suggests is a 5 mile long groomed run. Heaps of fun cruising down this massive run at full speed.

We did a few of the black runs over the back side of Crystal bowl which was still deep powder in sections. I got caught up to my waist and had to hike out from the trees which was a good workout.

Came in around 3pm, had a mocha in the cafe and watched the sun set over the mountains.

In the hotel now and about to head out again for dinner... really missing home cooked meals but unfortunately we won't have a kitchen until we get to Mammoth in January.

-J

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