Airplane dramas

I'm very glad to say that we made it to Mammoth... our condo is awesome, self-contained kitchen etc and heaps of room to spread out. We are so relieved to settle in after a very long, stressful and eventful day.

I won't go into all the nitty gritty details as it will just make me mad (again) but here's a brief run-down...

- Woke up at 4:15am to no hot water in our hotel room = cold showers.

- On the road to Calgary at 5am

- Arrived for check-in on Air Canada flight at 7:09am, they had already closed the flight at 7:00am = missed the flight.

- Weren't able to take next Air Canada flight as it would arrive in LA too late for our Mammoth flight connection

- Found a WestJet flight that would get us to LA with 40 mins till our Mammoth flight (cutting it fine for a LA connection but worth a shot) = paid $300 CAD each

- Took our WestJet flight and arrived in LA on-time (amazing, somehing went right) picked up our bags and raced to the Horizon Air check-in for our flight to Mammoth

- Checked in A-OK for our Mammoth flight (phew), took our bags over to the X-ray and were told everything was cool and we could go...

- We finally started to relax.... we had made our flight and we would be in Mammoth before we knew it!

- Enjoyed the views coming in over the Sierra Nevada ranges, a bizzare landscape where the desert meets the snow-capped mountains.

- Waited for our bags to be off-loaded from the aircraft, only two arrived = board bag missing.

- Had to wait 1/2 hr for someone to help us.... regional airport = only 1 staff member able to help.

- Ended up finding out our board bag was still in LA and would arrive tomorrow.

- Final conclusion = we have vouchers to hire boards, bindings and boots for the day. However, both pairs of gloves and my jacket were also in the board bag so we'll have to hire them too (and pay for these ourselves).

Could be worse... we at least have the rest of our luggage, just one of those days where if anything could go wrong it did!!

Oh well, start again tomorrow.... See how we're feeling after a good nights sleep.... my brain is too tired to think about it anymore tonight.

N.xx

Last day in Banff

Last night i started coming down with a cold...

Wasn't sure how i'd wake up feeling this morning, but i slept in and woke up feeling pretty good.

What better cure for a cold is there than heading up the mountain for some fresh mountain air.

Left the hotel at around 11:30, stopped in town and picked up some new sunnies for Neri that she tried on the other day.

Made it to Sunshine Village about 12 and still got a good parking spot. No crowds here on weekdays.

Only 1cm of new snow over night but weather was much nicer than previous days, a bearable -10 and sunny.

We got on the gondola and got off at the Goat's Eye chair.

Did a few fun runs down there but steered clear of the double blacks as they were still steep icy moguls. Snow was in good shape though, light layer of powder on top of a firm base.

After Goat's eye we did a few more runs on the main mountain, some nice steep sections with surprisingly good snow.

We went in for a late lunch, which was soup for me and a bowl of chilli for neri... somehow this managed to cost us $20.

After lunch more of the same, had a great time cruising around with neri... rode just about every chairlift and everything from green to black runs and some random tree runs thrown in.

We both love this mountain, so much potential if we had some decent snow but still fun to be out there all the same.

Back to the hotel now and neri is trying to call Air Canada to list on our flight to LA. She's been on hold for half an hour now.

Tomorrow we leave early to drive to Calgary, then fly to LA, where we transfer onto our flight to Mammoth Lakes.

This will be our final destination before we start making our way home... can't wait to enjoy the last week in our condo and enjoy some home cooked meals after eating out for 4 weeks straight!

-J

Snowboard free day in Banff

It was another chilly morning as we woke up early to get ready for our "Exploring Banff and it's Wildlife" tour, which would pick us up at 8.45am. We got onto the bus with about 10 other people ready to see some of the sights and hopefully some wildlife too!

The trip covered all the main tourist attractions in and around the town.... the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel, which originally was built in 1888 (but has since burned down and been rebuilt); the "Hoodoos" - pillars of rock that have been formed over millions of years; Lake Minnewanka, and the frozen Bow Falls; and finally the Cave & Basin, which was the discovery that actually prompted the area to be declared a National Park. These are a collection of natural sulphur springs within the mountain - the Cave being indoors (in a cave), and the Basin being outdoors. Bathers are no longer allowed in the springs due to the discovery of a species of endangered snail that lives only in these springs, nowhere else in the world! The snail is about the size of a passion fruit seed so I didn't really consider that to be the most exciting wildlife sighting of the day.

We did, however, see a male and female Mule Deer through the trees, and a big herd of 5 male Elk grazing on the side of the road. The Elk were amazing, their antlers are huge and after holding one up (see attached pic) you can only imagine how strong their necks must be! While we were stopped taking photos of the Elk another 2 wandered out of the trees and crossed the road right in front of our bus! They were a little younger than the others and didn't like to pose for the photographers so they hid behind a tree.

On the drive back down to town we also saw another herd of Elk but they were much further away than the previous lot.

At the conclusion of the tour we were dropped back in town and had lunch at one of the pubs.

Jase is starting to get a bit of a cold, not surprising considering the cold temperatures we have been in... so we had a lazy afternoon in the hotel. Sunday night is really quiet in town, we just came back from a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant but nothing much really happening so we'll probably have an early night. Hopefully Jase will be feeling better tomorrow and we'll decide in the morning what to do on our last day in Banff.

Another Day in Sunshine Village

It was freezing last night... -25 in town with a windchill of -32.

When we came back from snowboarding Lake Louise we hit the hot tub here in the hotel to relax then got ready for dinner.

As soon as we walked into the street the cold air froze our nose hairs which is a slightly uncomfortable feeling as you can imagine. Kind of like constantly having a booger in your nose that you can't get rid of.

We didn't want to walk too far so we jumped into the first decent restaurant we could find, the Maple Leaf Grill.

Dinner was tasty (but on the expensive side), I had the roast duck and neri had lamb shank.

We woke up this morning to more clear skies, but the temperature was still around -26 with no fresh snow which made it hard to get motivated.

We were also put off by the icy conditions at Lake Louise the day before.

Eventually we made it up to Sunshine Village by around 11am. This was the first bluebird day since we got to Canada so we swapped our goggle lenses from yellow to chrome.

Up the Gondola we could see the views that we missed in the white out on our first visit. Absolutely stunning scenery.

We had a quick look at Goats Eye Mountain but from the base all we could see were steep icy moguls... such a shame because looks like there are some awesome steeps up there... we just need more snow! We also could see / hear them avalanche bombing the bowls around Goats Eye all day.

There has been a lot of talk about avalanches around here... people are saying ski patrol are being over-cautious, but reports have been saying that it is really unstable out of bounds which has kept us in the resort boundaries. Looking across the mountain there are so many untouched bowls just a short hike out of bounds... but they must be untouched for a reason! We're not about to risk it.


It was really cold today, up the top of the mountain it felt like my face and my fingers were going to fall off, but despite no new snow for a few days the cover was in surprisingly good condition. Sunshine maintains the snow a lot better than Lake Louise. Even the steep sections were nowhere near as icy.

Most of the day was spent cruising around the mountain, doing runs all over the place and just taking it easy. I love this mountain but it desperately needs fresh snow so that we can enjoy the steeper terrain. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll get any before we leave in tuesday.

Still managed to find some powder in some very tight tree runs... there must be heaps of local secret spots that we don't know about.

Tomorrow we go on a wildlife tour around Banff so hopefully we see some animals!

Will probably head up to the hot springs in the afternoon.

-Jase

Sunny day in Lake Louise

This morning we finally woke up to a sky with sunny patches, so we decided to make the trip to Lake Louise to ride today.

The same drive that we took yesterday was completely different today, as after we were on the road for 5 minutes the clouds all cleared up and we had a beautiful blue sky and sunshine, lighting up all the mountains and scenery that surrounded us. We had no idea what was behind all that cloud and fog the first time we came through!

We arrived at the Lake Louise Ski Resort and took the first chair we came across up to mid-mountain. We could only do our best to try and pick where to go from the trail map, and also we discovered the trail numbers on the map in my pocket didn't actually match the trail markers on the hill, it was all very confusing.

Our first run was obviously one of the crowd favourites, as there were skiiers and boarders everywhere trying to negotiate the best way down.... What made this so difficult was the sheet ice covering most of the run, which we were definitely not expecting!

We agreed to head over to one of the other faces to check the conditions, so we headed up the gondola and down another scenic run. Jase looked over the edge of the cat track to some of the black runs... they mostly consisted of icy moguls of death, so we stuck to the safer groomed green & blue runs.

A few more runs on one of the other peaks, where they were still snowmaking, which was providing a sparse covering to the ice underneath. Despite the sunshine and clear skies, it was still a very cold day, by the top of the chairlift our hands were numb and you could feel the breath catching in your throat.

The run back to the bottom of the gondola was absolutely amazing, photos and descriptions cannot capture the feeling of being on the edge of one of these gigantic mountains, 360 degrees of incredible sights.

We are about to go out to get some dinner now, there's no new snow forecast for tomorrow so we'll probably take a day off and see some more local sights around Banff.

Hope everyone had a fantastic start to 2009 :)

love Neri.xx


P.S. we need more snow! -jase

First day of 2009

We did ok to wake up at around 9:30am after a big night.

Neri got up and checked the snow report... only 2cm of new snow over night.

Given how late we were we decided to try out Norquay... the smallest of the "Big 3" mountains around Banff but also the closest...

This turned out to be a big mistake. It's not often that i can say i am not having fun snowboarding, but we only lasted 3 runs on this tiny mountain before we couldn't handle any more.

Snow was very hard packed and icy on the steep sections (reminded me of home) with exposed hazards everywhere. Riding lifts that were slow and built in the 1950s. The only thing going for it was the spectacular scenery but that wasn't enough to keep us there for more than an hour.

Maybe we were just unlucky and experienced abnormally bad snow conditions, but there was not much to like about it.

We left Norquay and spent the rest of the afternoon driving up to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. The drive was difficult at times with a lot of ice and snow on the road, especially the last few km, but we arrived without any issues.

The view of the lake was awe inspiring... we really felt tiny with these huge mountains towering around us.

People were ice skating on the lake, playing ice hockey, and kids were playing in an ice castle which was built on the lake for tourists.

If the weather had been better we could have seen more of the view, but it was still great to see.

Took photos and checked out the Chateau then headed back to our lodge.





Had Indian for dinner tonight which was really nice (although I am definitely sick of eating out every night) and looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight.

Hopefully we get some more snow.

-J

NYE in Banff

It was bizarre watching the news and seeing that Sydney had already welcomed in the new year while we were still stuck in 2008.

The fireworks on the bridge looked awesome... Banff would have a lot to live up to.

We didn't really have a plan for new years but we knew we had to eat, and then we wanted to see the fireworks.

Ended up having dinner at a place close by our lodge but not without an hour or so wait for a table. It was a mexican bar / restaurant so we sat at the bar and waited until a table became available.

We noticed that there was a small band set up and a poster saying that we'd have to pay $25 each if we wanted to stay after nine to see the band "Swanee and friends".

Now the only Swanee that i know of is Jimmy Barnes's washed up brother, and the 80 year old guy that was tuning his harmonica on stage didn't look a thing like him. Needless to say we had our dinner, a few drinks and made a hasty exit.

It was snowing lightly in the streets and there were heaps of people around trying to figure out what they were going to do, including lots of girls in skirts and guys in t-shirts... which we found unbelievable considering how cold it was.

By this stage it was about 9:15pm still some time to kill before the fireworks at midnight so we set out to try and find a pub which had free entry. We couldn't, so we ended up paying $20 at a pub called "Tommy's".

Not the best location, but it was somewhere to hang out before the fireworks.

A few drinks and before we knew it, midnight was approaching. The bar staff handed out noise makers, necklaces, various hats and a glass of champagne. We headed outside and were shocked to find a sea of people in the streets, all crammed together in the main drag on Banff waiting for midnight.

Somehow we got a decent position for the fireworks and the crowd went nuts when they started firing. It was an electric atmosphere, the fireworks were good, and overall it was better than i expected!

We hung around in the street for a while dancing and making the appropriate noises with our party devices, watching people stumble and slip on the snow... just soaking up the scenes.

I made a few new friends, including a guy with a cut-out of Jim Carey. I tried to give him a high five (see picture attached) only to find out he only had one arm!

We got home around 1:30am, so tired from the day of snowboarding but glad that we made the effort to head out... it was a fun night.

-J