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Published: February 11th 2008
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For a bit of fun I have written this blog article using as much ski hill and Lake Louise lingo as possible (my aim, complete confusion). So, if you can not understand any of it, just check out the glossary at the end of the entry (housemates and ourselves had a bit of fun putting this together).
Well, the end of January brought with it another big party season (when does it ever stop?) at the Lake with Aussie Day now gone and with Paul crashing multiple staff parties (see photos). It also provided us with the coldest day since we have been here. HOW COLD??!! Well, Sunshine Village near Banff did not even open and the Lake ran only one lift all day. You are probably thinking how soft are the punters (see glossary further down), but generally they only ran the lift that they could get people off in under 8 minutes. Why 8 minutes? Because at -50C (yep not a typo -50C) the first symptoms of hypothermia start to appear after that time.
February has got off to a much warmer start with powder falling almost every day. This has meant that Lizzy and I have
been shredding the gnar as much as possible. It also included Lizzy's first visit to the powder bowls on the backside of the mountain. She decided to go hardcore into Saddleback powder bowl and completed the reverse skeleton down a significant proportion of the run known as "The Wall" (black diamonds are a girl's best friend). After that her stoke-meter and gnar-brometer were running at 110% and she could not wait to tell me about it when she got home. Ahh, if only we had pictures of it.
I am cutting back on the drinking for a couple of weeks so my liver can recover. I have managed to get myself invited to too many staff parties lately and the kitchen party was a good one to finish up on. Over 600 beers between about 35 people ( I think we get invited because we have the keys and alarm codes to the beer storage room - apparently I am responsible). Surpisingly I did not have a hangover the next morning when I went to work (I was still drunk), but unfortunately started to sober up about 10am and that was when the hangover kicked in. Luckly the night
Retail Party
Paul and Barb before I had apparently banned myself from the morning driving runs - a good idea in hindsight.
As our snowboarding has improved we are making plans to visit the nearby resorts. We have pencilled in an itinerary for the next 6 weeks including Kimberley, Fernie, Sunshine Village, Panorama, Revelstoke, Kicking Horse and possibly Castle mountain. Revelstoke for the fact it has a run that is 13.2km long (will need to pack a lunch) though we will probably leave Kicking Horse till last. This is because the runs there are generally described as when you get off the top chairlift and look down the runs you crap your pants and start praying to any god that is handy that you make it down in one piece.
On the work side Lizzy and I have been making use of the last couple of weeks to get up to some mischief. Lizzy has been a very good supervisor and guest services has been on a movie theme. Recent example of mischief include:
- Wearing as much "flair" as possible at work (from 'officespace')
- Paging Chuck Norris repeatedly over the loudspeaker
- Having a 'meow' counting competition while dealing with
Retail Party
Paul, Adam, Hugh and Tas punters (super troopers)
Recently over the PA was the following announcement "Good morning boarders, skiers and (with an appropriate air of disdain) snowbladers would Chuck Norris please come to guest services to collect your stetson. Thank you and have a good day meow.
The other guys and myself have been busy planning and building our sled for the big Cardboard sled derby. We have a bit of a reputation to uphold with the storeroom placing 1st and 3rd the last two years (so every year obviously works as hard as us!) So contruction work is well underway in preparation for wind tunnel testing later in the week (on top of the truck at 60km/h up the hill). If it survives the wind tunnel tests we should be in with a chance. We are currently trying to find out who will be grooming the run the night before so we can bribe them to make it like the downhill for the worldcup (pure ice). Photos and our results I will include in our next update.
Also sick of relying on the skinny dog for transport, we have been looking around at buying a car. Not only for general
Retail Party
No good night of drinking can happen without some boat races day to day travel but for after we are finished at the Lake we can drive across Canada for a bit of sightseeing. We are heading in Calgary tomorrow for another look so we hope we can find something suitable soon.
We have received some emails from Aussie wondering what the hell we are talking about. So we have included below a rather extensive glossary of snowboarding terms. ( Our housemates quite enjoyed helping us complete and expand on this part)
Glossary of random terms
Goofy - ride your board right foot first
Ride switch - turning around so you are leading with your non regular foot
Kicker - small jump next to an 'official' run
If you lip slide my rail, I'll nose press your fun box - Most commonly used pick up line on the hill
Shredstick - snowboard
Shredding the gnar (gnarly) - basically hammering the slopes
Huck the gnar - a step up from shredding the gnar
Powderhound - Only goes out on the slopes the day after snow (looking for fresh powder)
Shred the Pow - What the previous does
Straightline - Bugger
turning, just point it straight down the hill
Going hardcore - The previous but on a black diamond run
Faceplant - Fairly obvious really
Eat shit - Involves the faceplant but harder so that your face goes into the snow and you well 'eat shit'
Reverse luge - Basically is a faceplant where you have eaten shit but also involves sliding down the mountain.
Reverse Skeleton - Similar to the reverse luge but on you back which usually has you hoping that there are no trees in front as you can not see where you are going (for further explanation, see Lizzy)
Dropping off - jumping of a cliff
Gnar-brometer / Stoke-meter - when you adrenaline is pumping after some good runs
All show no go - Looks good, can't ride for shit
gayblade - Name for ski blades
pukin - When it is snowing hard. ie: pukin down snow
Punter - Visiters who have come for the day
Cididiots - are punters from Calgary who are a pain in the ass (city - idiots)
Death cookie - When the conditions are icy and the Snowcat drivers
are all stoned while grooming the previous night. They leave rock hard ice balls on the ski-run, so if you hit one eiher you or your board are in trouble. Hitting one will generally involve you at least eating shit
Fuckin Frenchies - Anyone from Quebec
We hope everyone is well and look foward to continuing to hear from you.
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