Hittin' up the slopes!

---

A brief entry this time as it’s yet another skiing trip and there isn’t much to them apart from skiing, eating and sleeping. But since it was in such a pretty place I thought it was worth a few words and pictures for your enjoyment (or pain, you decide).
Having already booked a ski trip to France in for March, it was decided one trip was not enough. After only spending a week last year trying to get to grips with evil snowboarding (nearly there but plenty more work needed) I wanted a trip where I could actually get down a run without falling over. So a decision was made under the haze of New Year’s Day to have a sneaky trip to Canada for a bit of extra action.

24 hours later and a rather cheap deal to Canada was booked for 4 weeks later, huzzah! 1 week in a five star hotel in the resort of Lake Louise in the Banff national park. Avid fans of my musings may remember I went to Canada a couple of years ago skiing and was rather impressed with the whole Canadian business so a chance to go back was great.
After surviving a flight out of Heathrow on a BA 777 we landed (crash, bang) in Calgary and got the bus to Lake Louise in the Banff national park. Arrival at the Hotel Fairmont on Lake Louise was not a disappointment. We were greeted by bell boys in rather natty green outfits, plus fours and long socks, not to mention their woolly hats and then were informed we had a complementary room upgrade, not a bad start to the week.

Waking up the next morning it was time to ‘hit up the slopes’ which I believe is snowboarding slang. Mind you, I did hear it whilst eavesdropping in on a conversation on the chairlift between two British boarders. I have to say though, British people should not try and use snowboarding slang, it sounds rubbish unless said with a North American accent. Sorry dudes, but it does.

I’d not snowbladed for 2 years so I was a bit worried I’d forgotten the dark art, but within a couple of hours it had all come good and we were foolishly attempting a rather large black mogul run. Bend zee knees! Ah well, the old magic was still there, good to know.

So a few more slopes later and it was lunch time, so we hit up the slopes (down surely?) and headed off to feed our faces. Now I’d heard tell of the mythical Poutine in London, mainly via softballing friends (boo!) who had Canadian team mates. I thought it sounded my kind of dish, chips, cheese and gravy, yummy. A combination second to none me thinks. Poutine Power is the perfect food to keep you skiing on in the afternoon. What a country!

Not much else to report really, just lots of skiing, eating, sleeping, ice hockey watching and visits to the hotel pool. I fell over twice (compared to about 1000 times snow boarding last year) and covered a large proportion of the runs, even one called 007 (cool dude). And of course every morning I would send my greetings to my new favourite mountain, Mount Temple. The most majestic of mountains, look on its beauty in awe…
In fact the whole skiing area is one of the most beautiful I’ve skied in, the park is truly spectacular and highly recommend a trip if you get the chance, stunning.

I did sit through my first ever Superbowl on the Sunday night though. Not the best use of 4 hours, however the last 5 minutes were very exciting as the New York Giants pulled off a sneaky victory, but you could easily have missed the rest. I don’t think real football should worry about it catching on elsewhere, it’s just slower rugby with more adverts really. But that is about it really, France in a couple of weeks, I may tried evil boarding again, if I can stand the pain.***


***Just wanted to add after I bravely decided to persevere with the snowboading in Avoriaz, I finally converted to the Dark Side. I have to say I really loved it and will be hanging up the snowblades for a few years. Who'd have thought it dude!

---

Photos

Worship at the majesty of Mount Temple
It's now officially my favourite mountain.

Here's Johnny!
The hotel from the lake, it reminded me a little of 'The Shining'. Redrum, redrum.

Moody Mount Temple
The Mountain Gods are angry, I had to sacrifice a snowbaorder to appease them.

Life moves pretty fast...
If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. (Not my words, do you know who said it?).

Poutine perfection
Cheese, chips and gravy, awesome combination, even if it does look like someone's thrown up on my plate.

Stone me.
A first for me, I've never skied in moraine before. Rock on dude!

Who's that girl?
Note the beautiful blue hat which I had on my first ever ski trip to Bulgaria at the age of 12. No rude comments on how long ago that was please!

There's ice in them there hills
Glaciers are around every corner.

Over the hill
Not me (yet), but the backside of the main ski hill. The Ptarmigan run, no idea what a Ptarmigan is. Anyone?

Frozen
We walked from the hotel and back over the frozen lake. It was a bit scary in places as there seemed to be lots of holes. Luckily I know me Ray Mears and would have know what to do if the ice had broken.

A slope being 'hit up'
How nice to ski with that view, the Mt Temple looking at its best.

Ice and a slice?
This was the winner of the ice sculpting competition, not bad I suppose, you wouldn't want to waste it in your G+T.

One for the road
And just in case you thought I'd forgotten about them, here's a nice shot of a BA777 having made a safe landing this time...