Best. Christmas. Ever.

The double black Christmas thing didn't exactly go to plan, but the good thing was that it was a powder day (15cm new snow) and we got some pretty damn good runs down.

Last night was a massive Christmas celebration at the apartment building. Many people brought down food and everybody had a massive feast. After dinner, gifts were given out as part of a Secret Santa thing that almost the entire building was part of. Anj dressed up as Santa and gave away gifts from everybody to everybody. I got season 2 of Alf on DVD, which was pretty sweet.

I didn't have too much to drink because our beer supply ran out, which turned out to be a good thing because when I woke up on Christmas morning, Santa had given the second best present I could hope for (next to Alf, naturally) - powder. I turned on the TV when I woke up and lo and behold, there was 15cm of fresh powder to be ridden. It was my first ever white Christmas, and the entire day of riding was just incredible, despite a few times when I got a bit buried in powder.

The day was actually full of incidents. Leigh took out a tree (and didn't damage his board), Ben did a few flips due to a crash, and John and I fell into a crevasse in the middle of a run. We ended up calling it a day at about 2:30 in the afternoon because we were all pretty damn tired.

We came home to find the common room completely covered in food scraps. It was nasty. Apparently there was a food fight last night after I had gone to sleep. Hopefully tonight will be another good night, as I have 4 straight days of work to look forward to, and at least two of those are predicted to be powder days.

Photos will be up as soon as I can be bothered to upload them.

I'm dreaming of a double black Christmas

There's a plan going around that involves doing as much of Taynton Bowl as possible on Christmas Day. Taynton Bowl is an expert area of the mountain filled with powdery (or one would hope) double black diamond runs. Interesting times should be had.

On a slightly tangential note, I did my first ever double black run the other day. I took on Elmo at the Extreme Dream Zone (another double black area). Apart from the time when my board hit an exposed tree stump and received some big scratches, it was a pretty good experience (and at the same time told me that I need to improve on those kind of runs).

The view from the summit

Apart from one or two riding days, the week involved mostly work and a whole lot of not much else. The most interesting point was when the lifties were out for a quiet drink, which eventually turned into 4 guys buying large rounds of Jager Bombs for everybody (I think it cost them $122 Canadian each for those rounds). Good times.

Anyway, as this is probably my last post before Christmas (Canadian time), I would like to wish everybody a happy and safe holidays.

Christmas tree!

View of a thousand peaks

Today, we took the run aptly named 'View of 1000 Peaks'. It was quite a beautiful view, though not as breathtaking as the one I witnessed in Innsbruck. Nothing beats the Austrian alps. The run it linked up with was filled with moguls and took us some time to get through. It wasn't a whole lot of fun, but it did improve my skills on those kind of runs.

Last night was jam night again. It was a great celebration of Andy's birthday. He got well drunk, as did a lot of other people. I stayed fairly sober so that I could get up and sing again (and not screw up). I sang Everlong (with somebody else on guitars), and it was fairly well-received. The whole getting up on stage thing is something I could get used to. I believe the next jam night is on New Year's Day, so I have a couple of weeks to practice something new.

Embrace the sun

The Sun Bowl opened up yesterday. The Sun Bowl is a massive area (a bowl to be specific) in Panorama that's not too steep and can get some insane powder. Alas, I was too busy either teaching Kelly how to ride, or going to Invermere to do some shopping, so I missed out on first tracks there.

The sun was shining brilliantly yesterday

Fortunately, it was still good today, and I had an awesome time riding some pretty sweet powder. The groomed runs were also quite good and I got some huge speed down a few of them. I think today was actually my first full day of boarding since I got here. Good to know I can last a day of hard work. The worst part of the day is a toss-up between when I left my lift pass at the apartment in the morning (and had to walk back and get it) or when I crashed on a traverse (after trying to come back from the powder on the side) and landed on my back, smacking me squarely on the back of the head (I feel fine now, though). Methinks I should invest in a helmet. And some warmer gloves, my hands were freezing today.

A few freshies

Last night was the pirate theme weekend party. A lot of creative costumes were spotted. Gordon (aka Nugget - Sydney-sider) was all decked out in pirate gear (see below), but I think he was topped by the guys (whose names I can't remember right now) who showed up in a cardboard pirate ship. At the party I saw Pete, who runs the jam nights, and he said I should get up again tomorrow night. We'll see.

Swashbuckling Nugget

Powder keg

Today, I woke up early to catch the first lifts up to the summit of the mountain. It was knee-deep powder up there, after a 25cm dump in the past 24 hours. It's pretty crazy that the base at the summit is already at 110cm after only one open week. It was without a doubt the biggest powder I've ever ridden in.

Last night was the staff Christmas party, and it wasn't as wild as it could have been. The good thing was that the food was free (nice and tasty turkey and ham) and you got two free drinks. There was also a prize draw. A beginner (Nat) won a heli-skiing adventure day, and a skier won a snowboard. It was pretty amusing.

Photographic goodness

All the (decent) photos from the trip so far can be found here.

Panorama

That's right, folks... I'm still alive.

The following post covers the past Internetless week or so.

I write this as we make our way to Panorama via the company bus. It's been pretty cool driving through Banff National Park, though we didn't go past Lake Louise. I'll have to check it out some other time in the future.

Yesterday, I had a leisurely stroll over to the comic book store as it was no longer really really cold. It was a nice and comfortable -4 or so. I grabbed Scott Pilgrim vol. 2. It was a shame that they didn't have vol. 3 in because there was a sale for manga and digest-sized graphic novels - buy one, get the second at 25% off.

I took a side-trip over to the mall to get a SIM card for my phone. It must be noted that the prices for mobiles here are crazy. Not so much the price of the actual phone but rather the charges for calls. Here you get charged for airtime, so even receiving calls gets billed. You also have to pay for 'extras' that are stock standard for most networks in Australia, such as text messaging, voice messaging, caller ID, etc. In summary, Australia's awesomeness should not be taken for granted.

Anyway, after that whole phone stuff, I headed back to the hostel and waited for Leigh and Ben to arrive. We hung around a bit then went to the store to buy my snowboard boots. I ended up going with the Burton Hail. Not cheap, but incredibly comfortable, and having comfy boots is one of the most important things when snowboarding.

The train station

After dinner, a fair portion of the people from the hostel went to Cowboy's, where they have 25c beers on Thursday nights. Needless to say, it was packed. Everybody got pretty damn drunk and woke up this morning feeling horrible. Regardless, all the Panorama folk were ready for the bus, which left just about on time.

No net access makes Adrian something something...

On the way to Panorama, the bus driver noticed that the staff bus had been stranded on the side of the road. He dropped us off at central check-in and headed back to pick up the staff, leaving everybody without their luggage for about half an hour. When we finally got to our apartment, everybody was very hungry.

A nice view on the way to Panorama

After a short talk from the staff, mostly everybody headed over to the Crazy Horse for some meals and drinks. Myself, Leigh, and Anj (Melbournian) stayed to play pool and have drinks while the others left. I ended up drinking far too much and felt rather hungover this morning. Leigh and I still somehow managed to give our boards a wax in the early hours of the morning after getting back, which wasn't really too useful since it wasn't a low temperature wax and sucked in these conditions.

Ben, Christel (Canberran), John and Kelly (Kiwis) bought some food supplies for us in Invermere while we slept, so there was finally something to eat around the house. We had a quick feed then headed to the lifts because it was staff skiing day. I finally got to try out my new gear. Pretty damn good. The boots are amazingly comfy.

I had two runs down before they stopped letting staff through (since the hill is primarily used for ski racing training), of which one involved a rather spectacular crash, leaving a big scratch on my chin and a lot of snow in my clothes. Regardless, it was fun to be on the snow again. Afterwards, Christel, Jackie (I actually can't recall where she's from at the moment), and I went to get our staff passes.

On the way back to the apartment, we took a different route, and fearing that we'd get lost, Christel and Jackie backtracked to the way they knew. I kept going knowing that I would eventually find the way home, and quite confident that I wouldn't get lost. I did. I took one wrong turn and ended up at central check-in. I still got home before Christel and Jackie though.

By the way, we have discovered that the free Internet in our rooms does not work as of yet, so this post may end up being pretty large. It's really a bit annoying, but hopefully we'll be in business soon enough.

Tonight is apparently a massive staff party at the Crazy Horse, so it should be pretty fun. I hope the guys get back from town soon because I don't wanna be heading over there by myself.

The good times are killing me

Dinner was great. Ben's a cook, so that's always nice to have in an apartment. About 8 of us from the same floor surrounded the insufficiently-sized bench top for a pasta feed. The staff housing, by the way, is set up rather nicely. It's pretty small but certainly spacious enough. My only gripe is that there is virtually no soundproofing, so you can hear the smallest things.

My room

After dinner, a big group of people from the apartment headed over to the Crazy Horse for the big staff party. There were drinks all around, a cover band (who played some songs badly and some songs pretty well), and lots of mingling. I met a lot of people, most of whose names I have already forgotten. I'm really bad with that kind of thing. It was a lot of fun though.

I was not planning on having a big night because it would have been my third in a row, and I have orientation in the morning. Alas, as the story usually goes, I had a pretty big one. Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as the past two nights. My throat still hurts like hell (probably from singing along to Everlong when the band played it), but I can remember most of the night, which is a good sign.

Toby Creek

I'm hoping that orientation doesn't take too long. I need a bit of a rest, and I'd like to get some shopping done down in town (the colloquial term for Invermere). The apartment is in dire need of rice, a rice cooker, soy sauce, and a wok. A little meat would go a long way too. Sadly, I hear that meat here costs a lot, so I might not buy as much as I would hope to get. Still, I do need to use up all that bihon (noodles) that I bought back in Calgary. In hindsight, it seems like it may have been a bad idea to buy so much of it.

The Sunday roast

Half the new people had staff orientation the day after the big party. Most were feeling under the weather during the speeches, but it was a pretty interesting day. It pretty much introduced people to the company and their values, and told us what kind of benefits we'd be getting. After orientation, I headed home and decided I'd have an easy night so I can be fresh for my first day.

The view outside my room

The 2nd floor community decided to roast a turkey, which turned out rather tasty, despite not having any gravy. During the roasting period, the fire alarm went off no less than five times, which led us to believe that it is a rather sensitive alarm. I called it a night early but couldn't find a good run of sleep and woke up for my first day pretty tired.

Work was pretty interesting. We were introduced to the department, how they operate, and were shown around the resort so that we would all know the different buildings. At the end of the day, I pretty much had the layout of the resort down pat.

Last night was fun. We had roast leftovers for dinner, and headed out for John's birthday. We first hit the Jack Pine Pub and soon moved over to the Crazy Horse. Some people left pretty early because they were starting work today, but a few stayed. Fortunately for me, I was one of them, because some random guy was buying rounds of Jager Bombs for everybody. I hear it ended up costing him more than 700 dollars. Ouch.

After the pub, Ian and Gary (Poms), and Kelly and I started to head home. However, I had the grand idea to start throwing snow at people, and it escalated into a snow fight of epic proportions. We all ended up very white from snow and I had a bruised knee. Kelly and I took a short pit stop at the place where the Brits were staying, then headed back to the apartment.

Today, I woke up early and went to Invermere with Vi and Alex (Melbournians) to do some shopping. I ended up getting some useful stuff like soy sauce and a deep frying pan to use as a makeshift wok (since I couldn't find any woks around town). I also bought my costume for the opening week theme, which is The '80s. I got a pink headwarmer and a one-piece ski jumpsuit. Looks very old school.

After grabbing groceries, Vi and Alex realised that they had bought too much. As a result, we ended up having to ring up Mallory (a local) to bring some of the things up for us while we hitchhike up the mountain (which is pretty safe at this time of year because it's only employees that are heading up to Panorama). Becky (another local) drove around and got our stuff then we headed up to the hitchhike point. A nice local named Catrien picked us up in her Golf and we got home before too long.

When I got home I got the Internet working for a brief moment, but it seems to keep dropping out, which is pretty annoying. I really hope they fix that soon.

All the dirty work

When I signed up to be a room attendant, I thought it would be rather cruisy. Not so, it seems. The first few days at work have been pretty hard, and I'm hoping I will soon get the knack of cleaning rooms. Apart from that, it's been pretty much all party. The village has this great atmosphere where everybody has a lot of fun, and I'm glad to be part of it.

This weekend is opening weekend so it's starting to get a lot more lively, with all the people from out of town coming up for the snow. The '80s fashion showoff was really fun. John (from next door) won with his incredible skin-tight fluro purple ski outfit.

That outfit

The net is still not working, which is annoying the hell out of me, but not enough to make my time here a bad one.

Tonight should be a massive party over at Chopper's Landing, carrying on the '80s theme. I'm a bit tired after work and a bit of riding, but I'll tought it out. I got out of work early today, so I decided to hit the slope for a run or two, but the visibility was horrible, so I decided to give up after one run.

Opening weekend

Apparently it was the best opening weekend Panorama has seen in several years. The base was pretty good, but not all the runs were open. That said, for an opening weekend the conditions were pretty damn good. It's about what Thredbo can produce at its peak on the average 'good' season.

Enough about the snow though, and more about the partying. The '80s night at Chopper's Landing was pretty wild. We first hit the Crazy Horse before the big party started. It was pretty busy there already. A few of us hitched a very short ride over to Chopper's landing with a guy more than willing to show us a good set of icy doughnuts in the parking lot. That was a lot of fun. There was an '80s cover band at Chopper's pumping out a lot of tunes, and a lot of people were enjoying themselves despite the slow service on the alcohol.

The day after was not spent recovering, but rather, it was spent snowboarding. I went up 2 lifts and did some pretty steep runs. I started to get my groove back but was also getting rather tired, so I didn't ending up going again too many times. At the end of the day, I was feeling sore, and ended up sleeping at about 8:30.

Nothing like a good view heading up the slopes

The next day at work was pretty relaxed, and it was a good lead-up to the first jam night of the season, which are held every Monday night. I did a fair bit of pre-drinking, and got on stage rather drunkenly. My attempt at singing Good Riddance was impaired by several breaks when I either forgot the lyrics or chords, or both. It was, however, not such a bad experience considering it was my first time on stage in front of a live audience. A lot of the other (also drunken) people were very supportive, so that was cool.

The Internet has finally started to work today, so I'm very happy about that. Apologies for the ultra-long post.