I'm taking the first Sunday of the course as a proper day of rest. My legs were starting to ache so I've dedicated today to trying to get some pictures up here on the interweb. Now the snow has stopped (after about 38 hours non stop!) I can also get cracking on the backyard rink, but that means shovelling about 6 inches of snow off the garden so I might hang here in the cafe for a bit longer.

This weekend has seen Fernie host a leg of the freestyle skiing World Cup. That means mogul skiing and aerials [basically high diving off a ramp and on skis - got it?] This is quite a big event for the town and the open ceremony featured the mayor, some mounties and the local First Nation group (i.e Native Americans/Canadian?) do a turn. I was a volunteer on the opening ceremony and I bravely volunteered to man the fire pit when I realised it meant standing next to the fire and chucking logs on it. That's my kind of community service. On Saturday I also helped out set up the moguls course. This meant a 6am start and skiing down from the lift to the start of the course before the sun was up which was a new experience for me. I was involved in attaching sponsors' banners to the netting down the side which was quite tiring work with all the clambering up and down through the deep snow. So once I was done I did a couple of runs and called it a day. It was finally busy on the ski hill this weekend. I even had to (whisper it) queue for a lift!! After skiing during the week and being thoroughly spoiled by having the resort to ourselves it was a shock to find even modest sized queues.

Today has dawned sunny and bright, the first real sunshine of our trip. It's also a lot colder: the temperature has dropped from about 0 degrees in town to -15. Brrrr. But at least its clear and I've been able to see the mountain tops that surround Fernie: it's quite spectacular.

Now for the pics. I'll leave them as links as time is money here in Mug Shots bistro and cyber cafe! The pictures aren't massive: they are all <200kb so dont be afraid of monster downloads!

First of all, here is home. A well charming and well appointed detached residence only minutes from historic downtown Fernie! The ice rink is going to be off to the left as you look at it. Here is the view from the front door. Not bad eh!

Here is downtown Fernie. It's Sunday morning but it doesn't get much busier. In the background you can see the ski hill, with the runs cut through the trees.

Up on the hill this is the Bear run where they were holding the moguls race. And here is a brave competitor! At the top of the Bear is the drop in to Cedar bowl. The bowl was closed because of avalance risk but they should open it soon and with all that new snow its going to be sweet! The biggest of the 5 bowls on the mountain is Lizard Bowl which has got some really great skiing through the trees.

So I hope that gives you a flavour of whats going down.