I passed! Nice.

Nonstopski - always at the cutting edge of fashion on the mountain...



- Looking towards Whitefish
- Neil, awed by majesty of nature
- Yup, it was sunny
- Pat Butcher....
- Super Jock

And off it..
- Call the fashion police
- Amy and her technicolour dreamcoat
- Trev and Amy, puttin' on the Ritz!
- Gary and Stu
- My housemates Ali and Corinne, and Amy
- Dave: You talkin' to me?
- My housemate Derek, and Kim
- Do all bars in Montana have one of these?
- One piece!
- Dancing Queen
- Kim and Neil
- Tim, heading down the bus..
- And comming back

Right on.

So there we were. After a charming day's skiing in Whitefish, Montana (that's the USA!) what better way to relax than by taking in some true wild west night life. First up was the Bulldog in downtown Whitefish. Dave, our guide and leader, told us it was a typical Montana bar: "Liquor up front, Poker in the back". And he was right - there were plenty of big guys in dungarees playing cards at the back. Best not spill their pint. Or disparage George W Bush as one of our number was doing, unless maybe you wanted to claim he was too left wing. But there was good food, the biggest pitchers of beer anyone had ever seen and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on the jukebox, so it seemed to suit everyone.

We ended up in a nightclub and that's where the trouble really started. You see I was dancing, with my usual abandon and bravado - of course, and the other Nonstoppers were also out on the dance floor, many in fancy dress. After giving of our best for quite a while as the DJ pumped out some banging choons the music stopped and the DJ made an announcement.

"A big thanks to all the guys from the 80s party [that was us], really making it happen tonight. And ladies, if you're out on the dancefloor look out for the old bald guy - he's really laying it down out there". I looked around the other dancers thinking who on earth could he possibly be talking about. Reader; it was me!

I'm the old bald guy!!!

What!! I mean... WHAT!!! OK... so the barnet's not what it was. But OLD BALD GUY....

Ouch!

I really was flabbergasted. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be described as "the old bald guy on the dancefloor". I'm not sure I'll ever get over it.

Anyhow apart from that incident it was a very excellent day out. The skiing at Big Mountain (the local ski hill to Whitefish) was good and it was a beautiful day. The scenery is remarkable round there and the snow was excellent. The terrain wasn't as extreme as at Fernie but they had some good long runs for excellent cruising plu some good steep stuff and I did two "double black-diamond" runs which is meant to be as it hard as it gets. As I mentioned many of the folks were dressed up for the trip and you could easily spot us on the hill turning heads wherever we went. Then of course there was some vigorous apres-ski and after leaving the nightclub in a huff (me) or drunken stupor (everyone else) we had a lively trip back on the "party bus". When I get some photos up there you'll see what I mean.

Anyhow - thats enough for now. Cheerio.
xx
OBG

Rum weather and no mistake. I looked out of the window before going to bed last night and the sky was clear. I was awoken by the Fernie alarm clock: the explosions set off on the mountain to trigger mini avalanches and thus make it safe to ski. Always a good sound. Sure enough when I looked out of the window the snow was covering everything. We must have had about 4 inches over night :)

Snow brings the people to the hill and there were some actual serious queues today, with everyone eager to be first up and get first tracks. I found some great powder just off the Bear chair lift and skiied all the way through until lessons started, foregoing my usual morning breather and coffee. Wow - I'm so hardcore all of a sudden!

Unfortunately its been really warm this week from about 11am onwards (above 0!!) and the precip. soon started to fall as rain lower down. This made the conditions far from ideal - the snow gets really heavy and its really hard work to do anything. Higher up things were better but it was strange riding the Timber chair up: rain at the bottom, then hail, then sleet and finally snow at the top.

Lessons this week have been more focussed on teaching techniques. In itself its been quite interesting but also frustrating. We spent one whole day on the nursery slopes learning to teach snowplough turns when we could have been tearing around in the new snow! I'm also finding it really hard to analyse other skiers. We have to practice on ourselves but as were are all at roughly the same standard when you spot an error or something you've got no idea what to do about it as chances are you do it too. But I guess we will learn more about that next week.

This weekend I'm off on a daytrip to the good ol' US of A. We are heading down to Big Mountain, Montana on Saturday. So stay tuned and I'll tell you all about it...

Oh joy! It started snowing today. We've already had enough to paralyse Britain's motorway system. But as that isn't very much we need it to keep going. Which it seems eager to do. Nice. It's the first snow for two weeks and people are getting very excited, you can almost sense a new enthusiasm in the town. Mind you the last few days haven't exactly been bad. In fact its been wonderful and sunny. A bit like this in fact..




Anyhow the skiing was hard and fast last week and we only have one more week of instruction before our exams. We did a mock "ski off" on Thursday where we had to do the compulsory turns. I was told that I passed, so that's encouraging.

Here's some more pics. One has people in it - just to prove that I am not alone in the mountains!!
- Your correspondant.
- Clouds rolling into Timber Bowl
- Lunchtime with Tim, Claire, George, Matt and Ulrika
- Snowghosts in upper Timber Bowl
- sky, moon, looked better in real life...

I've also tried a panorama style shot from the top of the White Pass Chairlift. It's looking into the timber bowl where a lot of the above photos were taken. Click on the pic for a larger version (570kb):

Ha Ha! We had some mini ski races today, head to head down a parallel slalom course. It wasn't particularly steep so no record speeds were recorded but I'm chuffed to bits to report that I won all 3 of my races against my young whippersnapper ski group. At 33 and 3/4 I really should be beyond this kind of petty gloating. But I'm not! Oh the joy of victory. And anyway it's probably best for these youngsters to reap the character building benefits of defeat at the hands of bald geezer nearly twice their age. They should thank me. I mean I get pretty tired making them look bad...

: )

Here's a picture of my ski group. I call them the young disciples coz we've got Matthew, Simon, Peter (absent), Paul and James. And this week our instructor was a Mark, Mark Deneau - an amazing skier in fact, glorious to watch! There's also Tim and Croy. These are the men in my life.

We've not had any significant new snow in Fernie for over a week now. But the slopes are still in great nick. It just means that rather than falling over in the powder we've been working on our technique on the groomed slopes. Not only is this a great confidence booster but we've also had much more technical instruction this week. Everyone I've spoken to has really appreciated this and we all seem to be making significant improvements. Good job too as the Level 1 instructor exams are in 3 weeks.

We've been focussing this week on the 5 core skills. Now I could tell you guys what they are but I'd be drummed out of the ski instructors magic circle if I did; forced to live the life of a renegade, a ne'er-do-well backstreet instructor. So sign up for an expensive lesson with me next winter to find out more... Oh, OK then I'll tell you: Stance & Balance, Edging, Pressure Control, Pivoting and Timing & Co-ordination. It sounds pretty technical but it's simple enough and it's been really interesting to see what difference it makes if you try and isolate a particular skill and then combine them all together. I really feel like I've made a lot of progress this week.

The other thing I've learned this week is that my skis totaly rock! Especially in this kind of groomed and hard packed snow. So the Salomon Crossmax 10 - I salute you! Start laying down some high speed turns, get 'em on an edge and it's like you're on rails, accelerating out of one turn into the next. mmmmmmm. Big smiles all around.

Saturday was a fun day up on the hill. It was the annual Cardboard Derby. Teams get together to construct some manner of craft they half to navigate downhill and onto a target but only from cardboard, gaffer tape, string and glue. Some of the entries were incredibly elaborate: a pterodactyl with flapping wings, a roman chariot with horses, an F1 car and a pizza slice. Some were much simpler but thats the nature of the day: just go out and have fun. I think the crowd's favourite was the pirate ship that crashed and disintegrated about 20 yards from the finish, and the "Sumo girls". These were two girls in inflatable sumo wrestler suits. Their craft didn't make it to the finish but they carried on sliding anyway! I saw them later on skiing in their costumes; they were the talk of the mountain.

That's very Fernie: good times in the snow, whatever you are doing. I must write more about how friendly the atmosphere on the ski hill is, but I'll save that for another time.

Photo Fun:
- The cardboard derby paddock
- Frozen Sea in action
- Frozen Sea in pieces
- The raging elk mobile
- Chicks with tix
- Sumo girls 1
- Sumo girls 2
- Sumo girls 3

.. which should save me a lot of typing:

Amidst all the good news; something sad. Lucy and I have split after nearly 3 years together. It was a bit of a shock for me to begin with but Lucy handled things very sensitively; things are entirely amicable and I know we'll stay friends. I'm really doing OK (in case anyone is worried!).


At least I'll have priority at the ski lift...

We've had plenty of weather this week. 130cms of snow up to Thursday and then on Friday, rain! It was noticeable on Thursday how the arctic airmass moved away and the temperature headed back up to 0. Suddenly I was over-layered and sweating!

The start of the week was probably the best if you could stand the cold. Lots of snow; light and fluffy "champagne powder". Here's a shot of Matt and Trevorabout to drop in for a spot of exquisite glade skiing above a run called "Morning Glory". It's a top spot to learn to ski powder: well spaced trees (phew!) and a moderate grade but steep enough to keep you moving. The snow was mostly knee deep with the occasional waist deep drift to keep things interesting. It really gets the thighs burning so thats all the encouragement I need to return to the base area for a drink.

Off the hill I went to see the local hockey team, the Fernie Ghostriders, take on the Bozeman Icedogs (grrrr!). It was great entertainment: so fast and so physical compared with the kind of hockey I've been watching/playing recently. But alas these shameful scenes did break out... Between the second and third periods there was a special ANZAC challenge match for all the Aussies and Kiwis in the crowd. Out they went onto the ice with a stick and helmet, but no skates, just their shoes. It was hillarious: a crowd of boozed up guys chasing the puck around, swiping at it, falling over, getting up and having another charge and a swipe. I'm glad to report another defeat for Australia as well :)

On Friday we escaped the rain in Fernie and had a day's skiing in Kimberly about an hour and a half away. The weather there was even more crazy. Going up in the chairlift it was an absolute blizzard: I made a fair-sized snowball from the snow that accumulated on my during the ride up. But at the top the snow stopped and the sun poked through. It was the first time I'd seen any shadows on the snow for about a week. There was lovely fresh powder on top of the groomed runs which made for some great skiing. But then suddenly it would start snowing again and we ended the day in a total white-out.

Before the weather closed in we did see some unexpected wildlife: a mink, scampering across the piste. It was long and thin with a pure white coat with a black nose and black tip on its tail. I did what any keen naturalist would have done: killed it, skinned it and made a lovely fur wrap. Mum - it's in the post....

That wasn't the end of the wildlife viewing however. On the way back to Fernie we drove past a moose! I didn't say we SAW a moose because I didn't get a good enough view. Our bus driver simply shouted "look - a moose!". But it was dark and the windows mostly steamed up so all I saw was a HUGE brown shape and four massive legs. Not exactly a grade "A" sighting, but I'm eager for more.

And you'll hear about it here first, moose fans!

Further pics for your delectation and edification:
- Top of the Timber chair.
- Our backyard.
- Fernie court house and the Three Sisters.
- The Lizard Range mountains.
- Elk river and the ski hill.
- Horrific penguin lynching!