After the snowfall on Saturday, Sunday dawned clear and bright and it looked like being a pretty good day for our backcountry ski touring trip.

It was.

Ski touring uses a different sort of binding to attach you to the skis. There are a number of settings which allow you to have your heel free for going cross-country (or up-hill!) and then you can clamp the heel down and glide through some untracked pow on the way down. Or that at least is the theory. The other trick is to attach skins to the bottom of your skis when climbing. The skins (which once upon a time were probably seal skin or something) allow the skis to glide forward but stop them sliding backwards. So in the end you get an excellent bit of winter hiking, with some skiing thrown in. Top banana!

We got a ride in a snow-cat to the top of the ridge opposite the ski hill and set off from there. The snowboarders wore snowshoes while we skinned up (blimey!). The views were stunning and the whole experience was really fun, moving slowly through the woods as we inched our way uphill, then cruising down through the pow. Only sometimes it wasn't pow in fact but a kind of hard-packed crust that made for some pretty hairy skiing. Phil took his agression out on a tree which came of worst but otherwise we all survived. And then right at the end we got a tow behind a snow-mobile to add to the experience.

We also had Diva, avalanche rescue dog in training, to come find us if we got lost!


- Matt at one with nature
- Phil Hargreaves - mountain man.
- FAR from afar.
- Chris the centrefold.
- one of me!
- up through the trees.
- cheating!

Wahey! Friday night saw a proper snowfall. Saturday morning saw hardly anyone on the hill. So this is what I saw:

Nice

I got first tracks in Easter Bowl (above), Cedar Ridge, Linda's Run and Red Tree. Fan-bloody-tastic! I also got to ski some new runs I'd been saving for a good day like Steep and Deep and Stag Leap. It was exhausting stuff but with some really warm temperatures forecast for the week ahead I thought it was best to get what I could!

With the changeable weather our course co-ordinator Dave Richards (the hardest working man in Fernie) has had his work cut out trying to arrange a number of weather dependent activites before the end of the course. But we did get a bit of new snow last week and a cat skiing day was quickly organised.

Grand entertainment it was. The idea with cat skiing is that you go uphill in a giant snow cat (see above) and then go downhill through untracked slopes far away from the lifts and crowds of the ski hill. The skiing was great - not scary steep but varied and interesting and swooshing through virgin pow is always fun even if its only a few cms deep. We got about 8 runs through the day with much banter and amusement in between in the cat rides back up.

- Stuart shows the way.

No blogging for a week means that I'm way late handing out aTeaButNoE style thanks to Ashley and Turner for entertaining me so royally in Calgary the weekend before last. Despite the first bus braking down before we left Fernie and going half the way to C-town in old school bus (rather than an old-skool bus) we did make it in the end.

Turner picked me up from downtown and whisked me back to their new home. It was great to catch up with them and to congratulate Turner in person on finishing the first draft of his book. Look out for Planet Simpson - coming to a bookstore near you soon.

The plan for the evening was a dinner party Chez Ashley et Turner. It was a simple affair for 14 people! There was delicious lamb and convivial company and it was an excellent evening. In the morning I demanded fine brunching and thats exactly what I got at Diner Deluxe: pancakes slightly larger than my head, bacon, maple syrup and delicious coffee. mmmmm good times. But before long I had to be back on the bus and back to Fernie. It was a great weekend - thanks guys!

- Turner, Pony and Ashley at home.
- Ashley, Calgary and I.

Here's Mike, a vocal Volkl evangelist, feeling the love for the Volkl Supersport...


Here's Corrine: we're all feeling the love for that stance and balance thing. You go girl!

Here's me laying down some wax love. If you give love (to your skis) you get love back!

Off for a change of scene at the weekend; going to visit Ashley and Turner in their pad in Calgary. I'm really looking forward to seeing them and for a bit of "bright lights, big city" (Alberta style). Hopefully my absence will also trigger the snow gods into delivering some more Pow to Fernie. The situation at the moment is much the same as it has been: warm temperatures, runs getting slushy by the end of the day. We had some snow at the top of the mountain and I got "fresh tracks" first thing today but it was some pretty weird skiing - very heavy underfoot. Also been skiing more moguls and bumps today. Unfortunately after nine weeks I'm still rubbish! When I can do bumps well I'll think I'm a good skier but unfortunately I'm not there yet.

Thought I should post something upbeat after my last offering. Well, we still need an old skool Fernie dump of snow but I've had a really enjoyable weekend's skiing. It's been a bit colder so no more of the R-word and the slopes have been in better nick. Even with all the melting thats been going on the snow coverage is still great. But you've got to stick to the groomed pistes. Anything off piste is bullet proof in the morning and syrupy at the end of the day. But this weekend I just skied for fun and didn't worry about technique. Queue lots of high speed turns and just bombing around.

Nice.

It's one of the filthiest words you can utter in Fernie. But unfortunately we've just had plenty of it. So all that remaining pow has gone to waste.

:(

It's warm too! The snow is melting and getting very sticky. It was really weird skiing on Monday - every now and then, if you hit a pile of thick snow your skis would come sudden and complete halt underneath you. I got pitched over the handlebars on more than one occasion. But thats where having our instructors really helps. They've been showing us how to have fun in this slushy snow and it turns out there is a lot of fun to be had.

When the r**n has eased we've had some quite hot sunshine. I skied for a day without my hat but with my goggles on. What a crass error - just look at my head...


Puddle wonderful:
- Puddle 1.
- Puddle 2.

By 9.30am it was already the best day's skiing I've ever had! It was dumping snow last night so my housemate Deke and I decided to get the early bus up to the ski hill and try and be near the front of the lift-queue. As it was we were there at 8.30 with half an hour before the lifts opened but already plenty of people lining up. We met some other Nonstoppers who suggested walking up the length of the first lift so that we could be at the front of the queue for the second lift! It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the walk was pretty steep and exhausting especially as I was the only skiier - everyone else was in snowboard boots. Even at the base of the Bear Chair we were still not the first in line but it looked pretty good. Once the lifts started we were soon at the top and decided to drop off Cedar Ridge into Cedar bowl. It was at precisely that moment that walking all that way seemed like a very, very good idea. We got "first tracks" all the way down, i.e. we were skiing fresh powder that no one else had been through yet. The snow was waist deep again but this time it was sunny as well! Reader; I may even have whooped at one point in a most un-British fashion. But everyone else was doing it! All along the ridge the air was alive with shouts and screams and yee-hahs and whoops and the like. As we regrouped at the bottom to get the lift back up, people were basically delirious. Everyone was beaming, laughing, giggling, swearing - that's the only way to express the feelings of first tracks on a powder day at Fernie: you can't put it into words!

That's all very well but - WHAT ABOUT THE TELEMARK RACE?? I hear you scream. Well that was great fun. I think I acquited myself honourably, and the organisers seemed pretty impressed by my run when I told them I'd only started the day before. The course was a standard slalom event with a few nordic twists. This included a jump (eeek!) and roundabout gate which involved turning back uphill and round another uphill gate before continuing downhill. Anyhow I got down in one and I did proper tele-turns all the way so I was pleased. I had a rather groovy costume as well. I attached a gold lame cape to my hat (which gave me more of an Omaar Sharif look than I had bargained for) and then taped red crepe paper strips to my coat. Thankfully it wasn't just me in fancy dress. The whole event was very light hearted and thanks to some high spirited Norwegians pretty noisy as well! The original plan was that we would all do two runs but once 50 + people had been it was getting way to late to do it all again. So instead we all went down in one long line. The roundabout was quite fun - it involved skiing and trying to merge into traffic. But there were no casualties. In the evening everyone gathered in the bar for the prize giving. Turns out I didn't win! But there were prizes for everyone; some cool ski gear, or vouchers for local resteraunts. The prizes were picked out of a hat randomly as we went to collect our t-shirts. Me - I won a lampshade...

harrumph!

Pics:
- Hero of Telemark.
- Me and The Griz!. Dig those Panda eyes!

Fantastic day's skiing today. 32cms of fresh snow was reported this morning and that means plenty of powder to play in. However the pow brings the locals out so the queues for the first lift were pretty scary. But Fernie has this great thing in the lift queues - the singles only line. Well I'm well qualified for this and the idea is that skiers on their own fill in the gaps and thus you have 4 people on every lift. With that I was soon up and away. Best run of the morning was Sunnyside. It was thigh to waist deep powder all the way down and face shot after face shot as the snow billowed up in my face. I was picking snow out of the breast pocket of my jacket at the bottom and I hadn't fallen over once! It doesn't get much better than that.

After 3 or 4 runs I went back down the base and changed into the Telemark skis that I had rented for the day. Nonstop had organised a "cross dressing" day where you could change sports and give something else a go. I didn't fancy any boarding and I'd always wanted to try Telemark so today was the day. Basically Telemarking is a cross between downhill and cross country skiing: you use a classic downhill/alpine ski with a crosscountry style binding that leaves your heal free to move. It looks hard work: I always thought it was for skiers who thought downhill skiing wasn't hard enough work as it is. It turns out I was right: it IS hard work! But great fun!! It's so gracefull and really enjoyable. There were 5 of us in the class and our instructor, Johnny, was terrific. We seemed to make excellent progress and soon we were riding the chairlift and heading further up the mountain. I've even gone and entered the Telemark race tomorrow to mark the start of Fernie's "Griz Days" celebrations!

Did the Recreational Avalanche Course this weekend. This involved heading out of the ski area and digging some holes in the snow to see how likely it was to collapse. We also did some practice rescues using avalanche transceivers, simple devices that can both transmit and receive a signal. The idea is that the transceiver is set to transmit normally; if someone gets buried you switch yours to receive and the device beeps louder and louder as you get closer. There is a certain skill involved but I'm glad I've been given the chance to learn.

Anyhow we werent skiing frantically all day and this gave me a chance to take some more atmospheric photos. The photo below is of an area called Mammoth Droppings!



Here's me in reflective mood:


Here's my Hank Marvin impression:


And here are two of my charming housemates; Andy and Mike.