Endex

It's all over and I'm back home.

After Rob and Dan left in their fun-bus, I got up and finished packing adding the last few random bits of junk to my bags.

Thanks to the delicious roast beef that Dan cooked previously, I had the opportunity to make beef and horseradish sarnies washed down with Jimmy James' coke. Cheers fellas.

It was rather depressing waiting around in the hostel, so I went for a walk and took a few last photos of Rossland and then made a desperate attempt to spend more money in Ross Vegas but failed.

Then my journey began. First a shuttle bus to Trail 'airport' with a driver coming down with the same Man 'Flu I have. I arrived at the 'airport' to find it was in fact a portacabin:



The plane was so small, I had to bend at the waist to walk down the aisle. There were 20 seats and not enough room to swing a cat, let alone a tiger. I could have touched both sides of the fuselage by stretching out both hands. Still, I was treated to one of the smoothest landings ever which was balanced nicely by the shuttle to the terminal, driven it seems by Carlos Sainz.

A very boring flight might have been alleviated by the prospect of watching the fountain, but the French twat sat in front of me saw to that. As soon as the plane started taxi-ing he cranked the chair right back so that the screen was 2.5" from my face. Why do they even bother making the things recline if it makes the space behind uninhabitable? Next time remind me to get the seat by the bulkhead. Still, at least I had 4 episodes of BSG to see me through the flight. Thank the gods for PSP.

Back on terra firma, I had another chance to enjoy an extra hour in the airplane thanks to the inability of ground crew to organise a set of stairs or a bus to coincide with the scheduled and on-time arrival of a 9 hour flight. That little debacle made the throwers seem positively organised. Apparently, throwing the snowboards and skis into the middle of the reclaim hall is all they can manage. No signs, no announcements.

Anyway, I'm back home with 2 months worth of Top Gear, Evo Magazine and CSI to keep me company when I wake up at 4am. I also had the last episode of the trap to enjoy, one of the most interesting programmes I've seen in ages.

And now, after 2 months of 6 litre automatics with rudders instead of steering I'm going to waste some petrol and rubber in a proper car.

That's all folks.

Run to the hills

Now that I'm just killing time until my flight back, I decided to run to the mountain and back yesterday. It was fairly hard work, going from about 1,000mtrs to 1,600 and about 12km round trip.

Today I'm regretting it, feeling like I'm about to get ill, just in time for my 9hr flight!

It's going to be very strange getting back, but I'm really looking forward to normal life. No more dorm rooms, no more ski bums wearing beanies inside, and no more getting depressed over snow conditions.

Rob and Dan are about to embark on Road Trip part deux. They've bought a really cool old van ('79 Ford) and are going to visit Kicking Horse again, then Whistler which has received some very big dumps.

Would the last person to leave Rossland please turn out the lights?

I'm lying on a bed, watching the ceiling fan rotate. In the thick, humid air you can smell sweat, smoke and cordite. I can hear "The End" by the doors. The ceiling fan starts slapping the air like a Huey. "Rossland, shit I'm still only in Rossland."

Actually, I made that up. I'm not in Apocalypse Now, but just like the grunts in '75 I'm getting the hell out of Dodge. I heard a Huey flying in Kicking Horse, it has a really distinctive sound.

Today was my first day back on the Mountain (no, despite what people say, it's NOT a hill) since Kicking Horse. The BC/DC gig and associated keg party left me broken over the weekend.

The season is truly over, it snowed last night but it didn't make enough difference. I only went to demo a Prior board. It was the all-mountain board which was very flexible. It made me realise that I definitely prefer a stiffer board. I wanted to try their Khyber but they didn't have the right size. Once I'd finished trashing someone's board on the rocks and ice I decided to call it a day.

I've now managed to change my flight to this weekend, so I'm all over the flights and transfers trying to sort out the details.

So, get ready to take the piss out of my absorbed accent. If you catch me saying eh? at the end of sentences or saying 'awesome' you have my permission to try and give me a dead arm.

See you all soon!

Think Twice

So the road trip is at an end, we're back in Rossland having enjoyed a great holiday-from-our-holiday in Kicking Horse.

Over the past few days we've seen some great conditions, and been able to ride some very different terrain, also being in a two-horse town rather than a one-horse has been a nice change even if the cinema in Golden was closed...

Stuart managed to win the Kicking Horse downhill V-max competition with an impressive 91.6km/h (just before he slid over a roller on his backside). I had another go but couldn't get near that speed! He is, after all, willing to ride a motorcycle at 146mph...

I had an interesting moment at the top of one of the bowls. I approached a run called Think Twice, which dropped off a narrow piste. Because it was almost a complete white-out, I could barely tell the difference between the snow and the sky. I'd been doing these runs all day though and they all started with the same incline (or so I thought). So I set off, expecting to traverse across a little bit and then get my bearings (and vision), but instead I dropped vertically about 8 feet. Unfortunately for me, I'd decided to drop in at the only point that was completely vertical. Oh well, nothing damaged.

We had another monster drive across the bottom corner of BC, 6/7 hours back to Rossland. I wouldn't mind betting that the entire UK would fit within the borders of BC alone.

Tonight we have a double treat:

1. A keg party. That's right kids, a real 'Merkin style kegger. I shall be silently saluting Jim Belushi in Animal House.
2. We're all going to see a local AC/DC tribute band called BC/DC. (see what they did there?)

I'm afraid I didn't take a camera to Golden, so check out Dan's

Pow! Kicking Horse

So here is blog version 2.1, the one that Firefox ate:

Red Mountain feels like the end of the season at the moment, all the snow is melting in high temperatures. It's depressing being at the mountain, and even worse sitting around the hostel so we decided on a road trip.

One minute we were talking about possible plans, and the next Rob and I were collecting a Pontiac Montana from a car hire place.

So we collected a couple more ski-bums from the hostel to fill the extra seats in the asthma-powered people carrier, and set off for Golden, BC home to Kicking Horse resort. I've been there for one day, a few years ago when it had just opened. It was a car park, a Gondola lift and a great restaurant at the top. Now it's massive (at least compared to Red), 3 chair lifts one Gondola and huge Alpine bowls.

We're staying in (what seems like) 5 star luxury. A timber lodge that doubles as a hostel. It has the largest television in Christendom and of course we're driving the fun bus to the mountain every morning. Kicking Horse River Lodge gets my seal of approval.

To top of our luxurious accommodation and general bonhomie due to the change of scenery, we had an amazing powder day today. 22cms overnight and we were second in the lift queue. It was incredible, as good as the Cat days. I borrowed Rob's GPS device and recorded 66.9km/h, so I have waxed the board, confident that I can top 90km/h!

IT Support

this blog was going to be titled "Bob Hope and Golf Carts" in honour of our road trip to Kicking Horse.

Unfortunately, due to a well-timed crash by Firefox, my really long blog has just disappeared into the ether, and I can't be bothered to write it again.

So, long story short:

Red Mountain = snow's melting, going mad in the Hostel.

Rented car, drove to Kicking Horse, checked into luxury hostel, went to mountain - Gondola closed, hoping it's open tomorrow.

Intolerance

What a difference a few days without snow makes. That and high temps. Since the big dump, Rob Dan and I have crammed a lot in (Cat Skiing, avalanche course) so when the slush came it was a welcome respite. So here's my first non-boarding post.

Monday was a complete day of rest, I only left the Hostel to get Coke. The afternoon dragged on with only Red Dragon on the telly and a Pacman tournament to pass the time.

I played a Scottish man called Stuart in my first match. After my last life went, he had to find 5k points to beat me... "Come on Stuart, 5k points to get or it's Falkirk all over again" High brow sledging eh?

My next match was against a Dane called Anders. I couldn't think of anything amusing to say, and besides he beat me by thousands of points.

Dan pulled some amazing Pacman moves out of the bag to come away with the first Mountain Shadow Hostel pacman title. Here's a video of the event:

The title of this blog is about me becoming a grumpy old man before my time. There's something a bit too 'yo' and 'Shoreditch' about people who board for long periods. I was on a lift with a kiwi and a yank the other day and they bored the crap out of me. People just cannot talk about anything but "fresh lines" and "sick tweaked methods" etc etc. It's beginning to get to me!

Also, they have no common sense AT ALL. These are the sort of fuzzy-thinking types that leave their shoes in the doorway and their dishes on the side thinking that mummy will sort it out.

Then there are ski teams who turn up and, before I've eaten anything in the morning, start prancing around in skin tight black leggings like it's reasonable. I even saw one walk into a cafe across the street wearing said leggings, grey knee-high socks and sandals.

Anyway, I'm sure there's some twat from Chipping Norton, complaining on his blog about the grumpy git in his hostel with sideburns. Slowly adding to the tedious scrollable HTML that makes up the internet. As Rob has just pointed out, we are fully immersed in the blogosphere and there's no getting out!

Nathan