Friday, February 19, 2010

One point Five

Months that is!

Booked my tickets from LA to Lima, Peru a couple of days ago. Wow its really happening I am going to South America! Even if I just sit in the airport im going to fucking Peru! (and bolivia & ecuador)

Totally burnt myself out the last few days. Dropped by a mates after work on Tuesday to chat and ended up not going to sleep till about 5am and then waking up at 8am to get ready for snowboarding. Had a wicked day on the hill but was so exhausted by the end. So I get home for like an hour and then we are off to calgary to see Flying Lotus a californian dj kind of trippy music. Not totally my scene but was excited to get out and see someone and hang with some good people. I was pretty impressed with his live show though. He is playing at Coachella as well but I think I'll give it a miss since I've already seen him now and there are so many bands I would like to see!

Turned into a bit of a crazy night and we didnt go to sleep till about 5am, I was then up at 6am and needed to get out of there and go home. So I woke everyone up much to their disdain at 8am and drove the 1 hour back to Banff. I managed to sneak in about 2 hours of solid sleep before work. Seriously though I could have used another five hours. I was fading pretty badly at work and ended up in this kind of zone. But I guess I was in a good mood because I made a few customers happy. So I did my job alright.

I have a really bad habit of not sleeping enough and when I do get a chance to sleep I just end up going snowboarding! Ah well like I said 1.5 months left then SOUTH AMERICA!! Oh and then HOME in June. Wow ... back in Darwin for 3 WHOLE MONTHS!!!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Panorama!

Just got back from a weekend away to Panorama, BC. Caught up with my good mate Chad from Ontario (underworld carpark) I am trying to hit 15 different ski hills this season. A little obsessed? Anyway so far I have done..(in order)

Breckenridge, CO
Snowbird, UT
Sunshine Village, AB
Lake Louise, AB
Kicking Horse, BC
Revelstoke, BC
Panorama, BC

Just under half.. pretty sure its not going to happen. I have Fernie, Kimberly, Nakiska in the works. (got comp tickets for Nakiska which is really the only reason I'm going) Marmot Basin in Jasper is another possibility. Also want to hit up some resorts in Lake Tahoe on my way to Coachella.

Anyway speaking of Panorama. It all started out great we were up bright and early for first tracks and to beat all the people since it was Family Day weekend and a Saturday. So we decide to all do this cruisy green run to give Heather a little bit of a start. I flew to the bottom and ended up taking the chair lift back up to do another run. But as we are heading up I get this message saying she had hurt herself really badly and couldn't move. So Chad and I went back down to get her and she is still in the same spot. We take her board, gloves & helmet and she walks down. I leave her stuff at the bottom then Chad and I head back up the hill whilst Jemma & Sally take her to the infirmary. Once again I'm on the chair-lift and get a message "she has to go to hospital and get an x-ray" to which I respond "O geez tell her to have a beer I'll be down in an hour"

Anyway I go down and she is all slung up and we just tell her to sit at the bar and we will be back. Plus Heather also says she doesn't want to wreck our day! Chad and I seperated from Jemma & Sally and we went all over the place exploring trees, black, blue and some really dodgy runs. We get back to the Bar for lunch and Heather is nicely drunk so we get some food and get drunk with her. After lunch Chad and I run off again and do some more boarding. I think we finish up about 4/430 and we meet Heather, Jemma & Sally back in the pub. We end up getting super drunk. I think we left at like 9 or something.. not entirely sure. Went home I fell asleep on the floor for a bit. Everyone else went to bed and I ended up lying on the couch talking to Chad till about midnight where I fell asleep on the couch.

Sunday morning we took Heather to hospital then went back to the hill. Chad & I ditched the others again but I was really sketchy and hungover and accidentally for the first run of the day went down this super steep black mogully run. I think it took like an hour to get down.. Then I fell over and hit my elbow pretty hard so tired, hung-over & now hurting my confidence was shot! I lost chad for an hour and when I found him again (or he found me) went down and had a beer o'clock and a shot. Heather sent me a text she had broken her wrist haha. Cast for six weeks :) She will really fit into Banff now!! After the beer I felt much better and we went right up the top again and relaxed at the cabin right on top of the mountain just drinking beer and sitting back in the deck chairs.

Heather, Sally & Jemma left that night and Chad and I just got drunk and watched black books/extras till we passed out about Midnight. I got back into town about 2pm Monday.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Revelstoke.

Revelstoke is a town/mountain resort about a 3 hour drive from Banff, Alberta. Its supposed to have the highest vertical drop in Canada and some of the best snow. I've always wanted to visit it and my friend Sam who I had met randomly in the streets one drunken night was living there. He wanted to come back to Banff and I wanted to visit Revvy so I decided to drive down there for the weekend, crash at his house and then drive back. The drive was decant I managed to stick on 2wd the whole way, the only problem was it was super dirty and I ran out of washer fluid. Its pretty hard to drive when you can't see...

Revelstoke is a bit of a dead town but it does have quite a large young Kiwi population, for someone who never really hangs out with Kiwis and then suddenly your the token aussie surrounded by them its daunting. Plus Kiwis in their natural environment are really hard to understand..

Sam cooked me dinner and we had drinks before heading out onto the town. We went to some bar and it was taking ages to get a drink then this old guy brought us a round for no reason. So we just sat and chatted on the couch before heading home and crashing out around midnight.

Sunday we went up the mountain. I think my game was completely off.. It was rough terrain, mogully, super bad visibility but I had great company. Sam stuck with me all day even though I was being a massive wimp and taking my time. I think he had a relaxing day! Took me through a few trees runs which was pretty cool Im not very good at controlling my board in tight conditions tend to freak out a bit to much. I did get stuck in a tree well at one point. I fell over a ton one of my most impressive stacks was flying down a blue run and I see this dip, I thought yea I can jump it then freaked out tried to stop hit the jump to hard and went flying... bounced a couple of times and just lay there. Sam was laughing at me and I'm lying there in so much pain. Another great stack I stood up and just fell over and whacked my head, wasn't even moving. Good times.

So my opinion of revelstoke was positive. I enjoyed the tree runs but the visibility was a little frustrating at times. Sam was great.