That’s it, my season is over. I’m in Banff now with a couple of days to kill before flying out of Calgary, ending a 14-month sojourn in Canada. After leaving Fernie, I went up to “Kicking Horse”:http://kickinghorseresort.com/ to meet up with Tom, Dave, Rob and Paul for a few days riding there.

Unfortunately, the resort has gone down in my estimation since last year. It’s still got awesome terrain, and great steeps off the ridges, but their lift system is useless and they still can’t get a decent internet connection set up on the hill. For some unknown reason they don’t run the one chair which lets you access the good terrain on the front of the hill, forcing everyone to use the gondola, so on days when there’s a bit of new snow, you may have to queue for 45mins to get up the hill. They also like stopping the gondola during the day so that they can do avalanche control, stranding everyone down at the bottom of the hill. Why they can’t either do it in the morning before the resort opens, or just prevent access to the bowl which they’re currently bombing, leaving the others open, is beyond me.

Despite all that, we still got some good riding in over the four days, so it was a decent end to the season. Right now I’m sitting in Banff and it’s -34C outside incl. wind chill, so Canada seems determined to give me a proper winter send-off!

I’ve uploaded new photos as well: “Australia Day”:/albums/33 - “Fernie”:/albums/32 - “Kicking Horse”:/albums/34

The last week in Fernie was awesome; it just didn’t stop snowing! In six days there was only one morning that we woke up without seeing 30cm+ of fresh, champagne powder which had fallen overnight, and by the end of the week 176cm of new snow was on the ground. What this meant was that myself, Nathan and Floody were up early every morning, queuing for first lifts and just ripping around the mountain, enjoying waist deep powder by the end of the week as evidenced by the photo of me cruising through the Cedar Bowl.

Dell, our retiree neighbour, who has been in the area his entire life, proclaimed it the best week of snow in 30 years, and I’m not about to disagree. Certainly, it’s the best snow I’ve ever boarded in, and the perfect send-off from Fernie.

So, this is what happens when you weigh around 90kg, you attempt a 360° jump and you wipe out badly… you smash the base-plate on one of your bindings! Luckily Burton have a lifetime warranty, so when I get back to Oz I should get a free replacement. In the meantime, I bought a second-hand replacement which will see me through the remaining week of this season.

I nominated myself as the only member of Team Extreme as I’m the only one who smashed some gear trying new stuff, and yes, I accept that Team Crap could also apply!

After a week without snow, yesterday it returned with a vengeance. We awoke to 27cm of fresh overnight, and it just kept going, so this was the scene which greeted myself and Nathan this morning… 44cm overnight, for a total of 71cm in the last 48hrs. Best of all? It’s Monday, so no weekend crowds.

We made it up bright and early for fresh tracks, so I decided to hold my video camera for the first run, only to have it marred by a knobhead skier who decided to pull a hockey stop into my path, sending me flying. Before I’d stopped sliding he was abusing me in lots of colourful language, and when I pointed out that it was he who pulled the sudden swerve and stop into my path, he pointed out that he was stopping to wait for his young daughter. Nice anger management and vocabulary he was teaching her there!

Anyway, holding the camera sans glove wasn’t the smartest thing to do in -23C, so I’m still dealing with slight frostbite six hours later. The first few runs were pretty sketchy, as a couple of days ago I’d moved my bindings forward to a fully centered stance to make it easier to change back and forth between regular and switch. That change was haunting me on a monster powder day as the front of my board just wanted to dive under the snow, so when we decided to switch to the new side of the hill I dipped into rentals and moved them back. After that I was ripping through the powder, landing nice jumps off cat-tracks and all was well with the world.

I’ve only 5 days left here in Fernie before heading off to Kicking Horse to meet up with Tom, Dave & Rob, and shitloads of powder is the perfect send off!

I’m halfway through my snowboarding season, and, in stark contrast to opening day, we’ve had tonnes of snow here. When I arrived back after Christmas the resort looked just as it had last year, with plenty of snow around, and it just kept on coming. Powder day after powder day, sometimes with up to 45cm of light, champagne powder which is a joy to ride. Even last week we got a metre of new snow.

The fun times had to end at some stage, and the last couple of days have been snow-less. A little bit fell today, but it seems that we’ll have to wait until next week for some proper snow.

My riding has slowly been getting better and I can now ride switch properly down steep semi-groomed runs. Next step is to start riding switch in powder and see how that goes. I’m jumping a bit more too, though nothing huge, and have managed a few more 180s, so I’ll have to find somewhere on the hill where I can try a 360 without ricking too much injury if I screw it up.

We’ve got a good crew riding around this year. Myself, Nathan and Floody are up most days, Tom, Dave & Rob are around as well, and Dave & Aaron, who did the course with me last year are also here for two weeks. There’s plenty of others who show up now and again, depending on what days they’re working etc. so there’s always someone to go riding with.

Update: that ‘little bit’ had turned in to 27cm by this morning. Happy days!

So at this stage I’ve had about a week snowboarding, and it’s been a mixed bag. There’s not a lot of snow about, so most of the time I’ve been confined to green runs, both here in Fernie and at Lake Louise. There was one day in Lake Louise when they opened the back bowls and there was plenty of powder up high, but Fernie has yet to see snow like that. I’m off to Ireland today, so hopefully when I get back in two weeks it will all be covered.

Our place in Fernie is really nice. Warm and cosy, with our own hot-tub out the back. It’s great to climb into after a day on the slopes. I’ve only made use of it twice so far, though once the snow is good and we’re riding for longer each day it will be used a lot more.

Fernie hasn’t changed much. It’s still almost the same as last year, with not too many new buildings around the place. It’s nice being back for a second year and recognising faces around town or the slopes. I met Dave, who is one of the owners of NonStop, at the launch of the restaurant attached to their new lodge. They’ve 110 people arriving on Dec. 26th to start their various courses this season! Yesterday, after finishing on the hill, I bumped in to all my instructors from last year, who were preparing for the arrival of this year’s crop.

It’s hard to leave now that I can hear the avalanche bombing, and there’s 10cm of fresh on the ground!

Well, the end of my time in Vancouver is almost here. Tomorrow week will be my last day in work and we hit the road three days later. First stop is Banff, for a week’s riding at Lake Louise then we drop Jacqui off in Calgary for her flight to Toronto on Dec. 5th, while we continue down to Fernie. Fernie opens on Dec. 8th, so I’ll get a couple of days riding in there before flying back to Ireland for Christmas.

Nathan has been diligently checking the weather forecasts for weeks now and was getting a bit worried that there wasn’t enough snowfall, but things are looking up this week. Ange, Marksy and Floody are out in Fernie already and have sorted a house for us, and Ange posted photos to Facebook today of the first major snowfall in town. It’s looking good, and is slowly starting to sink in that I’ll be back snowboarding in less than two weeks. The excitement is building!