It’s DUMPING outside. It started snowing yesterday evening, has been going all day today and doesn’t look much like stopping. There must have been about 30cms at least so far down here and probably getting on for 50 up top as it was snowing all day up there yesterday while it was raining in the village. Anyway let’s start at the beginning else this will get all out of order.
Yesterday I had my first day of work. Great fun, I had to go get my uniform in the morning beforehand and there was a queue out the door because they were giving out all the vollie ski patrol uniforms too. For some reason they didn’t want to give me my uniform when I’d been down the afternoon before, even though that would have made infinitely more sense. Anyway, I really enjoyed queuing up for an hour which also meant that we (myself and another guy Mahyar who was also on the food safe course the day before) were late there by half an hour. Apparently it was all fine though, so no sacking on first day, bonus. The uniform itself is quite cool, a grey mesh-like long sleeve top and black whistler-blackcomb combats. Shame we didn’t get the outdoor uniform like the bistro workers who have to board to work do though. I think I’m going to try and blag a fleece off them cuz they’re nice north face ones and it would save me a purchase! My plan of attack is to say I’m cold at work and in transit, will keep ya posted.
Training consisted of a guided tour of the premises plus a rundown on the various responsibilities you may be assigned to in addition to the standard table clearing shite, which is always your primary responsibility, apparently. So after we were done with that I went on a table wiping circuit for about an hour before being nabbed to assist with the stocking and merchandising of another section which opened today. So spent most of the time helping the catering manager – Candace – set up a coffee bar! This had the unfortunate baggage of me being kept on for another hour and a half after the other new starters had been sent home, but I didn’t mind as it means more money! Plus it looked horrible outside, blizzard conditions.
Anyway the job looks ok, not sure how I’m going to cope with it but will see how it goes. The people seem cool too, plus I get free lunch every day I’m working, which is not bad. Our supervisor doesn’t really seem to give a shit as long as people appear to be busy, and they even decided it was ok for me to keep my earring in while at work, lol. I have to go in tomorrow as well but have a late start at 11, so that’s quite kush.
After work I went to staff and monged out (literally) at Tim’s until about half 7, at which point we went down to Merlin’s (a bar in the upper village which is owned and operated by Intrawest) where there was supposed to be some party thing going on. We met a bunch of the guys down there too, including Sean with his cast (see below pic).. Anyway it was a pretty standard night out, except for me changing venues 3 times! Went to get some pizza after too as once again had missed dinner, then met a nice Norwegian girl called Line (Leenah apparently) at the bus stop who a very pissed Matt & Dave were attempting to talk to (along with her two friends) when I got there!
Today I managed to get up and out of the house in 12 minutes! I’d arranged to go out boarding with Tim, Jess and maybe Fee and the third text message this morning finally roused me from my stupor. Getting ready *did* consist of rolling out of bed into boarding gear and then briefly brushing teeth before legging it, but I was still impressed with the speediness (tbh I was worrying about Jess getting arsy if I was keeping them waiting ;) It looked set to be an awesome, if not somewhat visually impaired, day so I was keen to get out anyway!
Met up with Fee, Jess and Tim in the village, and after the obligatory faffage we set off. I was appalled when the girls ditched us about 200m down the first run as Jess was demoing a new pair of skis that she wasn’t very confident on, and I don’t think the pair of them were up for our suggestions of what to go and do (explained below), hehe. So, leaving the wimpy girls behind we headed straight for the top (well, as far up as you can go at the moment, which is the top of the harmony express chair) and hit the flute bowl, blind… Hehe. Tim actually had to convince me for a brief second that it was a good idea because the wind was howling over the top of the ridge horizontal snow stylee and I thought that maybe the ‘foehn’ winds might have frozen up the top layer a bit. It turned out to be fine though and once we got past the blind part in the cloud, during which you could see literally no definition, we nailed a SICK powder run down. The only problem with flute is that you have to traverse out down a track to get back to the chair, but today it was worth it! :) After that we hit symphony bowl a couple of times and dropped in off the cornices into the double black diamond ‘harmony wishbones’ (will be a very nice run when you can see where you’re going), which involved launching yourself off an edge into the run below. The first time we took a bad line and it was a bit crusty, and further down we went too far right into the trees and had to hike out a bit at the bottom, which sucked, but the second time we nailed a nice dropoff and a beautiful powder field with trees dotted around before dropping down through the trees underneath the chairlift, which was wicked (did end up in a rock garden at one point where there were loads of big mounds of snow and I was thinking, “Hmm, are those trees? Can I ride over them?”.. Got round the other side of the first one though and it was a massive rock, so cut back out of there!), we got to the bottom smiling, which is always a good sign. Then realised we were late to meet the others for lunch so we headed down ‘the saddle’, which is in a third bowl, glacier bowl, I think. Anyway we couldn’t see shit again so kinda eased down there and then realised we were somewhat below where we needed to be so had to go all the way down to the top of the creekside lifts before we could grab a chair back up to the restaurant. After lunch we figured we’d head back as hitting powder takes it out of your legs even more than normal! Plus all the runs were chopped up so required effort to get down at speed. When we got to the gondola midstation to catch the lift down to the village there was a massive line-up (aargh! Canadian lingo) and we spotted Fred the snowboard instructor who thought it was ok to board to the bottom, so we thought YEAH LET’S DO IT. It was pretty much ok but the snow was soooo wet and heavy it was quite hard going. Plus there were a few streams which required jumping over as well as rocks under the surface to eat your board if you weren’t careful… So yes, there’s a reason why it’s not properly open yet. Anyway I thought it was wicked fun and went all the way to the bottom, which again induced shouts of YEAH! Hehe. We had a quick drink afterwards but it was pretty cold being sat outside (my damn trousers aren’t waterproof enough and keep soaking through on the bum, great another expense. I’m not convinced my jacket is sufficiently waterproof either…) so headed back home for a nice hot shower and hot chocolate, all good. Right now it's still snowing outside and the others have just gone to make a snowman, I'm just chilling with my rosé ;) later all X
