Panoramarama!

OK, I've taken a while to come up with this blog entry, but I was waiting for Claire's photos! She was official photographer, and I only took 6 photos (my contribution here is the last one).

After getting up early to prepare and come down the gondola, I found myself on the bus with everyone else at about 8:00. Sunshine had had 20cm overnight, so although it was still a bit cloudy we knew the conditions were going to be pretty good. With the exception of a couple of ghost trucks stopped in the centre lane of the highway and no drivers (?!), the 2.5-hour bus journey was pretty uneventful. Other than the fact that we drove right past Invermere Soaring Centre, where I hope to spend a week when all the snow has gone to pot.

We'd arrived at Panorama, ready to ski with lift tickets, at 11:00 and told nothing more than be back at 2:30 (but where? We didn't know!). So that gave us 3 and a half hour's skiing, which isn't too bad for a long ski without a break. Claire and I went straight to the top of the mountain (3 consecutive chairlifts) for our first run, where we found blue skies, fresh powder (although only about 5cm) and empty trails. Pretty good conditions...

Most of the powder covered runs that were hard-packed moguls yesterday, so although there was the odd unmarked hazard, it was simply easy powder-mogul skiing which didn't hurt if you fell over. The main green and blue trails though, were mostly wide, long and well-groomed stretches with plenty of carving to be had.

I went around with Claire for the whole trip, she was great company and took a whole stack of photos too. It's a shame she's a snowboarder... (just joking). We stuck to the little-used blues and blacks where we were still cutting fresh tracks at noon, and skied (or rode) soid for over 3 hours. A really fantastic day out! Although, if only Panorama had 20cm of fresh pow like Sunshine...

Then: lunch, back on the bus, couple of photos, arrive back at Sunshine. Up the gondola, out to dinner and straight into the hot-tub! Then an early night because powder skiing is knackering.

Oh, and thanks must go to Elise and Dayna for letting us swap our shifts with them, otherwise we would have had a wholly routine day at the OSL...