Ups and Downs

I spent a lot of Friday morning in bed (high), keeping in touch with the friends relatives (high) and generally being bugged to update my blog (low). But I got out of bed to find that I'd run out of bread (low) and staff cafe was closed (low), so I had to miss out on breakfast (low). After tidying my room (high, believe it or not), I convinced myself I needed to go for a ski (high) but needed to do my laundry first (low). Got into my ski gear, went and collected my paychecks (high, especially since I found out that Chimney Corner now deposits my money direct), although I'd only worked one CC shift and my pay check was pretty tiny (low). I grabbed some lunch (high), snapped on my skis and grabbed my poles, and went straight up Angel Chairlift (vertical high).

The weather was superb (high), but the resort fairly busy (low), so I went back to the base of Continental Divide chair (vertical low) but skipped the queue in the Singles line (high because I skipped, low because I was single). From the top of the Divide (vertical high), the view was fantastic (high), but it was time to ski down and swap my laundry into the dryer (low).

After skiing straight to the HR building where the laundry room is and swapping my laundry over, I headed back down to Lower Mountain (vertical low), up Jackrabbit (still vertical low because it's so short...) and down to Goat's Eye Mountain (vertical low). On the way up Goat's Eye Express (vertical high), I could see that there was someone in Delirium Dive, probably a patroller, which meant that it should be opening soon (high). The Dive hasn't been skied by a member of the public this year, and there are rumours that it wasn't going to open at all... But the recent hot weather (high) seems to have stabilised the snow and, with any luck, I'll be skiing it soon (high).

Cruising at top speed down Goat's Eye (high), I heard a huge concussion and saw that the patroller had exploded (low)! On second thoughts, what I though was a patroller before was probably just a bomb, and the patroller who laid it was now well away on the other side of the Dive (high). So after watching the impressive mushroom cloud (high) and the pathetic little avalanche that resulted (low), I skied down to the bottom of Wolverine (vertical low), and headed from there to Tee Pee Town chair (vertical low).

Tee Pee Town chair is a slow, long, cold chair (low, low and low) which is renowned for being pretty unpleasant when the weather is rubbish. But on a hot day, it's very nice to relax on and enjoy the sunshine, because it doesn't go fast enough to cause a breeze (high). So it took me back to the top of Angel (vertical high) from where I cruised to Strawberry (vertical low) and enjoyed the natural half pipe of Dell Valley (high). There's something distinctly satisfying about riding all the way up the hill and feeling that you're towering over the beginner snowboarders in the bottom (high), then rushing all the way down at top speed and up the other side (high). In fact, it was so good I headed up Standish (vertical high) then back into the Dell Valley to do it all again (high)...

This took me all the way through the Village to Wawa chair (vertical low), which I rode to the top of the Wawa bowl (vertical high). From there, there is a long green run which takes you back down to the base, that I'd never skied before. So I skied it (high)! I followed it as it joined onto the long run that takes you to Jack Rabbit, skied past that lift and down through the Canyon (high), which was a nice cool relief from the hot day. It took me to the base of Wolverine, which I skied past, then onto the ski out, which I had also never done (high, vertical low). This long, long run was interesting (high), shady but sunny (high), and gloriously quiet at this time of day (high). I followed it all the way to the base of the gondola (vertical very low), then rode all the way to the top.

By the time I'd got to the top of the gondola and back to the OSL to drop off my skis, I'd skied every single lift in the resort (other than the bunny hills) at a good cruising speed, and taken about 1:50 to do so (high). A record to beat, I think...

Anyway, after a very nice shower (high), some cookies and some fruit juice (high), I headed into town (vertical low). I was meeting up with Jeremy, Jeremy's brother, Steve and Georgie for a meal (high), so while I went to the dollar store they scouted out locations for our meal, since we wanted steak. While I tried to find a watch shop to revive my timepiece (low, since although some of the segments had re-animated, it was still reading nonsense), the others had decided on Tony Roma's Steak house in Banff, which I'd heard good things about but not visited yet (high). We met up outside the watch shop where I dropped off my watch to be fixed, then went for some food.

After a huge meal of steak (high), ribs (high), jacket potato (high) and coleslaw (low), and while I waited for the desert I'd ordered (high) to come out, I nipped back to the watch shop to see if they'd been able to breathe lift back into it. When I enquired, the lady said that she wasn't going to charge me for the repair (high), but that's because my watch was officially toast (low). She told me where I could buy a new one, so I thanked her and headed back to Tony Roma's for my desert, a huge chocolate-fudge-brownie-ice cream-sundae (high), while clutching the carcass of my officially deceased watch (low).

After desert and shopping, we headed back to the bus to go home (high). After the gondola, which seemed to be running at warp speed in the dark (high, vertical high), it was back to our rooms and back to bed (high).

What a good day...

This is what I really came to Canada (high) and Sunshine Village (high) for...