Snow, Skiing, Lifting, Kicking Horse and Golden

Sorry its been so long since I updated, its so hard to find the time and a computer I can use up here.

Ive been here almost a month now and what a month its been... I arrived and booked into the Sportsman Lodge where Im staying. Its basically a motel and for $400 Canadian we get a shared room with one other person, access to the pool (with an awesome slide), spa, sauna and a communal kitchen, we also get our rooms cleaned once a week so its a pretty good deal. The rooms are kinda small and its about 20 - 25 mins walk to town but there are about 26 aussies and kiwis living here who all work on the hill so theres always someone to hang out with and taxis to town get very cheap when you start splitting $10 between 11 people (most of the taxis are minivans or bigger, they even have a bus).
It turns out that even if I go to other continants I cant get away from people I know. Out of all those aussies there are only 3 adelaide people here and the other two are both good friends of mine from highschool (John Antrobus and Mat Trenorden)who I havnt seen in about 4 years, I even work with John. Small world.

Within the first few weeks of being in canada I spent a crazy amount getting all set up. Something like $3500 went to a combination of accomodation, skis, clothing, food and the ever important partying. I got a good deal on skis, bindings, boots and poles, getting the whole lot for about $750 Canadian.

So far the lifty work had been awesome. I had a "I have the best job in the world" moment the other day. I was working on the Stairway to Heaven chair and to get to that particular chair you've got to ride the gondola to the top then ski down to the bottom of the lift. The previous night it had dumped about 20cm of new snow onto the mountain and we got clearance to ride down at around 8. So far that morning the only things to have touched the powder in Crystal Bowl were a cat which had groomed a 3 meter wide trail down the main area of the bowl and a snow mobile which had followed that trail. That left us with a 100m wide trail of fresh, untouched powder for us to ride down just as the sun was rising, no one but the three of us in sight and no sound but the powder being parted by our skis/board and the wind in our ears. It was so awesome.
As lifties we get about 70 hours a fortnight which is a nice number. We work 3 days on, 3 days off, 4 days on, 4 days off and do 10 hour shifts, although they never end up being that long. I like the long days as it means we get more days for riding the hill. One of the bad points is that we have to start at 7am which (because of a really badly set up bus schedule) means we have to get up at 5am and then spend 40 minutes sleeping at the admin building. The pays pretty terrible at around $9 and hour but then as long as I can live on it I dont mind, Im not here to make money after all.
Depending on what lift you're on it can be an easy or draining job. If you're on the gondola then it can be hard because you've got to lift and load skis and boards onto the cabins. They're arent that heavy but after a couple of hours of loading them one in each hand without a break it can get tiring. Other lifts are easier and you tend to get more ride breaks on them as well as there arent as many people working them. On a normal chair lift there will be a person at the top, a person at the bottom and a spare. We pretty much rotate the whole day so we can get as much riding in as possible.

In mid december a bunch of us went to a Wolf Center that was nearby. It was pretty cool seeing and learning about the wolves there, a couple of them were huge! Even though they're kept in seperate runs they still have a pack organisation with two of the keepers being the alphas. We got them to howl as well, we all just started howling and they joined in. Apparently if you're in the woods and there are wolves around you can start howling and they might just join in. I so wanna try it at some point.

Kicking Horse Mountain is awesome. The degree of hardness is at a completely different level here than anywhere else and especially back home. The blues here are easily rated as blacks back home and elseware in canada too according to those who've been to other mountains. I love it, Ive improved so much since I got here and when I go skiing with mates we push each other to hit a harder run or do a bigger jump which is awesome fun.

Even though I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I still had a good Christmas. All of the aussies and kiwis in the Sportsmans put in $15 each and we had a massive dinner which included a turkey, a ham, 2 chickens, some pork and ALOT of salad. We also had a secret santa which ended up being hilarious.
New Years Eve was great, we all went to one of the pubs in town where a band was playing. The cover charge was pretty steep but I had an awesome time. I got home at about 1:30 and after a call to Erica (hey Erica!) I went to bed for 3 hours sleep before having to get up for work. I woke up an hour late still a bit drunk and still managed to make it up the hill on time by hitch hiking. It wasnt the funnest day ever for any of us as a lot of us where hungover all day but it ended eventually.

I did something stupid last saturday, I switched to snowboarding for a day. Ive snowboarded before but in hiensight I just should've stuck to skiing. I was coming down one of the steeper runs under the Catamount chair (predominatly green runs) and I caught my front edge at speed and was thrown forward. I landed badly on my forarm and injured my right shoulder. Its not broken or dislocated or anything but I think Ive done something to my rotator cuff, I didnt go to the doctor earlier because when I went to the hostpital it turns out they want $500 + doctors fee upfront which I just dont have. Ive made an appointment in the medical clinic for friday so we'll see what happens. Hopefully Im only out of skiing for a week or two, itd really suck to not be able to ski for a month or something. Whatever happens I wont be going boarding again for a while at least. I can still work luckily but I just push buttons all day and I can only work at two specific stations on two different lifts.

Anyways I think thats just about all the more exciting news thats happened since Ive been here. Sorry its been so long since I updated, Ill try and update a bit more often now that I dont have so much to write.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and an awesome New Years, Happy 2008 everyone!