Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all from Pablo!!!

It's my first white Christmas and my first away from the family. We received a good dump yesterday so we will start the day with a few runs down the hill. With the new snow yesterday they are opening the Powder Chair today giving us some new terrain to play in.

I worked this morning so I will head to Happy Valley for a free Christmas lunch around midday before apres beers at Unit 231. All staff who have to work on holiday days are rewarded with vouchers for dinner or lunch somewhere on the mountain. That combined with the time and a half wages for the holidays makes working on Christmas and New Year very worthwhile.

We are having Christmas dinner this evening with all the boys and girls of Whitefoot Lodge. One of the guys is a chef so he is in charge of the turkey and ham with the rest of us preparing accompanying dishes. I had the baker throw together some dinner rolls for me this morning and I picked them up hot off the oven around 6am so they will be a nice fresh treat on a mountain where the only thing that is always fresh is the powder.

Hope you all had a great Christmas day wherever you are. Merry Christmas!!!

I've got your nose...

Remember that game you play with kids where you pretend to steal their nose and use your thumb to make it look as if you are holding the tip of their nose...well mother nature played that game with me last week...but for keeps.

The right hand side of the tip of my nose has become the latest victim of the cold. A minor case of frostbite. For the first few days the pain was incredible - like someone was constantly pushing a needle into the tip of my nose. Today the pain has gone, along with the first few layers of skin. It was never so bad that it blistered but I have lost a small patch of skin and will need to be careful now for the rest of the season. One of the side effects of frostbite is that the affected area becomes very sensitive to the cold increasing the chance of my nose suffering the same fate again.

Mof - get those needles cracking before I loose my whole face!!

This wasn't in the brochure...

It's 3:53am...the air temp outside is minus 25...with windchill the forecasters are calling minus 49 tonight...I have all the heaters cranked at work and my hands and feet are still cold. There is a draft coming from somewhere I just cannot work out where.

They closed one of the lifts today - it was considered too exposed to the wind and the risk of frostbite was too high!

The outlook for tomorrow is for blue skies and minus 16 (minus 24 with windchill). At these temperatures I am good for about 4 runs before I can no longer feel my toes, fingers or nose all of which are stinging in pain. You cannot afford to be outside with any exposed skin. Everyone gets around with balaclavas on and no one can recognise anyone.

Hope it is warmer where you are.

Winter is here

We have had an incredible opening week here at Big White. Following the excitement of opening day and the fresh snow that came with it, the mountain's attention was turned towards the opening weekend. Traditionally this is a very busy weekend for the mountain as all the locals (Kelowna folk) head up the hill for their first turns of the season.

The weather up here is terribly difficult to forecast. The mountain seems to create and destroy weather systems. I use about three websites to try and predict what is in store for the coming days and they are all as inconsistent as each other. The forecast for two days in the future can change from a predicted 10cm of snow to nothing overnight...what's with that. But the forecast for last Friday seemed solid. A huge weather system was making it's way across BC and they were calling for in excess of 10cm of snow down in Kelowna and 30cm on the mountain so we knew we were in for a treat. It started snowing about 5am Friday morning and did not stop till late Saturday night. In total we received about 28cm of fresh powder in time for opening weekend.

The scenes at the bottom of the lifts on Saturday morning were amazing. The tragics (myself included) waited patiently in line from about 8:15 for the scheduled opening at 8:45. As the minutes ticked by the queue grew to about 50 people all wanting to be the first person down the hill with 30cm of fresh powder. I caught the fifth chair up the hill and opted for the less popular run at the top of the chair and was rewarded with being the fourth person down the run. The powder was amazing...you could not feel the bottom as you floated down the hill. For most of the run I could not see anything below my knees it was that deep. And when I eventually did loose control the consequences were nigh. You simply fell into deep deep powder. The hard part was being able to stand up again in the powder to keep going. The next few hours were like a race between all on the hill to try to get as many runs in before all the fresh snow was tracked out and only the edges of the runs and trees provided new lines.

By lunch I was exhausted. I had boarded all over the open sections of the mountain and scored some amazing powder sections. I had made plans to ride with a couple of other guys on Saturday morning but when they turned up late at the lift I was not going to lose my spot in the line...there is no such thing as friends on a powder day...sorry guys.

Some more snow is forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday at this stage but that could change any minute. Hopefully it will come and with another chair opening yesterday the mountain is really a fun place to be. I have a whole new section of the hill to explore today... have fun at work!

The Summit

The day after I arrived at Big White I took advantage of the Autumn conditions and lack of snow and went for a walk to discover my new home. I never intended to reach the top...but sometimes these things happen.

In hindsight it was quite silly, I walked to the top of a mountain I had never been to before, home to brown and black bears all alone in nothing but a t-shirt without telling anyone where I was going (probably because there was no one around to tell). But I lived to tell the tale and in reality I never really set out for the summit that morning I was just going for a walk but the 'I wonder what is over that ridge' mentality took over till I was so close to the top it seemed silly not to make it.

For the nerds...the summit elevation is 2,319m or 7,606ft (Mt Kosciuszko's summit is 2,228m). The village elevation is 1,755m or 5,760ft.

I do apologise for the poor quality photos my camera takes but this is what it looked like:

The home trail

This lake is at the bottom of the 'cliff' near the very top of the mountain. By now this lake is frozen and in a month or so when the cliff is open for riding the lake forms the bottom of the powder bowl which you ski or board over having successfully tackled the cliff.

Looking back over the Okanagan Valley from near the summit

The 'Cliff'. If you look closely at the photo you can see the Cliff Chair. Ski Patrol have started bombing and ski-cutting this part of the mountain to make the base less of an avalanche risk.

About 50m shy of the summit

A video taken about 50-100m below the summit taking in the Monashee Mountains

Finally...

Those you who know me better will know that this blog is running about 4 weeks behind reality. To tell the truth not much of note has really happened in those 4 weeks. It has been quite a case of 'Groundhog Day'. We have sat around waiting for mother nature to come to the party with lashings of fresh pow pow.


A closed ski resort is an interesting place, especially one that the size of Big White. Technically, this place is the second largest ski resort in British Columbia, but when it comes to ranking resorts in Western Canada by size Whistler-Blackcomb comes first, daylight is second, then Big White and then well...who knows...there a lot of similar sized resorts in the rankings after that which I am sure will use minor details to distinguish themselves so we will leave them to fight it out amongst themselves.


When I arrived here in late October the place was in 'summer mode'. There were a handful of people living in the village, the grass was poking through a very thin layer of snow on the ground and nothing was open...and I mean nothing. No grocery store, no facilities not even the pub was open. It was as if I was camping in my apartment surrounded by the infrastructure of a ski resort long since closed.


For the first few days I would stand in the centre of the village and I was the only living thing in sight. Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of life as a door opened or closed or another lost soul scurried hurriedly across the village centre. I filled my days by sleeping in as long as possible, watching trashy cable tv, playing solitaire on the laptop and going for an afternoon walk discovering the mountain.


As the days went by the population grew. Almost everyday there was a noticeable difference in the number of people walking around as seasonal workers arrived from around the world (specifically Australia) and made their way up the hill. With the people, a village slowly came to life. The market opened, one of the pubs opened, the second pub opened, the village mall opened, a retail store within the mall opened...and so on and so forth until finally it was a village.


On Tuesday, nearly five weeks after I arrived and a week and a half behind schedule the Plaza Chair turned for the first time and the effect on the village was amazing.

We have suffered at the hands of mother nature. It has been and unusually warm late Autumn period. Three weeks ago we got some heavy dumps and everyone was talking about maybe opening early (Nov 21 instead of the scheduled Nov 27). People attended training to learn their role in the corporate machine that is Big White. Then the heat came...and came and stayed. The snow melted, the roofs cleared, the grass in the village poked through again. Everyone was told to go home from training and wait...we were in a 48 hour hold pattern waiting for the snow. This lasted two weeks.


A lot people (myself included) were still living on Australian dollars and the two weeks of Canadian dollars we had earned training went quickly. With the Australian dollar crashing amongst the turmoil of the Global Credit Crunch things around the village were grim.


Then last Friday as the 1,000 strong workforce gathered at the pub to do the only thing mother nature could not take from us...party...the skies darkened and the dark night turned white. It snowed and snowed and snowed. On Sunday when it was still snowing the village took on a whole new persona. People were rushed back into work, signs were dusted, railings were painted and Christmas lights were tested. A date was announced and the mountain was opening.


In the 24 hours leading up to the first chair turning the atmosphere was incredible. Everyone walked about with a smile on their face saying hello to everyone they past. On Tuesday morning the Village centre was alive. Hundreds of people, ski racks, an operating ski school, every shop in the mall was open, the bakery had fresh bread, the market had fresh vegetables and nearly every restaurant was open that night.


Those who had been in the village as long as I had had experienced a lot. The last month had been a roller coaster. The initial excitement of finally being here after months of planning and thousands of dollars and kilometres. Meeting new friends and comparing everything about where you came from, how you got here, where you were working, why you came, what you rode, where you slept, listened to, watched, read and cooked. Those days were behind us and what we had all been hoping for was delivered...and did the first day deliver. It gushed snow for the entire first morning of riding, in one hour on that morning we recorded 5cm of snow. For the last two days we have ridden the two lifts and 6 runs that are open nearly to death. The good news is we have over 30cm forecast for tonight and Friday and on Friday morning a third lift is opening expanding the rideable terrain.

Fresh snow and Canadian dollars - this place is looking up again.

Location, Location, Location

At a little over 240 square feet my studio here at Big White is at best a mid-sized Australian bedroom with a very small ensuite. In fact I don't think my bed from home would actually fit in the room.

I live on the bottom floor on a four storey apartment complex in the heart of the village at Big White. My building forms one side of the village centre and is also home to one of two pubs, the kids ski school, The Market (grocery store), Pappas Roasters (yes I know the 's' on the end of Pappa is awkward but that is how it is spelt - its a Nandos-esk eatery), the medical centre, the police station and the post office...fair to say I am in the centre of town!! In fact, if you look on the Big White village webcam my building is the large structure framing the right hand side of the shot.

It's small...but I knew this when I entered the lease. Within the 240 square feet you will find the following:

• A double bed
• Three seater lounge with fold-away bed
• Built in robes with ample space
• A TV and DVD player with cable
• Two mini fridges, one with a seperate freezer
• Two electric hotplates
• A microwave
• A George Foreman grill
• Ensuite with shower, bath, toilet and sink
• Most importantly...wireless internet.

So it has everything I need for the winter. Add to this two large mirrors and ample hooks for jackets and beanies and the place is complete. I can control the temperature in my room and I have two windows one of which opens to a ledge covered in snow perfect for chilling a warm a beer in about 10 minutes.

I've posted a series of photos below so you can get a feel for the place yourself.

Drop by if you are in the neighbourhood.

Big White or Bust...

With nothing but the best intentions Tim, Michelle, Chantelle and I left Vancouver on a mission to deliver me to Big White. Tim and I had both read about some natural hot springs north of Whistler that sounded like fun and were keen to check them out on the way. Michelle and Chantelle were along for the ride and a long weekend road trip began...

We drove the sea to sky highway between Vancouver and Whistler which is a magical piece of road akin to the Great Ocean Road back home. Howe Sound on one side of the car and mountains that disappear into the clouds on the other...when the 2010 Olympics are held here if the athletes are not nervous enough the drive to Whistler will test their mettle.

After lunching at Whistler and getting a feel for a ski resort which is quite like nothing I had imagined we headed north to Pemberton and the Meagher Creek Hot Springs. The trip went a little like this..

Horses and a stray llama in a field...

Rustic farm houses...

Forestry roads in BC are a hidden gem...

Unfortunately sometimes driving them can loosen more than it should

Not really helping...?

Finally we made it

We spent the afternoon in the hot springs relaxing in the incredibly warm water with a near freezing white water river rushing past. It was quite surreal. We were accompanied by some interesting characters. A 30 something yoga addict that did not have an ounce of fat one him and had more abdominal muscles than I cared to take notice of...oh and he had a thing about wearing clothes...just didn't do it. And his mate...a 50 something Jack Nicholson look-a-like who like to lie on the hot rocks in his birthday suit. A relaxing time was had by all and as the sun set we headed back to Whistler to spend the night at a house owned by a friend of Tim's.

We arrived in Whistler well into the evening and after a counter meal retired to a house lost in a time warp. An old family home, the original owner had lost his life in an unfortunate accident and the house resembled all that was him...it was the most beautiful family home with character in every room and a feel that can only come from a generation of children unwrapping Christmas presents.

We woke late the next morning and after an rushed but enjoyable cooked breakfast bid Chantelle goodbye and turned the Hilux towards Big White...of course we had to turn it down a hill as by now we could not start the car using the ignition...the trip went a little like this:

Everyone likes a log jam...my only advise...the little logs...not so strong - my legs dried surprisingly quickly under the car heater. These birds just land on your hand.

But often take off before the camera is ready.

Ham. cheese and tomato sandwiches for dinner on the side of the road listening to Fat Freddy's Drop cranked on the stereo with a few hours of driving still ahead of us...
Home Sweet Home...my pad at Big White...more on this later.

It was an awesome road trip...thanks for driving Tim and i'll see you at Big White for a ski holiday later this season in return...

My kids are getting Archer Fish...not goldfish!

According to Google, Tim LS and a number of others, on a rainy day in Vancouver the aquarium is amongst the top five things to do and see (the other 4 did not appeal at all and unfortunately the Museum of Anthropology at UBC was closed for renovations...it is supposed to be brilliant!!).

So on a slightly damp day I took myself back to Stanley Park to check it out. Being a bit of a nerd I spent 4.5 hours in the aquarium that makes AQWA look like a fish bowl. The place has a heavy BC influence but also boasts a large area dedicated to the Amazon and its giant freshwater fish which was amazing.

The stars of the aquarium were historically the orcas or killer whales...but since Free Willy they have made way for a family of beluga whales - you know those white whales that kind of look half dolphin, half whale.

Without wanting to bore you to much with the gory details that I spent 4.5 hours getting off on, here are a couple of pics from the aquarium.

For $20 it was a pretty good afternoon and after reading every information board in the place and looking into every tank I went home very satisfied having found some very non-descript looking fish in a lonely tank at the back of the aquarium - the Archer Fish.

Nature nerds amongst you will recognise these guys - they are a favourite with documentary makers because of their unique hunting technique. Archer Fish squirt water at insects on the trees, branches and roots above them to dislodge the insect and then catch it in the water for lunch.

Having spent way too much time reading the available information, staring hopefully into the tank that one might actually squirt water and watching the video of them squirting insects off a stick on the adjacent monitor...and rewinding and re-watching in slow motion the same 45 seconds of footage too many times...I attracted the attention of a very helpful young girl who worked for the aquarium.

She was a total Archer Fish nerd and was only too happy to share my excitement at seeing them. So much so she went out the back retrieved the feeding stick and a small plastic container with about 40 crickets in it. The stick was placed inside the tank above the water on some specially built brackets and the crickets were fed down a funnel and on to the stick poised about 30cm above the water line where they would meet their fate.

It didn't take long for the Archer Fish to get to work squirting the crickets so hard they would fly up off the stick and hit the top of the tank (another 30cm) before falling into the water. There was no love lost between the fish with a direct hit no guarantee that the fish next to you would not eat what you shot.

I shot the video below if you are interested...sorry about the length but you can't rush nature and my video editing software would not support the file type.

Pablo in the Park

Nestled in the heart of Vancouver is Stanley Park. At roughly 10km in circumference it is larger than New York's Central Park and offers unparalleled views of Vancouver's city skyline, the harbour and across to North Vancouver and the mountains.

I spent an entire day in the park (well not quite a full day as I had become accustomed to sleeping in by this stage) but you could easily do it. Walking the sea wall around the park is a good outing in itself and very popular with both tourists and locals trying to find space for exercise in a big city.

The pictures below show the view from the Nine O'clock Gun (south to north) starting with the city across the harbour to North Vancouver.

Stanley Park is full of great Vancouver attractions including the Vancouver Aquarium, a series of statues purchased by British Columbia over the years and plaques detailing the many historic events which occurred in and around the park.

The Nine O'clock gun was traditionally fired at precisely 9pm every evening so the captains of the ships in the harbour could set their chronometers. Of course the ship's captain would have to look for the flash of the gun to set his (or her but really....unlikely) watch otherwise by the time the sound travelled to him (settled on this now) it would be a few seconds past nine...

Today the gun still fires every evening at precisely 9pm and can be heard as far away as North Vancouver. The ship's captains however, look in the bottom right hand corner of their computer screen and see the precise time and date without any regard for the gun.

It's been a hectic few weeks to say the least!! The good news is I now have my own internet connection so I can keep this blog updated. Apologies for the last few weeks it has been difficult without the internet and to be perfectly honest there were just too many fun things to do...

I'm going to go back in time to get everyone up to date but will write less and show more so that I have at least some of my Sunday afternoon left to relax in the hot tub.

Back in Vancouver Tim is mad keen downhill mountain biker (and seakayaker, snowboarder, hiker and general outdoorsman). Tim's the kind of nice guy that will happily take you out and show you his world so on the first Saturday I was staying with him he took me to Mt Fromme for some incredible downhill biking.

I rented a bike from the local shop - the kind of bike that costs more than a second hand car, has front and rear suspension, hydraulic disc brakes and wasn't made for comfort. It looked like this:

To add a degree of difficulty North Americans have their brake levers on the opposite handle bars to home...so the left hand controls the front brake and the right hand the rear...the first thing I did was unscrew the brake levers and change that...it's hard to unlearn how to ride a bike.

The top of Mt Fromme is not accessible by car so we had to park at the bottom of the hill and ride up to the top of the trail we were going to attempt.

The ride up was incredible we rode past the seventh switchback and it was gruelling to say the least. But also quite beautiful with a decent fog in the trees the sunlight was amazing.

With all the gear on at the top of the trail I looked something like this:

We rode down on a trail called "Seventh Secret" a black diamond run...great thanks Tim...did I mention that I live in the flattest city on earth and have only ever ridden my bike on the footpath before...

It was off the hook...the trail started with a near vertical 2m rock drop and continued down the side of Mt Fromme on a handle bar narrow path between trees, up and over rocks, across logs, wooden ladders and down what was at one point a small stream...yes in the water.

Some more photos from the trip below:

If you ever get a chance to do this don't let it go by. It was an amazing afternoon out there. By the end I could hardly walk I was that tired. The trail that we followed whilst graded as a black run was entirely 'rollable' meaning that you didn't need to be able to lift your front wheel off the ground or jump anything you could ride up, over, across and down all obstacles (I proved that you could also walk around a few of them...). Of course if you had the skills you could really do some crazy things up there.

Sorry Tim...I couldn't resist...

Pablo has no internet connection on the mountain and is paying by the minute so I'll be brief.

I've moved into my studio apartment and it is small but comfortable and it has everything I need.

The good news is it will not stop snowing!!! Off to buy snow boots on Sat to deal with knee deep snow at my front door.

All the gear and no idea

As most of you will be aware before I left Perth I had already leased my apartment for the season at Big White. The owner of my apartment (Cory) has been very helpful from the first email exchange offering helpful tips for getting to the hill and offering insights to working there through his job as the marketing guy for Big White and Silver Star Resorts in Vancouver and Seattle.

One such piece of advise was where to buy my snowboard and associated equipment and also not to actually buy the gear myself but rather identify what it is I wanted and then have him contact the store manager to make sure I get an appropriate discount.

So I spent two whole days in three stores (I know this sounds crazy but its a huge process) trying on innumerable combinations of boots, boards and bindings till I found a good set up at the right price. I also quickly learned that the 2009 ranges had just been released but a lot of 2008 stock was still available at heavily reduced prices as it was out of fashion...Consequently, I bought a lot of 2008 gear.

All good advice I had received was that when I buy my gear not to hold back on the boots - buy whatever pair of boots fits the best regardless of price. You spend a lot of time in them and they need to be comfortable. Following that, spend what you want to on a board and lastly get some bindings with what was left over...oh and then buy some pants, a jacket, goggles and a helmet...this was always going to be an expensive day!!

After nearly six hours of trying on boots in the stores I finally settled on these:

2008 Burton Shaun White Boots (Size 10)

I decided my stick would look like this:

2009 Nitro Team Board 157cm

And that I would join the two together using these:

2008 Rome Arsenal Bindings

At the end of the process including my jacket, pants and goggles I saved a consdiderable sum thanks to Cory and got a reasonable set up that I should not outgrow through the season. The only down side is that none of it really matches so there is no fear of me being one of the cool kids on the hill. Not that the danger of that was ever very high!