Please remain seated until the Sea Bus come to a full stop

Finally, the merry-go-round that is moving your life to the alternative hemisphere has stopped, but will I prefer it, or will I simply stay long enough to save enough money for my next ticket to ride?

Last we spoke I was enjoying the dizzy heights of Whistler in the spring. Today I sit in my apartment in Vancouver, my last day as a free man. Tomorrow I will rise with the sparrows, commute across the city in a shirt and tie and sit at desk to produce pieces of paper with ink on them for a boss I have known for less than an hour. For this, I'll be paid a cheque on a Friday which will allow me buy food to eat, clothes to keep me warm and entertainment on weekends. Part of me is deliriously excited, the other half just wants another week of walking the sea wall, living on two dollars a day and enjoying the simple life. I think deep down the former creates the comfortable lifestyle I prefer and the latter will remain a source of drive to get out of bed in the morning. It's not over yet...

I've been trying to think of way to get everyone up to date on the last 6 weeks...I have decided to write a series of posts capturing each week or major events beginning with the end...of Big White - ill try to be brief to save everyone's sanity.

Leaving Big White

The season closed on April 19 - it was a great day on the hill and a fitting end to a great six months. The day climaxed with a t-bar party near the summit, an annual tradition to see out the season. About 2pm everyone with a strong connection to the hill that year made their way up the t-bar to the summit with backpacks full of drinks. We found a suitable ridge line with a view across the entire Okanagan Valley.

Within an hour hundreds of us gathered on the ridge drinking and saying goodbye to friends we had made over the season. As the afternoon continued things got a little rowdy and by 3pm the now enormous group had split into two factions which each built walls of protection out of snowboards and skis and an enormous snowball fight erupted. With a no-mans land gap of about 10metres between the groups it was a great way to end the year. The only thing that brought the two groups together was the advent of a passing skier. The cry of "skier" would go out across the group and both factions turned their snowballs on the unsuspecting skier - hundreds of snowballs thrown mercilessly and the poor bloke.

Around 4pm the local RCMP officer skied toward the party...alone and easily outnumbered he addressed the crowd simply asking that we respect the hill and clean up after ourselves...that seemed fair. Then one young fellow threw a snowball at the officer who foolishly brushed it off with a throw away comment about how he was not bothered by such things...Leroy called out to the crowd..."it's OK he is wearing a snowball proof jacket" and with that hundreds of snowballs were launched at the cop who grabbed his poles and retreated down the hill. Around 5pm the drinks ran dry and everyone made their way back to the village in the fading light following their favourite path home, one last ride down the hill from top to village. It was a fitting end to the season. The following photos in this post were all taken at the t-bar party.



Of course boys will be boys and after a few cans of Sprite a small ramp was built and everyone took turns throwing themselves of it. Six beers deep Scott brought the house down with this near perfect backflip off a 1 foot kicker.