Skiing in the rockies!!

What an amazing experience. I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s like eating stale bread your whole life and then going to a gourmet restaurant. Like watching house league soccer, and then seeing Lionel Messi play. Like skiing at Chicopee and Blue Mountain, and then going skiing on the ski hill with the largest vertical in North America. It’s just a totally different experience.

We parked in Revelstoke for the weekend, and Saturday I went skiing at the resort there, which has the largest vertical (1.7km) in North America. It is fairly new, only a couple years old, and has already been called the greatest ski resort on Earth (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/9718438/Revelstoke-Canada-the-greatest-ski-resort-on-Earth.html).

I went there for 8:30 (that's when it opened), so I was in the first couple runs. I took a gondola to the base of the main hill, then another gondola to the midpoint, and then a chair lift to the top. Probably took me 20 minutes to get all the way up. The top 1/6ish (half of the last ski lift) was in the clouds and really foggy, and snowing almost all the time.  Only the top half was open cause there wasn't enough snow on the bottom. But there was a lot of snow on the top, apparently a 1.5m base. And so much powder! That’s something new to me, skiing through powder. And cause I was there at opening, it hadn't been packed down yet. I was skiing through the snow, but I couldn't see my skis, and the snow came up almost to my knees. It was really cool, and so fluffy!

I did the easier runs at first, remembering how to ski, and then moved onto some harder ones, and then went exploring through the trees. That was also really fun, making my own trail through half a meter of powder and going around trees. I then went to the advanced runs, which was pretty legit. There were rock faces and cliffs, felt like I was actually on a rocky mountain. And really steep! Some parts about 70 degrees. I had to go pretty slow down those parts. I thought I was a decent skiier, but compared to the people who just flew down the steep parts, I have a long ways to go.

The runs were very long too, most about 15 or 20 minutes. The one time I checked it took 25 minutes, but I went the long way and stopped for breaks somewhat often. It was so long that I usually can't make it all the way down without stopping to rest. When I would go skiing back in Ontario, I would decide each run if I wanted to go fast, or go slower and carve more and make it last longer. But here I could do whatever I wanted, go fast for a bit, then carve, then go through some trees, then back to the main run and go fast again, and repeat 6 or 7 times all the way down. And remember that this is only on half of the hill, their longest run is 15km of downhill skiing. That would be quite the trip.

The people there are really friendly too, I had a bunch of conversations with people on the lifts going up. I met a girl from New Zealand, a CP Conductor who had transferred from Winnipeg to here so he could go skiing more often, and a girl from France. It was nice to hear a real French accent, after having spent so much time in Montreal.

One thing I found out is that facial hair, moist breath, snow, and cold air can make a very annoying combination, with my entire upper lip becoming one large ice cube. Whenever I smiled or grimaced all the hairs would pull, so I had to try and keep a neutral expression.

The hill closed at 3:00 (which is about when it starts to get dark there), so I headed back to the hotel. Didn’t do much else that weekend, went for a walk and found a cool suspension bridge, but that’s about it. Was planning on going for a longer walk Sunday morning, but I woke up at 9ish, and checkout was at 11, so I didn’t have time. Did maintenance and chores for the rest of the day.

Next week is travelling through Kamloops to Vancouver, and then back to Kamloops for the weekend. And I’m planning on going skiing there as well!