Roz invited a bunch of us to her condo (see house) in Invermere, BC this weekend. Her plan was to go for about a week and go skiing/boarding/blading at Panorama a few times at least.
Sterling and I headed down Saturday morningish and convoyed with the rest of the crew, arriving at her house mid afternoon. It was too late to go skiing so we decided to have some pasta, drink some beers, go to the hot springs, and drink more beers.
The hot springs in Radium weren’t much of a hot springs…really it was just a warm pool with lifeguards in plexiglas lifeguard huts and braches covered with snow/ice overhanging the pool. But still pretty sweet when you’re in a hot pool and your hair is frozen because the air temperature is about -20 celcius (for my american friends 🙂 And since I used to be a lifeguard in high school and would always give the bad kids timeouts, I love how I was yelled at 3 times (or thrice since it sounds more sophisticated). Once for diving into the pool, once for wrestling with Sterling (and man did I ever destroy him) and once for, and seriously think about this one, lying on the deck on some ice??? They told me it was too slippery?? To what…slide into the pool??? haha. Ah well. I’m just badass I guess.
So anyway the hot pools were fun. And then we went skiing/boarding/blading at Panorama all day Sunday. I rented snow blades again (brought back memories from my last time in 2001 when I went). I did a run down the bunny hill a few times with a few of the crew just to get used to the blades again and then was itching to go hit the higger runs. So for about an hour I went off on my own. All the way to the very top and was really wanting to hit the black diamond and double black runs, but they were pretty much all closed for either an avalanche warning or due to poor conditions (aka not enough snow). But some of the runs I did do were really steep and super bumpy. Forgot how tired the legs get with you’re going down the hill in a squatting position lol. But it was awesome. Had my music on and was just enjoying being free and doing what I wanted. I made my way down to the bottom of the hill and ended up running into Sterling and Roz, which was sweet cuz the 3 of us decided to stick together. A little bit later we ran into Adam and Lauren and they took the 3 of us on a run to the other side which we hadn’t seen yet…turned out to be a nice narrow run through the trees and that later turned into some really steep fast hills (which caused my only fall of the day, but it was a spectacular wipeout hahaha). We went back to the lodge, met the rest of the crew for lunch and then the 4 of us (minus Roz) met Blake, Zak and Kyle and we went to the same run that Adam showed us earlier. It was awesome again and I didn’t fall this time, but my legs were burning like mad from the lactic acid. And Blake is a sick boarder. Whereas earlier I was beating the other boarders down the hill on my blades, he was going as fast or faster than I was…pretty sweet flying down the hill like that though 🙂
This has turned into a much longer post than I was originally planning, but when you do something for the first time in 7 years, it’s a pretty awesome thing. And I want to go again for sure. I had an amazing time. And it was such a good crew to hang out with. I only wish I had more time to ski but alas, work is calling 😛
Oh and ps, Sterl and I saw 2 moose on the drive home and they were huge…and we tried to flash some oncoming cars to warn them, but I don’t know what happened. I really hope they didn’t hit them!
Next ski trip I might have pictures, but we had such a great time I don’t even know when we would have taken them 🙂