For anyone who doesn't already know, we are home now. Boo! Boo! Double Boo!
But I've still got a few remaining snippets to add to the blog, just so we can finish it off with a nice buff and polish and so we can allow it to tell the full story of our time in Canada.
Such as our final journey. Here's the time-lapse of the journey from Lake Louise back to the airport at Calgary.
We stopped a couple of times on the way, once in Banff for a spot of shopping and again at Canmore for lunch. Except we didn't have lunch, because it wasn't until we sat down to eat that we realised we were a bit short of time. Karen was starving so quickly grabbed a sandwich for en-route consumption, the rest of us waited and pigged out at the airport. But did manage time for a nice cup of coffee and a chat to some weird bloke about Ronaldo's wonder goal.
Then it was a quick blast down the motorway, a quick stop to fill the car up, then into Calgary International Airport to hand the car back.
And that was that.
Sunday, 8 April 2018
Saturday, 7 April 2018
It's only money
I do have somewhat of a reputation for, let's say, being careful with my money.
I am a Yorkshireman after all, and from Sheffield at that. Look after your pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, my mum always said. And, to a point she's right.
But, there are some things that, despite the cost, are just worth it. Here are a few that have proved invaluable on this holiday, all of which cost more than I would have liked to have paid, but all of which have been worth their weight in gold.
1. Fin's helmet
For years and years we have struggled with Fin to keep his goggles on while skiing. We've tried time and again to find goggles that fit him well, but whatever we try he's constantly pulling them off, we're constantly putting them back on, back off, back on, all day long. Anyone that's skied with us will know how frustrating it can be for us and, I guess, how uncomfortable it might be for Fin.
Helmet's with visors have been around for a while but I've not seen any kids one. Maybe because I've never liked them, but on our last boys trip away one of the guys had a visor helmet and he said it was great, so when I got home we started looking at one for Fin. They were all a bit on the expensive side, but then I saw that Salomon made one and because I get some nice BASI discount on Salomon products we managed to get one with 40% discount.
So we bought one of their Grom helmets, the same design as Fin's previous helmet but this time with a built in visor.
First of all I think it looks great. It fits really well, it's so easy for him to use, he keeps the visor down all day long, and it has put an end to the constant fiddling and messing we've become accustomed to. The lens is fairly generic and seems to be fine in all light conditions except for complete whiteouts. One of the best fifty quids we've ever spent.
2. My goggles
A friend of mine bought some Salomon goggles earlier this year and was really impressed with them.
I've acquired a few pairs of goggles over the years and have usually bought ones with interchangeable
lenses - usually reflective lenses for bright sunny conditions and clear lenses for foggy and low light conditions. This works great, especially during a week where the conditions are varied, but it can become a drag on those days when the weather is constantly changing and you end up seemingly spending half the day changing lenses - sometimes it can be a bit fiddly to swap them out as well as having to carry that spare lens around with you.
So when I started looking at the Salomon range I took note of their Photochromatic range. A bit like transitions lenses, they adjust according to the lighting conditions. They have a natural clear state but darken as the UV intensifies. I wouldn't normally have entertained these, principally because of the price premium, but in part due to my BASI discount and the fact I had money to spend from my birthday presents, I decided to take a punt.
Never been so satisfied with anything, except perhaps Karen on a good day.
At no point, be it on the brightest of bright days or the dullest of dull did I ever stop to think "if only I had that other lens in today". To keep them on all day every day without any faffing around makes them well with the money. They didn't fog up once. Not sure I'd have paid the full price (£160) without having tried them first, but now having had the opportunity to sample them over 13 days of skiing mixed and various conditions I'd jump straight in without a doubt. Might even buy Karen a pair, especially as she's now a bit of a speed demon.
3. GoPro Hero 5
I've been using the Ion camera for a few years now and have always been really impressed with the video quality, mainly shot at 1080p. Had a bit of distortion but not as much as the older GoPro's seemed to. I quite liked the fact it was different from the pack and I found the user interface on the phone to be pretty decent. But recently I found the app stopped working (on Android at least) or maybe it was the device that was faulty, either way I knew it was time for a new action cam.
I looked at various options, but on a recent holiday to Champoluc had the opportunity to try out a friends GoPro Hero 5 and was actually well impressed. Loved the fact you can talk to it and that it can shoot up to 120 fps and up to 4k (but not simultaneously). So I looked at that and also the Hero 6 which was even better but a bit pricier. In the end I picked up a Hero 5 from Amazon Spain for around £215 - bought an extra battery, had a bit of a play with it (the camera) then left for Canada with high hopes of capturing some decent footage.
And so it proved to be well worth it. The ease of use along with the robustness meant I took it out most days, the battery life was very respectable, the range of features did (almost) everything I wanted. Used it to create time-lapse videos of our journeys (I only wish GoPro would include the option to timestamp the time-lapse photos - this would have saved me heaps of time) and as I'm sure you have seen lots of video footage as well as high quality pictures. The GoPro quik software is reasonably good for putting together short edits but is very limited in what it can do. I like the fact you can shoot in Linear mode, a more traditional regular, non fish eyed wide angle view with none or limited distortion.
Overall it was a really good buy and well worth the money, without which this blog would not have been what it is. I'm surprised I like it this much.
4. Travel Adapter
We seem to be travelling with more and more electronic devices these days. Gone are the days when we took a single converter plug to charge the phone or for the travel hair dryer. Now we have a multitude of devices, all of which require plugging in at some point. Finlay alone has his phone, his DS and his laptop. More phones for me and Karen, plus the GoPro, camera (although this didn't get used much due to the insane quality of the camera on my Pixel phone), MacBook, iPad, smart watch, electric toothbrushes, hair straighteners, the list never seems to end.
On top of this, a number of UK/EU devices and chargers won't work when in the U.S or Canada due to voltage differences.
Enter the Bestek Travel Adapter Voltage Converter. Not only does this fantastic little device do all the voltage conversion stuff (up to a certain wattage) meaning things like our electric toothbrushes and tablet devices charge fuss free, it also has two UK 3 pin plugs and four USB outlet ports, meaning we could charge oodles of devices from a single socket.
It came with a handy travel case and all the adapters required to work pretty much worldwide.
A fantastic little device, picked up for less that £40 courtesy of Amazon Prime, well worth it.
I am a Yorkshireman after all, and from Sheffield at that. Look after your pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, my mum always said. And, to a point she's right.
But, there are some things that, despite the cost, are just worth it. Here are a few that have proved invaluable on this holiday, all of which cost more than I would have liked to have paid, but all of which have been worth their weight in gold.
1. Fin's helmet
For years and years we have struggled with Fin to keep his goggles on while skiing. We've tried time and again to find goggles that fit him well, but whatever we try he's constantly pulling them off, we're constantly putting them back on, back off, back on, all day long. Anyone that's skied with us will know how frustrating it can be for us and, I guess, how uncomfortable it might be for Fin.
Helmet's with visors have been around for a while but I've not seen any kids one. Maybe because I've never liked them, but on our last boys trip away one of the guys had a visor helmet and he said it was great, so when I got home we started looking at one for Fin. They were all a bit on the expensive side, but then I saw that Salomon made one and because I get some nice BASI discount on Salomon products we managed to get one with 40% discount.
So we bought one of their Grom helmets, the same design as Fin's previous helmet but this time with a built in visor.
First of all I think it looks great. It fits really well, it's so easy for him to use, he keeps the visor down all day long, and it has put an end to the constant fiddling and messing we've become accustomed to. The lens is fairly generic and seems to be fine in all light conditions except for complete whiteouts. One of the best fifty quids we've ever spent.
A friend of mine bought some Salomon goggles earlier this year and was really impressed with them.
I've acquired a few pairs of goggles over the years and have usually bought ones with interchangeable
lenses - usually reflective lenses for bright sunny conditions and clear lenses for foggy and low light conditions. This works great, especially during a week where the conditions are varied, but it can become a drag on those days when the weather is constantly changing and you end up seemingly spending half the day changing lenses - sometimes it can be a bit fiddly to swap them out as well as having to carry that spare lens around with you.
So when I started looking at the Salomon range I took note of their Photochromatic range. A bit like transitions lenses, they adjust according to the lighting conditions. They have a natural clear state but darken as the UV intensifies. I wouldn't normally have entertained these, principally because of the price premium, but in part due to my BASI discount and the fact I had money to spend from my birthday presents, I decided to take a punt.
Never been so satisfied with anything, except perhaps Karen on a good day.
At no point, be it on the brightest of bright days or the dullest of dull did I ever stop to think "if only I had that other lens in today". To keep them on all day every day without any faffing around makes them well with the money. They didn't fog up once. Not sure I'd have paid the full price (£160) without having tried them first, but now having had the opportunity to sample them over 13 days of skiing mixed and various conditions I'd jump straight in without a doubt. Might even buy Karen a pair, especially as she's now a bit of a speed demon.
3. GoPro Hero 5
I've been using the Ion camera for a few years now and have always been really impressed with the video quality, mainly shot at 1080p. Had a bit of distortion but not as much as the older GoPro's seemed to. I quite liked the fact it was different from the pack and I found the user interface on the phone to be pretty decent. But recently I found the app stopped working (on Android at least) or maybe it was the device that was faulty, either way I knew it was time for a new action cam.
I looked at various options, but on a recent holiday to Champoluc had the opportunity to try out a friends GoPro Hero 5 and was actually well impressed. Loved the fact you can talk to it and that it can shoot up to 120 fps and up to 4k (but not simultaneously). So I looked at that and also the Hero 6 which was even better but a bit pricier. In the end I picked up a Hero 5 from Amazon Spain for around £215 - bought an extra battery, had a bit of a play with it (the camera) then left for Canada with high hopes of capturing some decent footage.
And so it proved to be well worth it. The ease of use along with the robustness meant I took it out most days, the battery life was very respectable, the range of features did (almost) everything I wanted. Used it to create time-lapse videos of our journeys (I only wish GoPro would include the option to timestamp the time-lapse photos - this would have saved me heaps of time) and as I'm sure you have seen lots of video footage as well as high quality pictures. The GoPro quik software is reasonably good for putting together short edits but is very limited in what it can do. I like the fact you can shoot in Linear mode, a more traditional regular, non fish eyed wide angle view with none or limited distortion.
Overall it was a really good buy and well worth the money, without which this blog would not have been what it is. I'm surprised I like it this much.
4. Travel Adapter
We seem to be travelling with more and more electronic devices these days. Gone are the days when we took a single converter plug to charge the phone or for the travel hair dryer. Now we have a multitude of devices, all of which require plugging in at some point. Finlay alone has his phone, his DS and his laptop. More phones for me and Karen, plus the GoPro, camera (although this didn't get used much due to the insane quality of the camera on my Pixel phone), MacBook, iPad, smart watch, electric toothbrushes, hair straighteners, the list never seems to end.
On top of this, a number of UK/EU devices and chargers won't work when in the U.S or Canada due to voltage differences.
Enter the Bestek Travel Adapter Voltage Converter. Not only does this fantastic little device do all the voltage conversion stuff (up to a certain wattage) meaning things like our electric toothbrushes and tablet devices charge fuss free, it also has two UK 3 pin plugs and four USB outlet ports, meaning we could charge oodles of devices from a single socket.
It came with a handy travel case and all the adapters required to work pretty much worldwide.
A fantastic little device, picked up for less that £40 courtesy of Amazon Prime, well worth it.
Skiing at the Lake
Visiting Lake Louise was the perfect way to round off our holiday. We had three nights there and the scope for skiing on two days, Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday we were up at a reasonable hour and on the 9.30am shuttle bus to the resort. We had boarded the bus, sat down and just waiting for the driver to pull away then I checked that we all had our Lake Louise Cards (needed to get our ski passes) and uh oh, one of us did not. So Karen had to get off the bus and go back to the room to get her pass. In the meantime, the bus left, with the rest of us on it! Bye !!! So the other three of us got to the Lake Louise ski area and got everything ready, and as it happened because I had a photo of the cards on my phone, just in case we lost them, they accepted this and issued Karen's pass in any case. In the meantime, Karen had jumped on the next bus and joined us around half an hour later. She was smiling and only a little bit embarrassed to tell she had her card in her pocket after all! Donut.
So, all together again we set off up the front face of Lake Louise for a couple of warm up runs. Warm up runs because we were a) all a little bit rusty, having not skied for 2 days ; and b) it was really cold again, with a bit of breeze and a little light snow in the air it felt arctic.
Later in the afternoon Finlay and Ellie skied down the Larch groomers but took a wrong turn and ended up on run 155 called Run Out - this is a little used run that winds it's way around the side of the mountain, quite flat in places, eventually returning back at Lake Louise base. At the same time me and the missus went to ski run 142 called Rock Garden, which looked interesting. A bumpy traverse leads to an area of natural rocks dotted around the slopes, each covered with mounds of snow creating the most unique and interesting landscape. This was really fun to ski, in and out of the bumps, or over them if that what takes your fancy. A lot of this run is featured in this first video clip below which is a cut down edit of the day.
After this I went to ski this run again and shot a full length video on the GoPro helmet cam which is shown below.
After an hour or so we stopped for a warm up and a drink, but I decided to use this opportunity to go back out and have a play with all the mountain my playground. Did a tough run on Larch (Lookout Chutes) and then figured I'd just have time to try a run from the top of the Ptarmigan chair. But the chair stopped on the way up so by the time I started the run I thought the crew would be wondering where I'd got to, so I sent Kaz a message to meet me down by the lifts at 11:20 rather than me going back to the restaurant. Here is a video clip of me skiing this run, trying to keep check on the time to make sure I didn't keep them waiting. As it happens they didn't get the message so it was all in vain, nevertheless a great run.
Below is a video of Karen blasting down the Ladies Downhill piste, she really was motoring, I've never seen her ski so fast, at least on purpose. Wowzers Kazzers. At the end of the day, for the last run we all tackled this run again with both Ellie and Fin making easy work of it, meaning everyone finished their skiing on a high.
On the Wednesday I went back up to ski a bit more of the mountain, while the others did their own things back at the Chateau. Kaz visited the Spa for some sort of head massage, then with Fin went ice skating on the lake. Ellie took some time to out to do some homework for school, something called a dissertation.
Came across some great runs such as Fencline Gully, various Gully runs off the back of the Summit poma, some more good tree runs on Larch and finally some great runs on the front face of the Summit. The mens downhill course is a walk in the park compared to the Strief at Kitzbuhel and I really enjoyed the area near the top of the Grizzly Express lift - all these runs tend to blend into one and combine some open areas leading into more wooded sections with nicely spaced trees. Forgot to bring the GoPro mount so no footage from this day. Except for this little clip which I filmed on the phone
For Canadian standards, Lake Louise is a large area with possibly the most variety of runs that we've seen at any one ski area. Reminds me a lot of Vail with the combination of front face, back bowls and then the extra hill of Larch, except Larch isn't a patch on Blue Sky Basin (Vail) which is still one of my favourite areas of all times. Lake Louise has something for everyone. Many of the double blacks are not too bad, in fact some of them are positively trivial, but a few of them really did have some steep pitches with narrow twisty sections. There were a lot of cruisy blues and greens. It doesn't need a full week to ski this place out, like it would at say Val d'Isere or Les 3 Vallees, but I would have liked a few more days here to explore more and really get to know the best spots. It's a different type of skiing from what we are used to in Europe, there are just so many different lines and options available from the top of each lift. The whole off piste areas are part of the patrolled ski area and opens up so much terrain.
It's been an absolute blast getting to sample so much of Canada in a short space of time and being able to compare and contrast the different areas. I'll try to put a summary page together when things settle down a bit and I've had time to reflect. In the meantime enjoy the pictures below and as usual if you have any comments please use the button at the bottom of this page, would love to hear your thoughts.
On Tuesday we were up at a reasonable hour and on the 9.30am shuttle bus to the resort. We had boarded the bus, sat down and just waiting for the driver to pull away then I checked that we all had our Lake Louise Cards (needed to get our ski passes) and uh oh, one of us did not. So Karen had to get off the bus and go back to the room to get her pass. In the meantime, the bus left, with the rest of us on it! Bye !!! So the other three of us got to the Lake Louise ski area and got everything ready, and as it happened because I had a photo of the cards on my phone, just in case we lost them, they accepted this and issued Karen's pass in any case. In the meantime, Karen had jumped on the next bus and joined us around half an hour later. She was smiling and only a little bit embarrassed to tell she had her card in her pocket after all! Donut.
So, all together again we set off up the front face of Lake Louise for a couple of warm up runs. Warm up runs because we were a) all a little bit rusty, having not skied for 2 days ; and b) it was really cold again, with a bit of breeze and a little light snow in the air it felt arctic.
Later in the afternoon Finlay and Ellie skied down the Larch groomers but took a wrong turn and ended up on run 155 called Run Out - this is a little used run that winds it's way around the side of the mountain, quite flat in places, eventually returning back at Lake Louise base. At the same time me and the missus went to ski run 142 called Rock Garden, which looked interesting. A bumpy traverse leads to an area of natural rocks dotted around the slopes, each covered with mounds of snow creating the most unique and interesting landscape. This was really fun to ski, in and out of the bumps, or over them if that what takes your fancy. A lot of this run is featured in this first video clip below which is a cut down edit of the day.
After this I went to ski this run again and shot a full length video on the GoPro helmet cam which is shown below.
After an hour or so we stopped for a warm up and a drink, but I decided to use this opportunity to go back out and have a play with all the mountain my playground. Did a tough run on Larch (Lookout Chutes) and then figured I'd just have time to try a run from the top of the Ptarmigan chair. But the chair stopped on the way up so by the time I started the run I thought the crew would be wondering where I'd got to, so I sent Kaz a message to meet me down by the lifts at 11:20 rather than me going back to the restaurant. Here is a video clip of me skiing this run, trying to keep check on the time to make sure I didn't keep them waiting. As it happens they didn't get the message so it was all in vain, nevertheless a great run.
Below is a video of Karen blasting down the Ladies Downhill piste, she really was motoring, I've never seen her ski so fast, at least on purpose. Wowzers Kazzers. At the end of the day, for the last run we all tackled this run again with both Ellie and Fin making easy work of it, meaning everyone finished their skiing on a high.
On the Wednesday I went back up to ski a bit more of the mountain, while the others did their own things back at the Chateau. Kaz visited the Spa for some sort of head massage, then with Fin went ice skating on the lake. Ellie took some time to out to do some homework for school, something called a dissertation.
Came across some great runs such as Fencline Gully, various Gully runs off the back of the Summit poma, some more good tree runs on Larch and finally some great runs on the front face of the Summit. The mens downhill course is a walk in the park compared to the Strief at Kitzbuhel and I really enjoyed the area near the top of the Grizzly Express lift - all these runs tend to blend into one and combine some open areas leading into more wooded sections with nicely spaced trees. Forgot to bring the GoPro mount so no footage from this day. Except for this little clip which I filmed on the phone
For Canadian standards, Lake Louise is a large area with possibly the most variety of runs that we've seen at any one ski area. Reminds me a lot of Vail with the combination of front face, back bowls and then the extra hill of Larch, except Larch isn't a patch on Blue Sky Basin (Vail) which is still one of my favourite areas of all times. Lake Louise has something for everyone. Many of the double blacks are not too bad, in fact some of them are positively trivial, but a few of them really did have some steep pitches with narrow twisty sections. There were a lot of cruisy blues and greens. It doesn't need a full week to ski this place out, like it would at say Val d'Isere or Les 3 Vallees, but I would have liked a few more days here to explore more and really get to know the best spots. It's a different type of skiing from what we are used to in Europe, there are just so many different lines and options available from the top of each lift. The whole off piste areas are part of the patrolled ski area and opens up so much terrain.
It's been an absolute blast getting to sample so much of Canada in a short space of time and being able to compare and contrast the different areas. I'll try to put a summary page together when things settle down a bit and I've had time to reflect. In the meantime enjoy the pictures below and as usual if you have any comments please use the button at the bottom of this page, would love to hear your thoughts.
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| Fin plans the route |
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| And Karen's already thinking of the next holiday |
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| Rock garden |
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| Lunch time and it warmed up just enough to sit outside by the fire |
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| Cosy toes |
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| Lake Louise Day Lodge |
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| Kokanee Cabin |
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| Waiting for the lift to open up at 08:55 Wednesday morning |
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| Despite the overcast day still some lovely views around |
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| View of the lake and the Chateau from the slopes of Lake Louise |
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| Out skiing by myself on this last day, just an hour to go before we pack our skis away for the final time (on this trip!) |
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| Yep, it's a white out |
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| Another shot of the lake, just to the right of centre |
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| And I finished with a BBQ pulled pork sandwich at the Kokanee Cabin |
Friday, 6 April 2018
And so it ends
Stopped off at Banff on the way to Calgary. Had a wander around, did a spot of shopping and a bit more sightseeing, cause we haven't done enough of that recently. Oh wait ...
We pulled up in the car park in Banff and it was oh so cold. Dry, but with a bit of a breeze and bloomin freezing it was, around -15C. Bif of phaffing around later we had our hats and gloves on and good to go.
Then, two and a half hours later returned to the car and drove off in the direction of Calgary. There was an unusual knocking at the back of the car, so stopped around 500 yards later to take a look at what was banging around in the boot.
Found the culprit before I even got to the boot ...
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| Left on roof of car while we explored Banff. |
I was going to take the gopro with me along with the selfie stick, so got it out of the bag when we pulled into the car park. Then forgot about it, until that knocking started. Amazingly for the 2 and a half hours we were gone, it was on the roof of the car in the middle of Banff. Amazing and very very lucky, even more lucky that it didn't fall off when we first set off. Could only happen to me.
Then the rest of the journey was plain sailing. Check in was a breeze and the airport at Calgary is nice and compact, modern and as with everywhere we've been in Canada, full of super friendly people.
We are now on the plane ready to take off in 15 minutes, so here's hoping we still have some signal so this can get posted before we get off.
See you back in England bloggers.
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| Shot taken from the Bridge in Banff, then made into b&w for effect |
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| Delightful shop in Banff, an all year round Christmas fairytale store |
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| Paid a visit to the Fairmont Banff Springs, it's how we roll now. |
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| Town of Banff |
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| Was aiming to get to the airport for 4 o'clock. Just pulled up, not bad timing eh? |
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| That is 1162 miles, quite the epic roadtrip. |
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| Really pleased with this trusty machine. She served us well. |
Thursday, 5 April 2018
Heli Heli Heli
Back on Sunday 1st April I ventured out for my first ever time time heli skiing. The stuff of boyhood dreams, seen in so many ski films and magazines and now, at last, it was my time. Not only that but it was also the first time I've ever been in a helicopter and so I feel very privileged to have had this opportunity, it's been something on my bucket list for a very long time.
Canada is undoubtedly the Heli skiing capital of the world. All around the powder highway are various heliski operations, some of which cater for multi day packages where you stay with them in a remote lodge, eat their food, soak in their hot tubs and ski all day for many days in their helicopter. But this is the seriously big boys way of heli skiing and is way out of our reach. But then there are a few outfits who also cater for single day outings, such as RK Heliski which is based at Panorama, which was convenient as that's exactly where we were based at the time. It meant that I could wait until the last minute before deciding whether or not to go. Really last minute. I phoned them up at 07:30 am on Sunday morning to check if they had any standby places, they did, so 15 minutes later I had made the short walk to the Heliplex in time for registration, breakfast and the full briefing. And, getting the standby rate knocked 100 bucks off the cost, so not complaining at that.
Decided to use their Armada JJ skis instead of mine, only 183cm but wider and a fair bit stiffer than mine. They were good, seemed to plough through the deep snow with a bit more power than mine.
After the briefing we picked up the skis, loaded them into the van and drove around 20 mins to the heli pick up point. When the heli came in to sight I started taking some video with my phone but seriously didn't quite appreciate how strong the blast from the rotos would be and it completely blew me over, as well as almost blowing the phone out of my hand. See the video below. Lesson learnt!
Getting into the chopper for the first time was really exciting, following all the procedures and waiting for that first take off. Then it took off and, you know what, it was nothing particularly special, a bit like a flying taxi. Was really smooth, didn't do any rapid movements or anything , it just went up, flew a bit, then came down again. it was cool to see the pilot at work though and the views through the cockpit and windows were awesome. The landing was so soft landing on fresh snow, that I hadn't even realised we had touched down.
As part of the package we had 5 runs included, with the option to buy extra runs at the day's end, if time allowed and if sufficient numbers were willing. This meant at least 5 trips in the helicopter. As it happened, because of the way the day worked out we managed 7 flights. One of the extra ones was a freebie, because due to the weather the runs were shorter than normal so to keep us sweet RK threw in an extra one. Nice touch. The other extra run was a bought one. Some opted for another run and I would have too had they offered something tougher, say through the trees, or something nice and steep, but they didn't, so I didn't. So from a helicopter virgin to 7 flights in one day ... very good. Very good indeed!
The landing sites varied from run to run, as we moved around the Purcell mountain range. Some landing sites had been used recently, but others were fresh, so the guides literally had to dig out a landing patch ahead of the helicopter arriving.
The whole operation was really well planned with regular communication between the guides and the pilot. On this day there were three separate groups, all sharing the same chopper and it worked really well. Only on a couple of occasions did we have to wait more than a couple of minutes.
My only gripe is that the terrain was a little tame for the ability of the group. All 8 of us in the group were capable of more, a few knarly lines would have been good, or even a couple of steep pitches, but this didn't happen. I can only think that because the visibility was at times poor with occasional whiteouts and snowfall, that they were being cautious. The first run was a beautiful open bowl and really nice fresh snow. Not as good as the snow at Valhalla Powdercats the week before (reminds me I still have to blog that day), but very decent none the less. The second run started off poor, the sun had kissed the snow and formed a light crust, so they ventured off into some trees which was much better, in fact possibly the best stretch of the day. It was the most challenging of the day's skiing and I have to say was a little disappointed we didn't do more of this. The remaining runs were all very same'y, but the sort of same'y you could do all day long. Despite the lack of real challenge, it was really good and fun skiing.
When the skiing was over we headed back to base in the van, where I was greeted by a very excited Finlay, after which there were some snacks laid on and we had a couple of cheeky beers. Then I bought the obligatory been there done that T-shirt, bought some more beers for a couple of Canadian guys who, while out there, used my GoPro to take some footage of me skiing, which was really good of them and very much appreciated.
Great experience and a very big box ticked.
Great experience and a very big box ticked.
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| Waiting for the helicopter to arrive for the first time. Quite literally blown off my feet. |
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| This was it leaving for the final time. |
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| My tools for the day, Armada JJ 2.0 |
Here are some videos, unedited, shot from inside the helicopter
And here are a few photos from the day:
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| My facebook teaser photo |
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| Short drive to where the heli picked us up |
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| Briefing |
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| Offloading at the drop off point |
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| Yep, that's me, the sun and the snow. |
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| Just glorious |
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| Guides digging out a spot for the chopper to land |
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| Her it comes again ... |
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| Like having bag of uncooked basmati thrown in your face |
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| Back at the range we had a quick snack and some welcome refreshment |
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| The Heliplex at Panorama B.C. |
And a few action shots
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