Date: 22nd of December 2007

G’day All,

The much promised big snowfalls actually happened last night and today with a 20+cm dump over the past 12 hours. When we awoke this morning there was about 10cm on the ground but with heavy falls all day this quickly jumped to over 20cm. There was a brief lull in the storm after lunch but it soon returned dropping more snow on the resort.

It was powder central for all groups today and Ridley’s moguls group was first out there and they headed straight over to the backside for a fresh run down Holy Smokes which had been groomed shortly before the snow began to fall last night. Kate and Brighid were fighting their feet as-well as the cold. Brodie was so cold you could actually see him shivering however he was reluctant to give up the morning in the dry powder. Jack overdosed on Protein shakes last night and was forced to head back to bed and was not feeling too well while Bryn and Alex powered through without one complaint. After losing a ski, Kate continued to ski hard and earned a well deserved rest at paradise camp, where she was joined by Brighid who closely resembled a snow ghost. The boys took two more great runs before the long trek back the lodge for lunch.

The afternoon saw more dry snow and the boys headed out with the free riders to poach some pow. Pez hooked on for some good face shots and a few photos at the same time while the girls decided to rest their ice their sore feet and stay in for the afternoon. After 3 or 4 epic powder runs it was time to rest their burning quads and retire to the couch.

Chris’ freeski group also headed straight to the backside to take advantage of the deep snow and steep runs.  The group hit up the newly open Where’s Joe and had some of the first tracks of the year down it.  After a couple laps they moved over to Black Pine and then made their way over to Catmandoo for a couple more runs.  Chris commented that it was snowing so hard that every their tracks were being filled in the next time they came around.  Lauran, Bassett and Amy were all skiing well in the deep snow with Hamish and Conrad charging hard through the powder trying to follow their coach down the run. 

In the afternoon the girls were a little tired and decided to rest their legs so the group was only small with only Conrad and Hamish.  They teamed up with Ridley’s group and all the boys went charging.  More runs on the backside and several of the bowls were the call for the afternoon and they even found some nice cat tracks to launch off.
The group finished the afternoon over in Attridge with a nice lap down the face and chute.

The boarders took a run through the trees on the six pack to warm up and then headed over to Attridge to find that lots of new runs had opened and they were the only ones there. The guys just rode pow all morning and didn't even leave the Attridge area and only slowed down when Pez pulled out the camera to take a few shots.  Beggsy informed me that it was the deepest snow anyone in his group had ever ridden which explains why the group was smiling so hard when they returned for lunch.
After lunch the guys were feeling exhausted after their morning riding so they dropped the pace a little for the afternoon session and decided to ride in the summer mountain bike tracks. Their afternoon was extremely funny but there was more hiking out of spots than fast riding going on. The run of the afternoon had to be up on Attridge and even Beggsy said it was one of his best runs he had ever had in Canada.

Sami and the race crew had the day off today and even with all the snow we couldn’t convince here to get out there. She be back out tomorrow though, after all we all need a little R&R sometimes.

There has been no shortage of Pinky candidates over the last couple of days with acts ranging from forgotten seasons passes and ‘dumb and dumber’ act from last night to ear drum bursting singing talents of Sarah and Heidi and some other I won’t mention. Tonight though is a first for Pinky, he is actually going to be awarded to the same person two nights in a row. You probably read about Conrad’s frozen tongue incident yesterday well today is even better. In an attempt to be even cooler than he thinks he already is, Conrad thought he’d ‘trim’ one of his eyebrows. Things didn’t quite turn out the way he hoped as he slipped mid trim and took off most of it in one slash of the razor…..now who looks cool!

Tonight’s activity was ice hockey down in Vernon. We all piled into the vans at 6.00pm after an early dinner and made the 20 minute drive down to the multiplex arena, home of the Vernon Vipers AAA hockey team. To say Canadians take hockey seriously would be an understatement with the arena packed out with 4000 screaming fans. For many of the AWSC crew this was the first time they’d seen an ice hockey match live and they were impressed with the physicality of the sport – and the boys, well they just loved the fighting.

Tomorrow is scheduled for our first full day off snow for the camp but if the snow keeps up I’m sure all the powder hounds here will want to get out there for a couple of hours in the morning.

Well that’s the first week done, can’t believe it’s gone so quickly – only another 5 to go!

Well that’s about it for today, until next time.

Stowie