Snowlellujah!!

Well, Mother Nature really came through on this one. The 30cm of heavy wet snow was immediately followed by the same volume of light, fluffy Colorado-esque powder. It was far and away the best day of the season. It was anywhere from knee to stomach deep, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that I was making turns with snow flowing over both shoulders. In addition, the light snow on top of the heavy snow plus a bluebird day on Thursday made for perfect "sending" weather. People were jumping off 30-40 foot cliffs with no hesitation. Oh what fun.

I've always been envious of those photos in the Ski magazines where the snow is so deep all you see is two ski poles and the top of a helmet. I've come to realize, however, the only reason there isn't a photo of me in snow that deep is that I don't have a friend with a $7,000 camera and the willingness to sacrifice ridiculously deep powder turns for a photo. It actually doesn't take that much snow to get a shot like that, but to nail the photo it takes a camera which can snap many frames in a matter of seconds. So I take consolation in the fact that although I have no proof of these powder-swallowing endeavors, I too have known that feeling.

Basically what I'm saying is that for all intents and purposes, this photos was taken of me.

Actually it was taken of Johnny Law, a sponsored ripper and Whistler local who happens to work for Surefoot. Photo was taken by professional ski photographer Jordan Manley.

Snow??

Well, it finally snowed again. It basically hasn't snowed since mid-January, and Febuary has felt like March is supposed to. Matter of fact, today was the first day in almost three weeks that hasn't improved my all-too-impressive goggle tan. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we've had three weeks of beautiful bluebird days, not a cloud in the sky. It's all been rather depressing...watching the little snowpack we have recede closer to the dismal state of November when the resort opened sporting a 30cm base.

But all that's behind us now, I hope, until April . The past two days have brought 40 cm of heavy coast-range snow to Whistler. The snow made for excellent skiing near the peak where colder temperatures made face shots and cliff drops plentiful. Lower down, the storm turned to rain later yesterday and the snow was very heavy.

Thank you sir, may I have another?

Lonely Lonely Hot Pot

Friday was spectacular. I met up with Poleck at 8:15 at the Whistler gondi and we skied Peak to Creek with Adrienne to kick off the day. It was the first time I'd skied with Adrienne, and she just got a pair of B-squads (fat, very stiff, very fast). My Gotamas also like to charge, and Poleck rides a pair of 193 planks (long, stiff, fast), so we were really booking down the freshly groomed runs.

As it turns out, the cat drivers at Whistler have a bit of a sense of humor. The top section of Peak to Creek was fresh cord, so we were flying. There are about 6 steep pitches, punctuated by small flat sections. On a day like Friday, when the run is empty and freshly groomed, there's only one way to ski it. It sounds like this:

"Crrrrrrshrrrrrrshrrrr.....(silence).....Crrrrshrrrshrrrrrrr...(silence)....Chrrrshcrrrrschrrrr"

So that translates to "bigfastturns...airtime....bigfastturns....airtime." Super fun.

Anyway, Poleck was flying, and I mean flying. He came off the last roller and nearly cleared the entire pitch, landing about 40 feet below the lip. Midair, he realized that the lower section of peak to creek was ungroomed, which left him with two unpleasant options: fly straight into the mogul field doing mach chicken, or veer left onto a catwalk. He opted for the latter, and would have suceeded had his bindings not failed, sending him flying off a snowbank and rolling to a stop off the side of the run.

After charging all morning, we took a break for Caesars (the canadian bloody mary--delicious) and lunch at Dustys. After lunch Poleck and Adrienne headed home and I skied the rest of the day alone.

I had been contracted as cab driver to take Helle's parents and brother to the airport for an amount of money that I'm somewhat ashamed to admit (Helle's father insisted on paying me the rate that a cab would charge) so I picked them up from the hotel at 5pm. After running into some horrendous traffic at Lions Gate I got them to the airport hotel around 8pm, said farewell and went to find some asian food. I'd been fantisizing about sushi the whole way down and I was starving. There was a plethora of asian restaurants near the hotel, so I walked into one that looked busy and asked for a table.

Those of you who have been to a hot pot restaurant will probably be laughing at my naivetee right about now, but I was hungry and wanting to try something new. The hostess at the first restaurant told me "Sorry, we have no tables for one." Dejected, I walked back to the street and tried another restaurant, called "Sun Tung Kee" which was slightly less busy. The host looked suprised when I said I was alone (Yeah, I'm a loser, I get it already!) and said "Perhaps you'd like to see the menu before you sit down?" I consented and he led me to a booth in the farthest corner of the restaurant, leaving me with the menu and a lot of questions.

Basically you start by ordering what they call a "soup base." This is served in a giant vat which rests on a boiler in the middle of the table. Then you choose from various entrees which are served raw. These entrees are to be placed in the vat of boiling soup, cooked, and eaten on the spot. Within 5 minutes, I found myself faced with apporximately four liters of boiling soup, an intimidating platter of raw chicken, 12 assorted meatballs of unknown origin, four dipping sauces of unknown constitution, several ladles, a small plate and a pair of chopsticks.

Sweet.

It became quickly obvious why the hotpot restaurant was reuctant to serve singles. It is quite a social affair. After uncerimoniously dumping the meatballs and chicken into the soup vat, I sat in silence and waited for them to cook. It really was an outing suited for the company of the PM and Nat crowd. With someone else to share the hilarity of the situation I might have ventured to order any number of the dishes not containing the words "chicken." Even by my lonesome the experience was quite pleasant. I think the entire restaurant staff felt pity for me, because they all stopped by at least twice during my meal to chat, fill my tea, adjust the temperature of the burner to keep the soup from boiling over, or ask if it was too cold in my lonely corner and would I like the thermostat turned up.

The waitress gave me a business card for the restaurant, telling me to stop by one of the other two locations next time I'm in Hong Kong.

World Class Lugers

Around two o'clock on Saturday, two athletic-looking young men walked into Surefoot wearing Canadian Luge Team vests. Knowing the Viessman World Cup Luge finals were that same day, I asked them "Hey, don't you guys have somewhere to be right now?" "Not until five," they replied.

Long story short, one of the athletes named Jeff Christie needed ski boots. Fitting his boots was dead easy. For instance, to scan the foot to make the orthotic, the ankle has to been in the "neutral" position. Since the neutral position is not the normal position for most people's feet, it is difficult to hold the foot in neutral. Normally, I put the foot in neutral, have the person put equal weight on both feet and securely hold the knee to keep the foot from collapsing when they shift their weight. They simply aren't strong enough to hold their foot in that position when the foot is weighted. Wih an athlete like Jeff, it's a different story. I put his foot in neutral once, and it stayed there, rock solid. On consecutive scans he put his foot in neutral without me having to do anything. I find that most athletes, even non-professional ones, have a much better awareness of their bodies than non-athletes.

Jeff was a very nice guy, and incredibly attentive. He followed all my directions to a "T" and it made things run very smoothly. After he put the boots on he looked like a kid in a candy shop. He even commented "to heck with the race, lets go skiing now!" Presumably, he's out having the time of his life today.

When I walked to the till to have Jeff pay for his boots, Sam was trying to figure something out in the POS. At this point it was around 3:30pm. He said, "it'll only be a moment," to which I quickly replied "yeah, it's ok. These guys don't have a World Cup event in 1.5 hours or anything." Sam quickly rescinded control of the computer, and Jeff said "I guess it's not too often you get to use that line!" Too true.

I got off work at 3:40 with full intention of going to see the race and cheer on my boy. However, around 4:30 I felt absolutely miserable and ended up taking a much needed two-hour nap instead. I'm a little under the weather today as well which is the only reason I'm not skiing as we speak. It's a huge bummer to miss a day of skiing, but there is snow in the forecast for next week so I need to get healthy, fast.

I looked up the race results and Jeff finished 13th out of 30 athletes, .89 seconds behind the leader. 5 of the top 7 spots were taken by Germany, and the top three finishers were Germany, Italy, Germany. Full results are available at www.fil-luge.org.

Arg...I'm turning right!

Well, the long weekend has made for a frantic couple of days and long hours at work. In fact, I haven't worked this hard since Christmas. No, let me rephrase. I haven't worked hard since Christmas. In fact, prior to yesterday, I occupied 20% of my time at work playing a version of Scrabble someone downloaded to the back computer. Consequently, having the shop crammed full of people was quite a shock. Quite a shock indeed.

I've gotten in the habit of arriving in the village every morning by 8:00am (shocking, I know) whether or not I'm working. That way, even if I have a 10-6 shift I can catch 2-3 hours of skiing in the morning before work and wear the corduroy off the hill before the tourists rouse themselves. As a result of my new routine I'm logging many more ski days that I was during December/January when my working, sleeping, and partying were only occasionally punctuated by ski days. I think today was my ninth consecutive day of skiing.

Anyhow, you'll be wondering about the title.

French Paul was the first to notice. He was giving me some tips for telemark and commented on a very unusual and characteristic feature of my skiing. I wish I had a photo but, had i waited for a photo of this particular phenomenon, I would probably never get around to writing about it.

So Paul was at the bottom of a hill watching me me make my very best tele turns. I pulled to a stop at the bottom and he said "Hey Captain Hook!" Apparently, when I turn right, my left elbow floats skyward, pushing my arm into a hook-like shape. lIt happens most often when I tele, but it was quickly noted by my peers when the trait carried over into the alpine arena. I'm starting to take note of it and keep my elbow next to my side, but sometimes it gets away from me and lurches skyward, unbidden. This has earned me a lot of flak. A lot of flak indeed. Typical comments include "Hello Captain Hook," "Yargh matey," "I'm a ski pirate, arg," and "Yarg...I'm turning right. Turning left. Yarg, I'm turning right. Turning left. Yarg, I'm turning right!"

Corona

No, it's not the beer. It's the skiing! Today Sam, Paul and I hiked out to Corona bowl to find some fresh tracks. It was a beautiful sunny day and the mountains were spectacular. Since I had a camera I got to ski the line first and Paul and Sam followed.

The very tight linked tracks through the middle are mine. Sam and Paul opted for bigger turns. I counted and I think the ratio was 17:4.

Here are a few more photos. The full-size versions are much more interesting to view, so click!

Sam

Sam

Paul

World Cup Bobsled 2009

Today was installment #2 in my introduction to the 2010 olympics--the 2 man bobsled. I jetted work a couple hours early and headed up to the Sliding Center to watch the race with Rico and Mette. Inexplicably, once we arrived at the entrance we were informed that tickets were only available in the village. A 5 minute car ride later we were informed that tickets were sold out.

Well. I don't take no for an answer that easily.

With no further ado, we ventured back to the sliding center and schemed to sneak into the event. This involved several crafted lies by yours truly, a bushwack/posthole through the woods, a nonchalant walk, and a quick skip/jump that forced me to jump into the bobsled track itself and over a fence while the security guards' backs were turned. It was quite a rush, I must say.

Mette and Rico didn't brave the jump into the bobsled track so I ended up by my lonesome for the event.

It was really neat. The track is much smaller than I imagined, so it was easy to get a fantastic view of the sleds. On the banked corners, the far side of the track was probably only 10 feet away from the viewing area, and the sled would whip past with a massive rumble right at eye level. I took several video documentaries to save myself typing a drawn-out entry. I hope you enjoy them!!

So the Germans took first, the Swiss second, and the Canadians placed 3rd and 4th. All in all it was well worthwhile, and next year when I watch the olympics I'll be able to say "I was there once."