So, it got cold!! Like, your face is freezing off cold. I think our new record low temperature is -36 degrees C, Chilleh! I’m very glad we got the down jackets, they are amazing at being warm. It is quite ridiculously cold. I stopped going for runs, coz I felt like I was going to give myself pneumonia just by breathing. Is quite an experience. We haven’t been doing much, it is the kind of weather where you stay inside and be warm!
We went for a walk with Yogi the dog (Craig’s dog), up the hill, and he was absolutely adorable, running around, and rolling upside down in the snow like he was at the beach in summer. He liked to eat elk poo, which was sad. He loved to chase sticks, and would go bounding through the snow, much like a dolphin through waves, and send a spray of snow everywhere as he slides to a stop in front of you.
Our last movie night in Banff, with some lovely negative temperatures, and the new headlights are much better, these ones actually light up the road. Dale also adjusted the height of them a bit, so now we can see stuff while driving.
Friday, we decided to go skiing. Didn’t want to board again, as we had plenty of boarding at the places we had been, but after a week of no snow, and barely any the week before that, we didn’t want to go again. It wasn’t icy (it hadn’t warmed up enough to melt), but it was solid enough. Groomers are only fun for a few zoomy runs. Off piste is all tracked out, and there are moguls.
Lake Louise has a fantastic learners area. Areas. Especially compared with Ruapehu, where most of the learner trails are either quite flat, short, very skinny, and have lots of people. At Lake Louise the green runs are mostly very wide, smooth, with a good mix of slopes, and with mid-week skiing, pretty much empty. Based on these criteria, I decided it was time to try skiing again…I have been keen to get good at skiing as well as boarding, but every time I tried in NZ, either we had awsum people to board with, it was a fantastic snow day, or it was very busy. I haven’t been skiing in a couple of years, and have only done around 4-5 days, over the course of the years before that. When I first started snow sports, way back before I moved to Wellington, I tried skiing for a few days, then tried snowboarding. I liked the boarding so much, I went out and bought all my snowboard gear, and hadn’t looked back since.
So, we went skiing at Lake Louise. It was a cool and clear day (read: freezing, literally), and it was mid-week, so very few people. We got some very nice hire skis from the local rental place, and proceeded to ride all the green trails, with pretty much no one to bother me! It was exciting and interesting doing something different. You can go pretty much all over the whole area, and still find green trails, so that was good. It was a novel experience, not having to sit down all the time, unstrap your foot, and sitting on the chairlift was super comfy, you get to sit straight, and rest your feet, unlike boarding, where something is always twisted a bit. Getting off the chairlift was also the easiest thing ever – even though I’m decent at boarding, sometimes getting off the lift can be a slight challenge.
Anyway, by the end of the day I was attempting many parallel turns, and even zoomed a few times, even though I didn’t always want to. I only fell over a couple of times, and while you could argue that meant I wasn’t trying hard enough, I was incredibly tired at the end of the day, like, ridiculously tired, and we were in bed before 10pm, which has been unheard of so far on this trip. The scenery was all amazing, and we both had a lot of fun.
Dale and Becca 