Snow's melting... :(

Hmmm...6-10 degree days = melting snow...the end of winter and the grizzlies will soon be waking up...
Canadas spring started on the 21st at 11:26am. How wierd is that? why not start it at the beginning of the month? or at midnight or something??? that is so strange...

Anyway,
stuff...
My beloved snowboard boots have fallen apart, I've had to take them back to try and get warranty on them but it's been hellishly annoying in the meantime dealing with stinky rental boots that are way too loose. Sales are starting to happen and stuff here is so much cheaper than at home so Mum and Dad, if you'd like to give me an early birthday/christmas present...

The grease and grind which is the final staff party was held in the workshop with the lift maintenance boys doing the bar, one for you one for me style...it got pretty messy with pickled egg eating competitions and many a hook-up happening...Oh and I have to let you know....it's all true about lifties being drunk on the job...i think 3/4 of the staff on the hill the day after were still under the influence...I had a skidoo ride up to the top in the morning with one of the maintenance guys who didn't go (luckily) but we were still going so fast that we got air about 3-4 times and the last one we flew through the air for about 3 seconds, me holding on with only one hand as i had my bagel in the other...lucky i was carrying my breakfast otherwise i would've lost it everywhere at the top...

Went to Panorama on Tuesday/Wednesday with Bryan and Matty...it was fun...it was pretty hard in the morning but then softened up in the afternoon which made for some nice runs...except for the massive long one we took after a short break at the cute summit cafe which was full of rocks, moguls, ice and trees with a little bit of snow...the boys had fun...i was completely over it by the time we got down...we stayed in a place right on the hill, we had a view of the snowboard park and the chairlift from our window but it was like a maze to get into the room and out of it as the floors were all wierdly setup...p.s. outside hot tubs are so good...saunas are gross...

We've got a lifty party on Sunday which should be ok...going to Banff drinking (surprise, surprise)...Working on Monday, Gold drive station...ugh...that means skidoo ride right to the top...might take it easy i think...

We've volunteered to stay on as lifty skeleton crew for a couple of days after the hill closes (April 16 is closing day) which means we'll be taking chairs off the lifts so they can be stored...thought we'd do it for a bit of extra cashola...

So, our travel plans after Nakiska are slowly formulating...Here's how it stands so far:
Leave Nakiska head through the Kootenays up into Jasper National Park for some glacier sight seeing and more amazing mountains...this is the slow way to get back to vancouver where we are then going to dump our car and fly down to the states for Coachella...not sure how we're getting back yet...it maybe via a very long bus trip. We decided we didn't want to put the extra mileage on the car (over 5000kms return) which we will be selling when we get back to Vancouver...then we fly into Frankfurt...
Now, we're starting to think about hitting the easy button and going for a Contiki tour that will show us the good bits of Europe for a decent price and we don't have to worry about finding places to stay and all that crapola...I know it's the wussy way out but we're tired and can't be bothered organising anything...but we're reading up on some europe books Alli's got so i dunno...depends on the money situation too..we've both realised we've got a lot less than expected when we haven't really been touching our savings...wierd...hopefully with our bonuses, tax return, selling the car and selling our souls we'll have enough money to get through europe and thailand...
Any donations happily accepted!
Ok, I need to go now

Winding up...

Well, everybody has started asking the question of everybody else, "So what're you doing after this?"
Lot's of the boys are looking to get jobs on the oil rigs and earn some big bucks to continue travelling a bit and to just stock some money away...Apparently you can earn a grand a week working the rigs...I'm trying to convince Khan that maybe we should stay and he can work on a rig while supporting me and toss in his job back home...
A few people are hanging around for the summer...you can work for peanuts (again..) at the RCR owned golf course down the road. Most others are either going home or heading onto other parts of the globe or Canada...
It kinda sucks having to work to a timeline (Khan has to be back in August to start his job again) I really want to see my boys and everybody again but i'd also like to travel around here for a bit as I have no idea when i can come back to Canada, if ever...and it'd be a waste of our visas...i dunnnnnnnnooooo

Also starting to think about getting all our crap back to Oz...our bins are going to be full...wondering if the postage would cost the same or more than lugging our boards to Europe with us and throwing them in storage in Frankfurt...anybody have any connections in international courier companies???

We might be going to Castle Mountain on Friday..or we may go to Panorama...I kinda wanna go somewhere as time is running out and there's so many hills we still haven't been to!

Lots of love to Soph and Tim...I hope you guys are well and ok!

Sunshine is the bomb!

We finally made the trip to Sunshine Village (20 mins past Banff) on Monday to find ourselves knee deep in powder!
It was crazy...I got stuck so many times...trying to drag yrself out to not so deep snow...also fantastic for landing in cos there's no way yr going to hurt yrself..unless of course you find a tree stump, rock or some other nasty hidden object.
the visibility was really low and it snowed all day but it just meant we made the trip back there the next day for some more...
here's a couple of photos from the second day I forgot to put in the new album i uploaded...




On the second day visibility was great, sunshine was out and while the snow was a little tracked out there was still heaps of snow to play in...Followed Dick, Khan and Bryan who lead me to this cliff edge...I proceeded to screech at them there was no way I was going down it but then i realised there was no other way...edged down it then straightlined out the base so I could get over a flat bit that ended in a hill...found the hill was actually more like a lip and flew over the top of it arms flailing and POOF! landed in a bunch of powder on the other side...ha ha much fun...

People are starting to quit or just leave left right and center around here...combination of poor management, hypocrisy and bad people skills is leaving everbody questioning what they're doing here. RCR treat their employees like crap and get away with it because it's seasonal employment. A lot of the returning staff from last year are starting to question if they'll bother coming back next year. None of the lifties will be back..that's for sure...maybe the supervisors but none of us would even think about returning with the crap that we've had to deal with...anyways, only a month or so to go now and apart from people quitting, a lot of the Chileans and Peruvians are heading home to go back to uni so the place is going to start emptying out...and we're going to be working more..which is kinda ok as our paychecks have been really low the last couple of weeks...

Erm...I don't think i have anything else to report...I applied for a job in Canmore doing ad layout for a local newspaper and they seem interested so I might do that 3 days a week...get a bit of money back in the bank...Khan's ipod magically started working again, although it's hyper sensitive to the cold...erm that's it...more photos here http://www.3littlepenguins.com/photos/canada/Jan-Feb/index.html