Skiing in Breckenridge

In early February, Tim, I and a few of Tim's friends from work headed out to Breckenridge, CO for the first ski trip of the year. I was so excited to be back on skis again. This winter I really felt the pain of not being in Calgary where I was only a 2 hour drive from the ski hills. Getting on a plane for 3 hours and lugging all your stuff around does not have the same appeal that's for sure.

We stayed right at the base of the hill in a place called The Village Hotel which was great. Rolled out of bed and onto the slopes. One of the first noticeable things about Breck is how high it is. The base is 9,600ft so you certainly feel it. I'm not super fit at the moment and even walking across the car park was a little strenuous! I'm pretty sure that Breckenridge has the honour of the Highest Chairlift in North America. You really feel this when you are only there for the weekend, without too much time to acclimatise.

Breck has a gorgeous base village, a pretty Main St decorated with copious amounts of fairy lights and brightly painted shops.

The skiing is pretty darn nice (Even if we didn't see the sun the whole weekend). The mountain is split into 9 different peaks, so there is something for everyone. The group I was with had two snowboarders, one first time skier and then Tim and I. Kimmie (The first time skier) spent her first day in lessons and then was tearing around the mountain, complete natural. Proud to say that Tim spent for time on skis this weekend that we had previously and we even managed to adventure around the mountain and too the other peak one day. There's pretty good beginner terrain. I was just happy to have ski's on my feet!

Spring Skiing at Park City, Utah

We managed to get away for a final weekend of skiing before the season is over for the year. Yay!

We took off Friday and Monday and headed to Park City. Amazingly easy to get to. A three hour direct flight from Chicago to Salt Lake City and then a 40min drive up to the base of the ski hill. Added bonus was that Ryan and his now fiancee Helen were instructing at next door Deer Valley. Ryan, George and I shared a house together in New Zealand one season when we were all ski instructing. So it was great to catch up with them.

We were staying at Park City Mountain Resort in a little condo right at the base of the ski lifts. Tim was brave enough to let me help him learn to ski too so that was really awesome. After a few runs on bunny hill we were up and about exploring the mountain. There are some really good progressive greens meaning that even beginners are able to explore the mountain and not be confined to one or two runs. By the end of the three days Tim was pretty much parallel turning, yay!

The snow was surprisingly good for  end of March. I was expecting slushy, patchy spring snow, but what I got was fresh powder and some beautifully groomed solid snow. It was pretty quiet there too, no lift queues and there were many times when I went of skiing by myself, leaving Tim with a pint, where I was the only person on the run. Georgeanna and Tycoon were my favourite runs so far.

The facilities are great, lots of on mountain places to stop and eat or get a drink, good rental equipment for Tim. What I love about skiing in North America is its all about the "Customer Experience". People scrambling over you to help. 

We also spent a day at next door resort Deer Valley. Which is where Ryan and Helen work. Now that place is like a parallel skiing universe. I read a really entertaining article about it, which pretty much sums it up. http://www.deervalley.com/about/ski-magazine-deer-valley-goes-extreme.html

It's all about the Customer here. There are gourmet restaurants all over the slopes. Amazing dreamlike mountain lodges and gold taps in the bathrooms. Normally you walk into the public toilets at a ski resorts, and people are sweaty from skiing, kids have runny noses and it smells a bit funny. At Deer Valley there was one woman in there with GOLD Gucci ski pants and another doing her lipgloss. Nuff said.

The town of Park City was also really lovely. An old mining town, there was a great vibe and some good grub. There's a handy free shuttle bus that goes between all the ski resorts and the town. We had a really lovely time and I would definitely go there again.... next season...

I am so happy when I'm on top of a mountain. It was great to get away for the weekend, really felt like my blood doesn't go round properly unless I'm on snow.

World Cup Downhill, Lake Louise, 28th November 2009

Last year I went to one of the World Cup downhill skiing runs and had a brilliant time. So I managed to persuade Tim to come with me for a weekend in the mountains this year. It was the first time we'd attempted to go skiing together, so I was quite nervous and excited!

It was US Thanksgiving weekend so I had the luxury of having Tim in Calgary for 5 whole days. It was a particularly wet snowy evening when we set off, seemed that Calgary was caught unawares so the roads hadn't been treated and were particularly treacherous. It took us a massive 2 hours to get to COP, a trip that normally takes 20 mins, at which point I drove up the on ramp to get onto the Trans Canada highway which goes to Banff, as I drove up the sheet of ice that was supposed to be a road, everyone started sliding backwards including me, most scared ever been, thankfully having a Canadian sitting next to me who knows what to do helped, and as everyone else was stuck too, they all got out and helped push each one of us up the road. Some crazy stupid drivers out there.

Thankfully the snow hadn't fallen past the outskirts of Calgary and the road to Banff was completely dry. We made it to our hotel and I was defiantly thinking that I had deserved a bottle of wine.

We made reservations at The Bison, on Bear St in Banff. We had had brunch there when we met up with Tim's sister in the summer and were really impressed and also had heard rave reviews from some of our friends, so were looking forward to having dinner there.
The atmosphere was nice and there are some interesting things on the menu, we had an unusual bottle of wine called Boom Boom! (admittedly we picked it purely because of the name) accompanied by a meat and cheese platter full of bison meat, duck, venison and wild boar. Yum. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting a nice meal in Banff, slightly elevated tourist prices but worth it I reckon.

The next day we headed to Lake Louise, we got Tim all geared up for his first ski in 15 years or something. I always love the atmosphere at the races. It's free to go and watch so if you don't want to ski and just watch the racing in the finish area that's perfectly acceptable. They have free hot cider and cookies and a marshmallow roasting fire pits. They also give out wee cow bells, meaning that all the racers get a rapturous reception as they cross the finish line. A great positive energy, and it's fun spotting all the "famous" racers ;-)

We then went for a bit of a ski, and credit to Tim he was pretty receptive to his ski instructing girlfriend trying to help him. heehee.

Opening Day at Sunshine Village!

This Wednesday was a public holiday in Canada for Remembrance Day, so we had the day off work. The very clever marketing people at Sunshine Village (a ski hill about an hour and a half from Calgary) decided that they should open for the season on this very day....

I made a call out to my ThoughtWorking friends to see who would take up this mid week escape to the mountains, and the four of us embarked on our first ski trip of the year.

Since the first blast of snow in September we've had pretty much no snow in Calgary, yet in the Rockies, an hour up the road it has been a very different story. Tonnes of the stuff. More than I have ever seen for so early in the season. So we were all VERY excited. I've never been a normal visitor on opening day of a ski hill, wasn't sure what to expect but we figured that we weren't going to be the only ones who thought that heading up there yesterday was a good idea. One good run was all going to make it worthwhile we decided.

With our expectations set (thank goodness), we left Calgary at 7.30am ish. As we got further into the mountains it started to snow lightly, and by the time we were 5kms from the turn off to Sunshine they were big fat flakes. And then we hit our first of many line ups of the day. Sunshine has had a very respectable 40 cms in the last 3 days alone. They had to re-sand the road so we all queued up to get up the access road, then crawled on up the access road. One good run and it'll all be worthwhile....

Good job that I had the company I did in the car. Never a dull (or quiet) moment with that lot. As we were nudging up the road a whole herd of mountain goats decided that they wanted to hang out on the road, causing at least some entertainment for us all. About half way along the road, we noticed that people were starting to come back down in the opposite direction, and grinning a lot. Odd. After another 20 mins we reached some parking attendants who told to go back down and park on the road, all the car parks were already full. Honestly have never seen it as busy.

By the time we had kitted up and walked all the way up to road, driven by our need for that one good run, it was 11am. All was forgotten as we headed up the gondola and got some runs in. Such good conditions for so early, gorgeous powder, and a great atmosphere with everyone just ecstatic about being back on the snow.

Our two last runs mad the whole day. The most fun I have had skiing in a long time. Not a care in the world. Now who do I h ave to talk to to get every Wednesday off to go skiing?!

Long time no blog....

Wow, I'm rubbish!

Prepare for a giant post with updates of love, life, family and skiing!

Love

So, as some of you may or may not know, I'm happily in love, yay! (About time too I hear some of you say, thought it would never happen I hear many of you also say) Tim used to work for ThoughtWorks Calgary but left to go and work for a new company based in Chicago, so he now lives in the US. We've been together for 3 months or so now, and split every other weekend between Calgary and Chicago. Building up the airmiles! We've been building some awesome memories, and I'm really really happy that I have him to share my world with now. (excuse the momentary soppiness.. can't help it!) I have just come back to Calgary from Chicago where I spent the Easter weekend.... and the next super exciting trip will be to New York for my birthday in mid May. So excited!


Life

Life is busy busy these days. February saw me leaving the "beach" at work and joining my first client assignment for a major communications company in Calgary. I'm working as a developer on the SOA team, giving me some awesome exposure to a huge technology stack and giving me the opportunity to work with some great people. The environment is certainly a challenging one and I'm learning new things every day. My consulting skills are constantly challenged, as well as my development and confidence. Certainly a learning curve!

The ThoughtWorks team on the account are a really fun bunch of people, so that's great. We even had a visit from some Easter bunnies this last week!



Family

In early March my Dad, Step mum and bother came out to Canada to visit. They were here for two weeks, in an unfortunately cold snap!

We spent a week together up in Banff, which was brilliant. We had some good early spring skiing. I got my step mum skiing for the first time in maybe 10 years! Good time had by all I hope. It was really nice to show them my new life here.



Skiing

Spring is sort of here (i.e. its hot and sunny one day and snowing the next!) and with it spring skiing. Anita, JJ, Martin and I all headed to Fernie about a month ago for a mini ThoughtBoarder. First time I had been down to that part of the world so it was great to see some more of Canada.




That's about all for this quick update. I'm going to make an effort to try and blog more....

Week 3 in Calgary

So, 3 weeks in eh (see the Canadian lingo coming in already!)

I'm still in my Corporate Apartment, I have actually found and signed the lease for another apartment, on the other side of Downtown Calgary, but don't move in until the 1st Dec. Looking forward to moving into my own place a lot. The final stages of settling in.

At the moment I'm up by the river, but the new place is 12 block further Downtown, closer to the supermarket and pubs and shops and stuff, so that will be good, and hopefully I'll be able to survive without a car. Its obviously smaller than the place I'm in now, but I'm confident that I will work out well, the furnishing are all pretty nice, as it used to be let as a corporate apartment. I will report back and send pics when I move in in a couple of weeks.

After struggling a bit over the first week, I'm settling in a lot better now. finding the apartment helped, so did setting myself a time to make decisions about my future here. I've set aside a year to settle in with both the country and with the work, and try not to worry about making any long term decisions until then. Also, whats been brilliant, is that there are quite a few 'travelers' at ThoughtWorks at the moment, be it over for a few months or a year, so they are normally up for going out and doing things at the weekend and in the evenings. There are also a few new starts so we're forming a bit of a crowd, which is really nice! Very ThoughtWorky spending all our days and nights together in a heap, but it makes it much easier to settle in.

As for work, things are still quite quiet, theres not as much work as they thought there might be (seems the story of my life at the moment!), so there are quite a lot of us on 'the beach' waiting for work. We have a little project going on, which I was struggling to find my 'place' on, but we've just kicked off some more analysis work on it, and feel much more comfortable now. Keeps us out of trouble at least.

We had a gathering of "Girl Geeks" last week. Its something that ThoughtWorks have started in Calgary to get together female IT workers from around the city, to share ideas, thoughts and experiences. We went for Indian food, and it was actually quite fun. I thought it would be scary and too Oestragen fuelled but infact it wasn't, there were a bunch of really interesting IT women of all ages.

Its chilly here, about zero or under most of the time, had snow over the weekend, but not got to the really cold stuff yet! In general the weather is pretty good, mostly sunny and cold, but today there was really low cloud, so you couldn't see the top of the downtown Skyscrapers which I found a bit odd!
Skiing wise, the mountains opened last weekend, with a reasonable snow coverage. Didn't manage to get up there this weekend, but hopefully next weekend. I'm also vaguely looking into re-instating my Candian Ski Instructing qualifications and doing some training sessions, in an attempt to keep it up but also to meet some like minded snow people hopefully!

This week I hope to go and see Bond again, it's only just got to this side of the pond so the others havn't seen it yet. We have a monthly staff meeting on Wednesday which I'm told ends in the pub, and a few other bits a pieces, lots to keep me busy!

I will be back in the UK over Xmas, from the 19th to the 28th December, which will be really nice, looking forward to it, only a month away!

I've included some pics, of our trip to Elbow Falls, of the park by my apartment and of our attempt to bring Friday pub to Calgary!

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