ZOMG!

Why the ZOMG? ("oh my god" pronounced "zoh my god" for coolness, for you nOoBs out there) It's because the 1st ski hill is open here! I don't even have my pass yet!! What am I do do?!!? The rest are opening on the 10th. Sakes alive!! Definitely looking forward to this. Especially the 6 days off I'll have right around the 10th. Oh man!

So what else is going on? I've started management training here at the Banff restuarant and it's going well so far. It's difficult because we've been extremely dead - we didn't even hit $2,000 yesterday. Hard to learn when you're just standing around with nothing to do. But I did hit upon a side job in tutoring a co-workers kids in math for $20/hour. Not too shabby! Little extra spending money (who am I kidding? It's ALL spending money right now :p)

Calgary is probably not too far away.

It continues to be freezing cold. For my American viewers, it's been 5-14 degrees during the day. For all others, about -15 to -10...and it's only early November!! As you might imagine, the roads are as icy as all get out and, try as I might, I haven't been able to lose control of my car. A good buy! Something interesting about Banff too: not only is it too cold anyway, but since it's a national park, they don't use salt on the roads. It's all sand. I'm actually happy about this because it's so much easier on cars. Btw, my windshield wipers have been glued to my car pretty well every morning. I've started putting them up.

Sulphur Mountain

A couple days ago I took a hike up Sulphur Mountain before work. This is the mountain with the gondola that goes up it and a restuarant and everything else on top for the tourists. There's also an old weather station up there that a guy with the last name of Sulphur used to walk up every 2 weeks for 3 days at a time. Of course, there was no trail. Supposedly it took him 9 hours up in snowshoes. I'm sure it was uphill both ways too.

Anyway, there was more new-fallen snow and the sun was shining with no clouds in the sky, so I hike seemed in order. I chose this one because I knew I could get a free gondola ride down (honestly, who likes hiking down? Nobody. It's murder on your knees). I was also excited for a winter hike because I bought new ski poles on a huge sale the day before and was anxious to do SOMETHING related to skiing, even if only barely.

So out I trudged with all my winter gear and ski poles (without the baskets) and started hiking. The trail is 5.5km long and 700m vertical (over 3miles and about .5mi vertical). The hike was both awesome and disappointing.

It was awesome because I was climbing the east side of the mountain and there was no wind at all. SO even though it was well below freezing, it felt quite warm. Also, there was no wind to knock the snow off the trees, so the entire forest was still covered in snow. The views through breaks in the trees were equally breathtaking.

What could be disappointing about this? Well first off, there were too many trees. Most of what I saw was trees, trees, and more trees. Got a little dull. Second, there were too many people. While Vanessa would probably think I was completely alone, I probably saw about 6 other people while I was hiking and frequently had to stop hiking to allow the guy in front of me to get further ahead. What a nuisance!! Also, the gondola was squeaky and the trail runs under the gondola line for a lot of the way.

When I got to the top, things were definitely different. The mountain has a very small ridgeline on the top and the trail goes right up to it. So after about 90 minutes of nothing beside me but mountainside, suddenly, within a few steps, there was nothing on that side of me but....nothing. It also immediately got brutally cold because the wind started hitting me square on. I unforutnately had no camera, but luckily there was an artist on top to capture the moment:

What a masterpiece! There's me standing on top of the mountain with my big, beefy arms and my ski poles on my back like swords!! And then a little ways down are the tourists that can't take it on the top of the mountain. Silly tourists!! And the camerman even got the wind in the photo! Not sure how he did that but I'd say it's swell!!

The Hostel

Went up to "The Hostel" last night. Wow is that cool. As you might imagine, it's a place for everybody that comes out here without a job to stay. They put you up in a room, and get you working there somewhere in housekeeping, dishwashing, or whatever while you find a job. Swell!! They even have a bar, which is where we were, and the great fun about it was that everybody there had at least one thing in common: we're all away from home and have a personality willing to do something crazy like this. So it was like Cheers, even though pretty well nobody knew anybody else.

Also, they have lots of cool resources there like the board for people who need rides or riders. Looks like I may be able to make it home sometime in the Spring and, if so, I can go up there, put my name, phone number, and destination on the board under "need a rider" and "BAM" - i save 1/2 on gas and stuff. Woot!