Canada week 17, 18,19 and 20: SPRING SKIING

Its been a little while so time to write up the last few weeks frivolities! This last week's snow has been insane; knee deep pow-pow and bluebird sky days! Spring skiing is definately the way to go. There is only two and a half weeks of the season left at Norquay now, but with it being Spring Break here in Alberta there is still plenty of work still going on. Last week I saw Celeste again (she was one of my first lessons when I taught her at Christmas) and apparently she had to do a school project on a kind of, hero sort of thing... and guess who she chose?! Hahah it certainly makes you feel good about work :)

It feels like a long time ago now, but for the first time in my life I went horse riding with West. The snow was pounding down as I saddled up and jumped onto Dan (the horse not my room mate..) Naturally having taken an apple with me to build a lasting and fullfilling relationship with my horsey horsey I was amazing, I wish I could be more modest but there isn't any other way of describing how great a team we were! The only crunch moment, as Dan rose into a trot I bounced up and now unfortunately for my sexual organs the stirups were a tad too long and on the subsequent down my full 85kg force landed on two items that are quite precious to me. Compounding this already dire situation, through my blurred-by-tears vison we were speeding into the back of a car, a sharp pull on reins did f**k all and I almost fell off. Needless to say on the walk home across the frozen river, the distance between my legs was about twice as wide compared to on the way there.

On a night out a little while back, my housemate Jon bounces up to me.. PANORAMA!!! Yes, yes, yes! Fully consumed with alcohol the glorious decison was made to go and 2 hours of sleep later we were on our way! The powder runs blended into galde tree runs, into moguls then laps through the park before carving to the bottom. Without streching my brain too much (because today during a lesson I had to add 5 and 4 as part of a game.. yeaaah Cambridge material when I have to have it pointed out by a 4 yr old that its definately not 8) as I don't know how to use it anymore, I can't think of any other types of skiing! Simply is was EPIC!

Finally I managed to get to see an ice hockey match: Calgary Flames vs Colorado Avalanche coinciding with St Paddys day = vodka fuelled mash up leading to blurry green vision; 3 people from Norquay were escorted from the game due to excessive alcoholling :) The game was such a fantastic spectacle. Last week on my 3 day programmes I met Brendan Morrison and taught two of his daughters, he plays for the Flames and has played for Canada... sooo that was kinda cool!


Last Friday I managed to get back to Kicking Horse (again after 2 hrs sleep.. mental), and once again the snow was amazing. On one run coming down the steep Whitewall back bowl I caught my skis under the powder and dived head first into the waist deep powder.. I think this photo says it all. I was only about 50cm under the snow and yet I couldn't move an inch.. a slight problem when Tim did the exact same thing and ended up finishing his slide about a foot away from me!

Yesterday I went to Sunshine Village with Tim and Max for another unforgettable day. The fresh tracks coming down South Side Chutes, hitting 360s in the park and then a 20ft cliff drop to finish the day. Fortunately this picture doesn't show about 3 seconds later.. after landing i bounced off a mogul into another, lost a ski.. kind of no handed kart-wheeled into another and finished with my head lost in the snow again. Today has been a struggle walking due to severe SHIN BANG, but it was totally worth it! The last time I got this bad shin bang was crashing on the XL jumps at Norquay.. 40+ft in the air onto an icey landing isn't too ideal for the shins. In fact come to think about it that was probably one of my harsher landings. I pulled a muscle in my stomach, kind of broke my iPod, gained an evening of headache on top of the shin bang.. definately an incentive to land on my feet next time!



Since we have been in Banff, it has been a Beaver House famly traditon to watch Jersey Shore all together on Thursday nights. The gold chains, extraordinary use of fake tan.. not the kind of show I would normally watch BUT as they say.. when in Rome! For Kelly's last night in Canada the theme JERSEY SHORE, so on slapped the fake tan, the wife-beater vests came out.. and we are all DTF!! Its been kind of wierd these last few weeks.. firstly Feller left, then Kelly and now Yannik as well... still an excuse to parties and have superb homemade bugers, sweet potato fries and salad.

Less than a month till im home now.. time to start planning the next adventure!