Very eventful

Quite a lot has happened since I last posted. Well.....nothing HUGE, I've just done a lot of things. We're well into spring skiing now so we have the wet snow every now and then, which is actually fun to ski. The snow here really doesn't get nasty like back in Ontario...it just gets a bit heavy. It's still great fun. Agata, Bronwyn (friend of ours), and I decided to hike out to Alder Point. If you look at the trail map for Siverstar, look on the far, far right. Follow Eldorado until you see "Alder Point Access". It's a nordic trail that we skate/walk/hike for about 15-20min until we get to the double-black diamond run of alder point. It's quite steep and long and was absolutely fantastic. The cool part is that you get a great view of the backside of the mountain. For instance:

Here is the view from the top of Alder Point. You are looking at the back bowl area. The runs going from right-to-left are Free-Fall, White Elephant, Bon-Diablo, Spirit Bowl, and Holy Smokes.
This is a great picture from the top of Alder point of the whole back bowl area. That is the junction of Eldorado, The Rush, Black Pine, Here's Joe, Where's Bob, Stardust, Kirkenhiemer, Freefall, and White Elephant. Here's the same picture, but with me in it......I just make it that much better!

And here's a picture of Aggie and I. Again you can see the back bowl and Bon Diablo, etc...


Here's the group picture from the top of Alder Point. That's Me, Bronwyn, and Agata. We had a random Nordic skier take the picture for us.
When we got to the bottom, we stopped to chat with our friends running the Powder Gulch. You see, it was "Beach Day" at Silverstar and everyone was encouraged to dress beach-like. My friend Paul.....took it pretty well as far as a family resort can go...a speedo and boots.....that's it.

I decided to show off the goods...

That night was a big party for beach day and we all dressed up Beach-like. I just wore board shorts and a tank top....no speedos.

Next big event was when I decided to weigh myself. When I came here I was around 195lbs(89kg). Well, when I weighed myself a week ago I came in at 175lbs(79kg)...yep, I lost 20lbs. I guess standing outside in the cold, shoveling, raking, lifting, pulling, etc... then skiing on your days off does burn a lot of calories.

Now REALLY a big event. We are hosting the K2 National skiing championships. This is a big big deal as the winners go to the world cup (Whistler Cup). They are racing down Gypsy Queen and Bucked Off to the bottom of my lift. For those of you that skied Gypsy Queen you might remember the big mound of snow at the top, as that is the starting point. The ages of the people racing are 14-16 so it is young kids. But man....do they haul ass. They are racing Super-G and Slalom. So there are announcers, people everywhere, music (yay!!!), and all sorts of activity. I saw some serious crashes too. It's sponsered mostly by President's Choice so I've been getting hot apple cider, hot soup etc... delivered to me!

Today we had a nice powder day so winter still isn't over since we're still getting 15cm of snow. Also, as I type this Agata is going on a ride in the Winch-Cat. That's the groomers that groom the black diamond runs. They have a special winch on them that helps control their ascent/descent. Because the runs are so steep, the groomers need that to prevent them from sliding down the hill and wrecking the run. You will see pictures from that no doubt.

Oh, my good buddy Scott went down to Vernon and got a tattoo that he's always wanted. It was his first tattoo.....and, well here it is.
It's a massive dragon pearched on top of the earth with "Carpe Diem" on its wings. It is very detailed and quite impressive. It took 5 hours...STRAIGHT. He sat there for 5 hours and didn't complain at all. They only stopped for 5 minutes because the tattoo guy had to eat something. It cost $750, which was less than Scott thought it would be. I went there with him and I spent most of the time walking around downtown Vernon. I checked in every now and then to see how he was doing.

Well, that's all I can really think of right now. I'm sure you'll be getting another post soon from Agata about her Winch-Cat ride.

See you all soon!!!

Mike