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

My ride to work!

There are two posts today!

I finally got my skidoo ride to work on youtube! Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plNrJsg_BiA

I originally started recording when I got onto the sled, but it didn't start for some reason. So it starts just after I picked up my liftie.

Enjoy!

Mike

The end is near

Well, we now know when we are coming home. I will be flying home (where home=Toronto...for now) on April 15th since I work right to the end of the season. Agata, however is coming home (home=Toronto) on April 8th. She was able to swing the earlier date and can go see her family, friends, and of course Cody! Now that we have the dates set, we're getting excited about coming home. We'll be hanging around Waterloo/Toronto for the first while visiting family/friends....all the while never getting further than 20ft from Cody.

I'll be heading up to Temiskaming Shores (formerly known as New Liskeard/Haileybury/Dymond Township), around April 24th for my cousin's wedding. After which I'll be coming back down to Waterloo to pack up my stuff because I have a new job! My job is back up in Temiskaming Shores working for Three-H! This is something I've wanted for quite some time and I am very excited about this new position.

Agata will be staying down in Waterloo to study for her CA exams for a few months. She has applied to Teacher's College and we're waiting to hear back from them. Depending on the outcome of that, she may be going to College in September. We'll be apart for a while but really, we were apart for 7 months while she was in FRANCE so I think we can handle being apart while she's still in the same Province.

But, until then I still have a job and skiing to do. I have some nice pictures of Agata and I in the terrain park to put up, I just have to wait until the photographer gets me the pictures.....until then here is a picture of me in some stylin' goggles!

and these two men are Guy and Simon when we were out celebrating. Our good friend Scott just passed his Level 1 Snowboard Instructor's exam so we went out for a "few" drinks.

Here's a bunch of us at the top of the comet as we're heading to the terrain park.I'll get the terrain park pictures up soon....I just have to get them from Simon first...

If there are any requests for videos or pictures, let me know in the comments section. I'll then see what I can do.

See you soon!!
Mike and Agata

My other job...

Sorry... again for the lack of posting lately. This one is really late, but pretty cool.

A few weeks ago, Mike was sick, and I was bored....

So what does one do when one is bored here at Silverstar?.









We couldn't beathe much in these suits... they tell me breatheing is over rated.

















Here I am helping Jeff get into his fat suit














and we are ready for ACTION! (left)























Jeff, Mike and Agata: the Hockey stars. My best position was goalie.







We went tubeing with all the little kids. A literal welcome breath of fresh air into the mouths of our Silverfox and Frosty suits.







All in all, the night was heaps of fun. I recommend every one get into a big fat suit and go tubeing, skating, and climbing at least once in their lives. Having said that, I don't think I'll ever do that again...

A lot to cover

Well, I haven't posted anything in a long time. I'm sorry for those who check this blog every day and have been consistently disappointed every time. I guess since I had family visiting for a week I decided that I didn't have to post. However, that's not fair to the others who weren't here. So....

First off, here is a short video of a hard day's work down at the bottom of the powder gulch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKUGRwWc1Uo

Yep, we built a jump. Even a ski patroller hit it with us! There is now another jump that requires me to tow them in by skidoo. We have a tow-rope on the back of the sled, they hang on, I go up to 50kph, and they let go and hit the jump. It's fun....

When I had my Mom, Dad, Andrea, Randy, Oma, Opa, Uncle Brian, Tante Barbel, Uncle Karl, Dorreen, and Nick visit we had great weather. Around -5C, sunny skies, and great snow. It seemed that everyone had a great time and enjoyed what the resort had to offer. I really enjoyed the accommodations everyone had, especially at the Snowbird lodge. From my parent's hot tub on the balcony we could watch skiers and snowboarders go by on the summit lift with the mountains in the background. The room itself was fantastic......all except for the bedframes. You see, the feet for the bedframe stick out really far from the rest of the bed and many people ended up stubbing their toes on them. My mom, in particular, bent her little toe sideways which made skiing a little difficult. But, besides all that it was some of the best accommodations I've ever seen.
The skiing was great and the snow was well groomed. Everyone enjoyed the runs and even Andrea, Randy, Nick, and Agata took a 3 hour lesson with everyone's favorite instructor: Spike! Spike still asks about everyone and says hello!
I think the favorite runs were Sunny Ridge, Gypsy Queen, Exhibition, Big Dipper, Far Out, Whiskey Jack, BX Express....there are a lot of favorite runs.
Friday night we took a ride in a groomer, designed for carrying passengers, up to Paradise Camp on the top/backside of the mountain for dinner. That was a great night with great, great food. We met a Finnish freelance reporter here on assignment to report on Big White, Silverstar, and Whistler. She had dinner with us and also came back to our place for drinks afterwards. Neet little piece of information.....she is on the Finnish Olympic Skeleton race team!! You know, Skeleton is the sport where they slide face first down a steep ice chute on a sleigh...crazy people.
It was also my Dad's birthday on the Sunday so we went out to the Den for dinner with everyone and had a great time.
Also during this time we had other visitors. Phillip Dilts and his girlfriend Tatiana! They came to see us and skied for the first time! They were great fun and we enjoyed having them here.
A lot more happened, but those are the highlights. If you want more, let me know.

When everyone left it was back to work. Eventually, Agata and I took a day trip to Big White since she's never been there. It was just after they got 16cm of powder but it was really really windy. Both the Gem Lake Express and Falcon Chair were closed due to wind. But in the trees it was great fun. Back at Silverstar we got another warm spell and it actually rained down at the bottom of my lift......yeech... But then a few days later it got colder and snowed like nobody's business. That was a fun powder day too.

I filmed a "my ride to work" with my helmet cam, got it edited.....but it's too big for me to upload. It said it would take 300 minutes and the timer just got longer and longer. The internet here is very slow.....I'll keep trying though. But here are some pictures from my ride to work at the intersection of Aunt Gladys and Wee Willie.

And here is a picture from the top of the Comet
And here is a picture of me as a judge for SilverStar Idol!! Same as Canadian Idol but...Silverstar. I know......I can't sing so why am I a judge? Didn't care really since judges get free drinks!!
As for today, Agata skied her first Double-Black diamond runs! Rusty Whistle and Doognog. She did very well!!

I'll keep trying with the "ride to work" video...

Again sorry about the long blogging wait.
Oh ya, We'll be coming home around April 15th.

Bye for now!
Mike and Agata.