This mountain is MINE

you may share it when i'm done....

Blair (37) and his brother Jeremy (31) were with us for a few days and I can still beat them down the hill, and not just because I had a head start while he was buggering around with his tellytubby camera - Blair is more energetic than me going down the bumpy stuff, but I can overtake him on the carving sections: experience and gravity can still win over youth and enthusiasm.

mind you, afterwards my legs felt a bit like this....

and for those who know me, no, there is no finger. I didn't know he was filming in contravention to my usual rule that youtube does not need any more videos of my arse going down a hill....

Kjw rides again

The only Brit brave enough to risk the Canadian cold.....Or willng to put up with skiing with me 3 years running

Banff and Lake Louise - Part 2

This week we've had our friends Blair and Cheryl with us for a few days from Ontario. While Mark and Blair have been skiing every day, Cheryl and I spent some time in Banff and Lake Louise. The walk along the Bow River trail to the waterfall in Banff was lovely. We came across the 'Trail Closed' sign along the way, so being the law abiding citizens that we are, we completely ignored it. It should have said 'Trail not maintained. Use at your own risk', but I guess that would cost more if paying by the letter. Here is the view, but the photos don't really do it justice.

 Frozen waterfall

Here is the view from the main street. The Bow River is completely frozen and you can see people walking on the surface.

The following day we went to Lake Louise. We didn't need snowshoes to do the Fairview trail as the snow was quite crunchy underfoot. It was so quiet and I only saw one other person on the trail.

Two kilometres and 45 minutes later, this was the view from the other side and totally worth the hike

It only took 25 minutes to come back down and I'm sure Cheryl could have done the walk both ways in about a quarter of the time!

The Ice Magic Festival was taking place at the Chateau and there were many teams carving ice sculptures, and some were quite remarkable.

And proof that I was there :-)

Never underestimate the ingenuity of a tight bastard

Friday before last I got up as usual, drove to the mountain, uploaded on the gondola and went to tighten up my boots. Why won't the buckle hook up as normal? After a few minutes swearing and fumbling I take the boot off and realise that the ankle pivot piece is missing, so there is nothing holding the two parts of the boot together on one side. That's not good. Take it to the rental place up the mountain but they can't help. Download in the gondola and take it to the larger rental centre down there, same story. Drive back into Banff and visit every ski shop in town, but no-one has that part in stock. Drive back to Canmore and visit the only Rossignol dealer in town - they don't have it but offer to take a picture and send it to their Rossignol rep and they should  be able to get it and fit it. OK, leave the boot with them to work with and rent some boots for a week....

A week later, after 5 days skiing in a series of crap rental boots  I have got to a point where I have managed to find some oversize Salomon shells that I can get my own liners in- not a great fit, but at least I can ski for more than an hour without being in agony. Good news - Rossignol have sent the part through. Bad news - its the wrong part intended for a round hole and mine is square. Plus, its a rivet not a screw so the shop can't actually fix it after all. Back to square 1 - shop has gone back to Rossignol for advice, I'm stuck with a non-functional boot. I've already been round the car and DIY places in town but nowhere has a countersunk bolt big enough to fit the hole in the boot, so line Blair up that he might need to go shopping for me before he comes out on Wednesday.....

Prepare to bite the bullet and go looking at what new boots are available in town for a wide fit fat bloke piste skier, but I really don't want to be buying new boots now as I probably won't ski again for several years after this season. Go to the only other boot shop in town that doesn't stock Rossignol to see what they have in stock, and get talking to their boot tech who shows me that some other makes of boot use something called a tee-nut on the ankle pivot which gives a flush finish on the inside, and they have some small ones in their tool kit.....hmmmmmm

No response this morning from Rossignol so reclaim my boot and take it over to the hardware store - after about 10 minutes of hunting yes, they have some tee nuts, and the shank on a 5/16 one is an almost perfect fit on what I assume is a metric hole in a French made ski boot. Couple of oversize washers to fit the shank, less than an hour with the dremel and a file and I've got a cut down tee nut and bolt and a square washer that fit pretty well and the boot is back together and does up. Total cost $1.12......

Of course I'd be even happier if I had known about tee -nuts a week ago before I spent $80 on boot hire, and I would have skied better all last week, but its still cheaper than new boots if it holds together.

So what is the betting that Rossignol will come back tomorrow and offer to replace the boot? I only got them last season so they really should do something under warranty, its not something you can really break yourself so it must be a manufacturing defect, and it would be as cheap to buy a replacement boot as it would to ship it back to Montreal for repair and pay a couple of weeks hire charges.....we shall see if they do the decent thing.


Update - Frankenboot v2

Rossignol finally shipped the right rivet and the local shop borrowed a riveter to fit it. It lasted less than 2 weeks before falling out as I walked to the lifts this morning - of course I didn't notice until I got up to the top of the gondola so another day wasted. Found the missing part as i walked back to the car, so at least I now know how the microcanting works through an eccentric cam on the rivet. Found a tool with a solid enough billet of aluminium to cannibalise and spent the afternoon with hacksaw, drill, file and dremel and a lot of swearing and i have a solid piece that fits both square and round partsof the hole, counterbored to fit over the T nut and with the correct offset for neutral canting

given the problems the shop reported getting the previous repair out ( I loctited the bolt in) i fully expect this repair to last, and as its a one piece block i don't have to worry about it coming loose and the inner washer cutting into the boot plastic. hopefully this will now last me the season

Lake Louise

I decided to join Mark on his ski trip to Lake Louise today. Dropped him off at the ski hill then took the car down to the lake. It was the first time I've driven on snowy and icy roads and it was fine. It was a beautiful, sunny day and even though it was extremely cold (-27C plus wind chill), the walk by the lake was lovely. Here are just a few photos

 Looking across the lake to the Fairmont Chateau

And I decided to take a few arty shots as the snow on the trees looked so lovely

Next time I'll try out my snowshoes and walk some of the trails.

An old new year

Maybe it's being fifty - something dwelling on my mind, but when the most appealing venue for new year's eve is the Royal Canadian Legion for the only band in town that plays stuff you have heard of and cheap beer, it does make you question if reality is knocking at the door. 

So far most of the tracks they have covered are from bands that are at least half deceased ( including 'Teh' Quo') and there are an alarming number of orthopedic looking shoes shuffling across the dance floor, and I don't think Rogain or Grecian 2000 do a grey-t deal of trade with this crowd. And there is a lot of beige, but given I'm wearing chinos I can't cast the first stone on that one. At least they are not elasticated, although I sometimes wish they were. Must be strong and not give in, although the belt might....And I have got lace up boots, not velcro....

Possibly the only bottle of Benedictine in town behind the bar, and not a jaegermeister in sight....Maybe it's not all bad.

Next year's - Tijuana.....ai ai ai bang bang!

A Merry 'white' Christmas

to everyone, wherever you may be. It has been a glorious, sunny (and rather cold -15C) day today in town but it was snowing at 1am when I looked out of the window, so my first official white Christmas. When Mark came back from skiing, the outside pool was open so he went for a dip to stretch out his muscles

Baking is done, dinner is in the oven so it's prosecco time. The bottles have been chilling outside as there was no room in the fridge, so my first glass was a 'slushy' as the bubbles had frozen

Oh well, time to persevere with the rest of the bottle...