Bad Craziness in British Columbia and Alberta

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Bad Craziness in British Columbia.... and Alberta byl lan Hadfield Ig guess it all started in a pub in London over took his bus up to the skifield - a bit like a pint with Rob McFarlane. After the action Railways detouring up the Turoa mountain and adventure of colourful South America, road! the greyness of London in late autumn was starting to take its toll. Pints of good English We had a condo on the hill for the next five bitter were turning hardened muscle into days. Though a lot smaller than the last pasty white flab. The idea of escaping to two hills, the lifts gave access to two basins. Canada was beginning to sound pretty good. With the guidance of Barry the groomerdriver, we managed to make tracks in our In a 747 somewhere above the Arctic, a own bits of powder. The on-field pub with month had passed and so had Christmas. nachos and gluvein provided good reason I had rushed about seeing all my relatives for lunch stops, and the nights were not and getting as far north as Glasgow before without their festivities either - sleigh being turned back by snow. I was now jetting rides in bad beach gear, brandies in front along the polar route to meet the gang in of open fires, yawn.... Vancouver. Next on the hit list was Kimberly where The gang was Rob, Andrew, Jenny, Pete we burst in on Brian, the instructor from and Jill. Vancouver was the start of five Broken River last year. Though aghast at weeks of abusing bodies and livers, skiing our presence in orange parkas, he soon cheered British Columbia and Alberta. We spent up when he found we were only there for a week in Vancouver and somehow we managed a few days. Kimberly was another nice to fit in a few days skiing at Whistler and sized friendly field with top runs through the "Mile High" Blackcomb 'ski hills'. Lack the trees, though some new powder would of fitness showed when skiing the full 6000 have been nice. vertical feet back to the V6 power everything rental tank. Leaving with six hangovers after an all-night party, we moved on to Banff, Alberta, and Leaving the big city at six in the morning to the big fields of Sunshine and Lake Louise. on a Greysnail bus, we headed off to Fernie Their sheer size offered a wide variety of Snow Valley. Five hundred miles and 20 runs above and below the bush line along hours later we got there at one in the morning with uncountable lifts, t-bars and gondolas. to find a noticeable lack of 'the' taxi. Jumping The snow started falling about then and to the rescue was our Greyhound man who Sunshine Skifield Ian Hadfield

BROKEN RIVER 1972 -By Saturday after eight days of fine weather and eight days of hard skiing we were done. For our last day we wanted to do something different. We no longer wanted to ski the tows. We had skied every run in the basin until we could do it with our eyes closed. The answer was unanimous across the tops to Cheeseman. A small and tired bunch set off from Fooling Around in Vancouver Ian Hadfield Lyndon hut in perfect weather (our ninth fine McArthurs Park day) to traverse across the tops. Once away from the basin we were in a different world. we enjoyed some good powder and some There was only us, piles of pure sparkling really cold days, at -20° with all my clothes on, neoprene face masks and ear snow and mountains as far as the eye could warmers, I was still cold. see. The ups seemed longer than the downs. At the end there was a magnificent run down Back in town we bumped into Miles (Davison) the Cheeseman field. The vans were waiting in the Rose and Crown whilst taking advantage for us at the bottom and tired but happy we of the 4.30 to 8 pm Happy Hour. Later Andrew slid under a taxi whilst opening made our way back to Christchurch. the door, a trick copied by most of us at Our skiing was over. Nine days of fine some stage, sober or not - the pavements weather was just unbelievable. Never in our were very icy. lives before had we done so much skiing, and After two weeks of action we moved to we certainly felt that way. We all say Penticton, Apex Alpine and rumours of no "thanks Brian and please book us in for next snow. It snowed as we drove in and next year". morning we really hit the steep and deep, losing skis and occasionally whole people Paul Gazley, March 1973 in the deep fluffy stuff. The runs were steep with well positioned trees to stop you if you got out of control. Halfway down was the "Gunbarrel Saloon" bar, restaurant and spa pools. Finishing the day at four for a spa with spa-side bar service and a few shooters in the saloon, led to an interesting ski back to the condo in the dark a WANDERING HITHER AND THITHER drainage ditch like a bobsled run, a culvert, a crash.... If that wasn't excitement enough, Members of Wellington clubs have covered the next night included zooming on a skidoo in a snowstorm, saying to our driver, "Gee, every corner of the globe from Piccadilly to you guys really know how to drive on snow the South Pole, Times Square to the Hindukush. with no chains," just before we went off Often they return 1o marry another tramper the road and into a snowbank for a while. and soon the house echoes to the sound of the clump, clump of tiny boots another generation Well, that pretty much finished the skiing of wanderers. on a high note and we headed back to Vancouver for a few days before heading June 1965 home for a holiday.