Boarding Fever... Snow, Snow and more Snow!!!

We finally got some snow!!! After a few weeks of on and off snowing in Rossland where we were staying, we decided to head up North to some bigger mountains to hunt for some powder. We jumped in the car and drove 7 hours to a town called Banff, right near a couple of big mountains that were open for business.. We got to Banff and there was snow on the side of the road, which was very promising.. After checking into a hotel, we got up nice and early the next day to make sure we were on the mountain as early as possible.



The first day we went to a mountain called Sunshine Village, where they had about 6 runs open. It was still early in the seaon so some of the black and blue runs were a little patchy, but all up was a great day. After Dazzman giving me a couple of lessons on the first few runs, I was stacking with the best of them! :)
By the end of the day, we were taking black runs and all.. Was greaty to actually get to use all of the new gear we'd s ambishously bought on our first day in Canada! When we got back to the car, it was -12deg C and our power power steering had frozen up! There were so many alarms going off in the car but after we thawed it out (and ourselves) we were on our way back to the hotel.

So a little sore and tired, we headed out into Banff for dinner, and found out it was a wicked little town. It was full of pubs, restaraunts, and Aussies!! We had been recommended a great pub called Tommy's, by our friends Ben and Amy from Rossland, so we checked that place out first. Was a great little place that had great beer and chicken wings, as well as cheap meals. It quickly became our local, having dinner and beers there most nights.
On the second day of boarding, we thought we'd try a different mountain called Lake Louise. Was a little further away from Banff, but was a good excuse to see a bit more of Canada in the car.. We got there to find that only one run was open, but it happened to be about 5kms long! Man were my legs tired.. If I didn't stack at least 4 or 5 times on the way down, I'd have to stop to give the legs a rest! Dazza was almost breaking land speed records down it, while i was almost breaking myself every run! haha.. Was a great day on the mountain, and my boarding was improving out of site. I was linking turns and spraying snow on anyone I could actually pass.. As you can see from the pics here, this mountain was steep and sort of forced you to learn quickly! Great times :)

We retired to Tommy's for the evening, and heard there was an open mic night in another pub called Bruno's a little later that night. So after dinner, we headed there and I played a couple of songs on the old guitar. Was a great setup, with the owner having a wick PA setup and a heap of his own guitars that he'd brought in. He also had a bass guitar and a simple drum kit, in case anyone wanted to jam with whoever was playing. After singing some covers early in the night, I got on the drums for another guy who was playing, and thats pretty much where I stayed for the entire night! The owner of the bar Gary came out on the guitar and was bustin out crazy solos, another guy got up on base and we jammed for ages, with the crowd requesting song after song! Was a wicked night, and we finished up about 3am!

Still, we were up early the next day and headed back to Sunshine Village, where they'd opened a heap more runs. The whole frontside of the mountain was open and a lot of them were Black Diamond runs. As I was a pro now, with a total of 3 days boarding under my belt haha, we headed down a few of the steep runs and was a great day. The steep runs are easily the best, and it wasn't as busy, so some runs had a good 30cm of powder! As it was powder, we started grabbing airs off little kickers, and were even pulling some 180's and board grabs! Was the best day boarding that we've had and it def gave me a thirst for more!!
We headed back into town that night and went to Bruno's for a beer. There was a couple of crew playing a gig there who were doing great harmonies together, so we sat and watched them for a bit. During their break, Gary got up there again and busted out a few tunes, and then invited me up to play again! Was great times, with Gary on the harmonica and the place really started rockin when the other crew got up with us and started doing some harmonies to the songs we were singing.
All up, Banff was a wicked little town, with a great live music scene and even better snow! The powder snow there was amoung the best in the world and it was a shame we couldn't stay longer, but it was time to head back to Rossland to see if Red mountain had got any snow.
We headed back the next day and had to drive home through a blizzard!! The road was so iced up and was snowing like crazy, you couldn't even see the lines on the road! We made it out of the blizzard section and found ourselves in some of the best country we,ve ever seen. All the lakes were frozen over and the massive Rocky mountains in the background made for some great pics..

































We made it back to Rossland and caught up with some of our friends at the local Rock Cut Pub.
After telling them about our thirst for snow, one of the lads Benny offered to take us up Red mountain to board some back country trails, as the main mountain wasn't open yet. It meant hiking up the mountain for 2-3 hours and then boarding down for 2-3 minutes, but easily worth it :)
We're thinking about heading out there this weekend so hopefully we find some snow. Apparently there's a few bears and cougars out there so we're taking Benny's dog just in case! :)
We're back in Rossland until then, and then headed up to Big White mountain to board with Jaye from our Europe contiki tour. He's working up there and said we could crash with him. Big white is scheduled to open this weekend, so hopefully we'll get some great boarding done up there. We plan to stay there for about 5 days, and then it's time to head back to Vancover and fly back to OZ!!

The rest of Mexico, Vegas and Canada!!

Well its been a little while since my last blog and the trip has come along way!! In Canada right now but I'll gert to that soon enough..
After some great times in Playa del Carmen with the shop owners trying everything to get you in the door of their shops (to try and sell you the same thing the guy next to him had, and the guy next to him..) we decided to head south to see the rest of the east coast of Mexico.

First we headed to a place called Xel-Ha, which is a tropical inlet with crystal clear waters that has been taken over and turned into a tourist park. Everything was inncluded there for one entrance price so we spent the whole day snorkelling and eating and dringking and snorkelling and eating and drinking some more! Was a great day where we saw some great fish, although much to Nicko and Daz's disappointment, we had to leave the spear gun at home :)

From there we brought a bus ticket for a place called Chetumal (cos we thought it sounded the best out of all the places on the board.. Man we were winging it, with no idea where in Mexico was good!) It all worked out as we ended up staying in a B&B near Chetumal, right on the water of Azul Laguna (Blue Lagoon). Although the weather had gone a little rainy, it was still a wicked place to chill out with a jetty and the Lagoon right outside our doorstep. There weren't many fish in the Lagoon though, so wedecided to head north a bit to a town called --------- (Can't remember name right now).


This place was a tropical paradise that had been hit 3 years ago by Hurricane Dean, and the town was still rebuilding. It was pretty crazy to see the damage a hurricane can do, with the whole town still in a shambles, 3 years on. Houses were in tatters and trees were everywhere, with bulldozers working all day long to fix the devestation. We stayed aroung there for a few days but after Daz and Nicko found out that the bag of reef fish they speared that morning could land them in jail, we decided to head back to Cancun for the last few days of our stay in Mexico! I hear those Mexican jails aren't really the most friendly places to spend your holiday..














However, trouble with the law didn't stop when we got to Cancun.. After snorkelling along the beach past some of the big resorts, I decided to hop out and chill on one of the resorts beaches for a while. As I was soaking up the sun in the dreams resort, the other boys headed out to a rock Island with their spear gun. The lifeguards came up to me and said they couldn't snorkel there as it was too dangerous. I told him there were experienced swimmers and they would be fine. Anyways, next thing they decide to send a jetski out to the rock to get them but couldn't find them!! Then they started to panic and the entire resort was going crazy cos they thought we were guests and that 2 of them had drowned.. I knew they had a spear gun with them so figured they were hiding out there til the jetski's went so they wouldn't get in trouble but it got out of control pretty quick.. There were paramedics, lifeguards and hotel management all quizzing me on their names and ages and room numbers.. I was thingking to myself that they had swum back in at that point but the jetshis and boats were searching all along the coast for them!! Yikes, I had to negotiate with them to let me go and find them on the beach or at our hotel for 10 minutes before they let me go.. I jogged back along the beach and found them having a beer back at the hotel, looking at the boats and wondering whether they were searching for them or not! They'd swum back to shore and cut through one of the big resorts to get back to our hotel. Was pretty crazy but i had to go back and tell the search party that they were alive and not to worry anymore, the same thing I'd been trying to tell them for the whole time! Definetely got out of control fast but good times :)

Well it was time to leave Cancun so we went to the airport to fly to Las Vegas. We got caught out by the end of daylight savings so we were a little early and had some time to kill. You can buy anything over the counter in Mexico so Nicko and I decided it'd be funny if Dazza bought some Viagra! Haha.. He was in the chemist and the guy (and Nicko) talked him into buying the strongest ones.. I was outside videoing it and was so caught up in the moment laughing at Daz trying to tell the guy why he needed it, that I backed into a shelf of glasses and knocked a heap onto the floor! After the entire airport gave me a round of applause, we retreated to the gate, a little emabarrased but with a pack of Viagra! hahaha.. Good times :)

Man, Vegas was everything that people said it would be.. Over the top, party, party, party, and a lot of cash being thrown around. We stayed at a place called Circus Circus which was the cheapest place on the strip, but was still 1000 times better than most of the places we've stayed in on this trip!!
We met up with Dazza's brother Matty and an old flame of Dazza's from the early days in germany, Crystal.
The 5 of us stayed there for 4 nights and saw a heap of Vegas. There are Casinos there shaped like all the big attractions around the world, most of them where we have been on our trip! The Eiffel tower, The Pyramids, even one called the Venician, with ghondalas and all inside, just like Venice. There was also a Casino called New York, New York which was shaped like the skyline of New York, and another called treasure Island, complete with a Pirates show every night.
Another Casino called the stratosphere had a full theme park up on the roof, about 1000 feet above the ground!
With the hundreds of clubs, roof top bars and casinos, you def need a lot of cash to see most of Vegas, however in the 4 days we were there, we made the most of our time. We played a heap of Roulette, each winning a heap of cash over the first few days.. After our great fortune, Matt, Dazza and I devised a plan to bring our good luck together and play as a team, working a third of the table each. Needless to say the dealers are smarter than us and our plan failed miserably, as the odds still weren't in our favour!Never the less we all came out a little ahead, which I'm sure is rare in Vegas..
After watching a hundred docos on the discovery channel about it, Daz wanted to go see the Hover Dam, the highest Dam in the world, which has a hydro-electricity plant that provides Las Vegas with all it's electricity (Daz told me that). So we hired a car and drove out there (Crystal drove cos they drive on the wrong side of the road and she's from Michigan). Was very cool to see and was pretty crazy to think they built it so many years ago in 1935 (Daz told me that too :)).















Well, from here it was time to say goodbye to our old mate Nicko, who was headed home on girlfriend duty :) Crystal headed back to Michigan, and Dazza, Matty and I headed for the last leg of our trip, Canada.
We fly into Vancover and after hiring a car, headed straight for the Snowboard shops. After spending about 2 and a half hours there and a couple of grand between us, we walked away with some wick new gear, all ready to hit the famous ski slopes of Cananda! We jumped in the car and headed straight for Whistler (I was driving this time which was very interesting on the wrong side of the road!!). We just mad it to whistler and found that our new gear was useless, as there was no snow yet!!! Haha, anyhow, we stayed there for a night and checked the place out. Was a wick
litttle mountain and if the snow was falling, it'd be

a great place to spend some more time.
However, time wasn't a thing we had too much of, as Matty had to get back to Oz in a few weeks to do the silage at his farm, so we jumped in the car and headed for the small town of Rossland, 10 hours east of Whistler. Rossland is at the base of Red Mountain, a great little ski resort that is a lot less touristy than the bigger mountains in Canada but still has some gerat runs. One of Matty's mates has a condo in Rossland and let us stay there. Again, the condo is a welcome change from the backpacker lifestyle we've been living over the last 4 months, and it's good to have a bed, kitchen and loungeroom to chill out in and not have to move around every couple of days..
Again when we got there, there was no snow!! It was still pretty early for the season, with most mountains not opening for another few weeks, however we were hoping for an early season, praying actually :)

We checked out the area and went to the bottom of red mountain. As seen here in the pics tho, it was very bare and snow looked a long way off..





We relaxed for a few days, checked out the local pubs and even joined the gym there (Gotta get rid of our bellies before we get home!). We woke up on the third morning to find the entire town covered in snow!! We were stoked! We looked out our lounge room window and all you could see was white..








There wasn't enough to snowboard yet, but we went for a walk around the place with a fun board and tryed our luck down a few small hills. Not quite enough snow but we were expecting more. Still enough to hammer each other with snowballs though, so thats just what we did :)

Over the next few days, the snow melted, then came again, then melted.. We needed a couple of really cold nights and days in a row so it can freeze and make a good base. Then a bit of fresh powder and we'll be off up the mountain :)
Matty had to head home so we said bye to him and the hire car. We got another one from the closest big town, castlecar. This one had snow tyres, luckily cos it started snowing again the very next day :)
I keeps snowing on and off at the moment and we're waiting for a big dumping, so we can pull out the new boards and tear up the mountain. We're hitting the gym pretty hard in the meantime but we want snow!!!
There's a few other mountains around here that we might visit if they have more snow, and might even take a trip up to Big White in the next few days, as a mate of our from one of the Contiki tours is staying up ther for the season and said we could crash with him for a while. So plenty of options and we just need a bit more snow to get on the board. It's forcast for the next few days so fingers crossed.
Only got 3 and a half more weeks until we'll be back home in Melbourne. Man this trip has gone fast, but it's been the best thing I've ever done. We've seen so much and done so many crazy things, but it'll be great to be back home and see everyone again :)
Bye for now..