Thursday 14 November 2013

First Tracks

First tracks starts with opening weekend, Friday 8th of November. Jess was rostered on to work however I had the whole weekend off because we only had 1 lift in operation. The same night we had the season opening party at the Lodge of Ten Peaks which was a staff only event.

Unfortunately Jess was exhausted from a full week of work and decided to stay in for the party, not to mention we didn't leave Chucktown until 11pm and she started at 7am the following morning. So for all intensive purposes I volunteered to party on and see what the night would hold, unfortunately we were all vastly disappointed thinking we would have been better off drinking in the common room. Over priced drinks, bad music, and a few raffles which nobody knew anything about. Seemed like we would have been better off drinking in the common room to be honest.

I didn't make it up the mountain until Monday, Jess and I both had Sunday off however opted to venture to Banff and do some groceries and most importantly eat Chili's! It did not disappoint, it was a lovely restaurant compared to what we were expecting from Australian experiences.

With one lift open I rode up the mountain with Scott while Jess worked hard down in the cafeteria. We hadn't had fresh snow and I wasn't expecting it to be that good in all honesty, I was surprised to say the least! When Perisher opened one run, it was a 2minute ride down the lift line, here though was a different story. It was a longer run, although it was marked as a green (Beginner) run it seemed like a blue (Intermediate) run in parts and was an enjoyable ride with an incredibly beautiful view of Lake Louise. That was my first tracks, so now I will let Jess share hers.

Today was AMAZEBALLS!

First day off in a bit, first day to actually do something awesome! I must say, I really amped myself up for today, every customer I saw yesterday during my shift was asking if I had been up the mountain yet and I had to say no, I was keen to change that! Colin told me though that he was working! It was so disappointing! I am terrified of getting off chair lifts and I was in the mind set that I couldn't do it without my amazing safety net Colin to catch me and look after me when I fall. So I figured I would go up and practice on the bunny hill.

I was very lucky to have my day off line up with Bonnie's!! So even though I slept in and caught the last bus up, Bonnie was there! We went to the bunny hill first and it was so icey! The man made snow is just so bad!! After 5 seconds of riding down and hating it, I said "Screw this shit, lets go up the top!" and to be 100% honest with you, I wasn't too nervous! I was filled with confidence! Bonnie knew my previous bad experiences with chair lifts and was the perfect person with me, she kept my mind off it and I came off fine, I did catch an edge and fall at the end but I made it to the top relatively fine! I was so excited!

We took the first run slowly, stopping every now and then when I stacked it and when we wanted to take some photos! A perfect blue bird day at first! I was riding in a dry ride, didn't need a big puffy jacket at all even though it was apparently -5 degrees. I was so excited to do a full run, the first one took us probably an hour. Because only the one run has been open we just repeated it which was perfect because I really needed to practice and build my confidence up again. I did 5 runs total and by the end of the day, on my last run I was linking my turns, riding switch and riding on the flat of my board! It was perfect, I can now ride chair lifts confidently as well, I didn't fall after the first time! I am really incredibly happy with how my first day boarding went! I did stack a few times but I put that down to pushing myself hard to do well!

I couldn't of done it without Bonnie! She was with me all day supporting me and being über patient with me! I honestly have never been able to snowboard with anyone without Colin, so I was really happy to have an awesome girl friend around!

Perfect first day of snowboarding!!


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