Feb 21-28 Canadian Trip

Giant Jenga at Hero Pub in Kicking Horse
The whole gang at Lake Louise

Our Lodging at Lake Louise

Mark on the Goat's Eye at Sunshine
Back bowls of Lake Louise


Lake Louise and Victoria glacier from the ski area


Gang at Fairmont Springs Hotel, Banff

Fairmont Springs, Banff

Views from Sunshine ski area

Me skiing the ridge fenceline at Sunshine

Me skiing the trees at Kicking Horse


skiholiday2009.blogspot.com

To end February I went to Canada for a week of amazing skiing and fun. Marc Oettinger planned this trip, there were 9 of us on it (2 from NM, 4 from Boston, others from CO, DC, and Ohio). We skied at Kicking Horse BC, Lake Louise and Sunshine, Alberta CA.

The first day at Kicking Horse I got back on my alpine skis after 15 ski days. It took me several runs to feel back to normal, alpine skiing was sort of boring compared to tele skiing, except that we decided to spend most of the day skiing steeps, trees, and chutes. I could not have done that on teles. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful day.

Day 2 several of us girls went snowshoeing on a trail up at the ski area. It was fun, we laughed a lot and started happy hour around 3pm, headed back to the Lodge for hot tubing and then the Pub for dinner, drinks and giant Jenga.

Day 3 back at Kicking Horse it had snowed over a foot. I took the tele skis out and spent the day on them. Some of the steep trees we skied were hard to make tele turns but there were some challenging blues (harder than ours) that I spent a good part of the day on.

Day 4 I had food poison and spent it in bed. It was -28 c and 44mph winds so no one skied. We stayed in Banff at a rented house within walking distance of some fun bars and shops.

Day 5 we went skiing at Lake Louise, it had the most amazing views, some great wide open steeps, some good mogul runs and a few fun bowls. It was a good day but I was a little weak from being sick so stuck to alpine skiing.

Day 6 we went to Sunshine. It is WAY up on top of a mountain, above tree line for the most part. It was a very COLD day, but there were some fun chutes, trees and big wide open spaces to explore. Since I didn't know what to expect I stuck to the alpine again.

Next year I hope to do more tele skiing on the ski holiday trip. It was so fun to watch the guys and Denise, it is much more interesting and I have a much fuller appreciation of how hard it is.

Last night in Calgary was WAY fun, with a drink down at the hotel bar, a great dinner out and some karaoke.

There is talk about Austria for next year.