I just got back from finishing my AST Level 1 course (Avalanche Safety Training). We had a 4-hour in-class session Friday evening, and two solid days of beacon searches, mock rescues, hiking, digging snow pits, testing the snow pack and riding in Whitewater’s backcountry. It was a lot to take in over the short course, but I learned so much.

One thing I learned is that snowshoes are dope!

But this may not be the end of my season. As you know, I’m moving to Cochrane on April 22nd. My cousin, Brittany, might come to pick me up from Nelson. We just might finally have our “moving” road trip together! (We were suppose to meet up and drive together to Nelson last fall). If she’s picking me up, I will be bringing my snowboard with me to ride Sunshine Village a couple of times with her. Their season doesn’t finish until May 31!!

Well, it’s back to the projects…I have so many to work on

So it’s official. I spoke with my uncle Scott today and I’ll be working there, in Calgary, for the summer. I’ll be working full-time in one of the warehouses at GFS (Gordon Foods Services). I’ll actually be living in Cochrane which is 20 minutes outside of Calgary. So I’m stoked for seeing the fam for the summer. Bryan, I hope you’ve been improving at beer pong!

Baxter and Donut live in Calgary too. So I hope to go to the city and chill with them a bunch as well. Me and Baxter are definitely going to hit up Millennium Skatepark a bunch! I talked to him tonight and apparently he’s going to be building a mini ramp in his backyard. If it goes down, you’ll definitely catch the photos on here. RUCKUS

Our winter field trip was from March 5-9. We visited Revelstoke, Sun Peaks, Silver Star, Apex, and Mt Baldy. We met with General Managers, Guest Services Managers, Terrain Park Supervisors, Outdoor Operations Managers where we discussed day-to-day tasks to development master plans.

Going over development plans of Revelstoke Mountain Resort which will be home to North America’s largest vertical and the 4th largest vertical in the world at build-out (6000 vertical feet of skiable terrain). And Paul being himself

Some shots of our 5-star hotel at Sun Peaks. And a shot of the clock tower. Here we are checking out the fan guns of Sun Peaks’ snowmaking operations.

The funky village at Silver Star. I love that place. Awesome village, awesome vibe, awesome terrain park, awesome trees, awesome steep, awesome mountain. And we just missed Tom Green! He’s at Silver Star this week. Road trip this weekend anybody???

Some night shots of the village at Apex. Cam found a gun and some of the guys eating a fancy meal at the Gunbarrel Saloon. Fun Fact: the King Of The Mountain scene of Out Cold was filmed in the terrain park at Apex. Man, I love that movie!

It took a few tries, but I finally got a shot of the whole class! Check out all of the injured people (Nick – broken arm, Matt – torn ACL and MCL, Jon – reaggrevated knee injury, Steve – dislocated shoulder)

Overall, it was a great trip and it was sad to have it come to an end.

Yesterday, the town of Rossland held a rail comp called “The Game”. It was part of their 110th Winter Carnival–a weekend full of fun for all ages including a homemade bobsled competition, a mountain bike demo by the Flow riders from Spokane, a parade, the rail competition and much more. There were three people from the SROAM program competing: Bailey, Cam, and Guillaume, and also our friend, Alex.

Competitors took 3 runs each where winners were decided by a cummulative score of all 3 runs. Skiers ages 14-under were up first, followed by snowboarders 14-under, skiers 15-18, snowboarders 15-18, girl snowboarders, skiers 19+, and snowboarders 19+. Now get ready for some photos (in no particular order).

The beautiful town of Rossland. You couldn’t ask for a better day.

Owner of Rossvegas/Ripping Giraffe Boardshops Emceeing. Spectators and participants enjoyed the music in the Beer Gardens and snow volleyball.

A preview of the course.

And now on to the contest.

I know this post is a little late, but I went to Kelowna last weekend. A bunch of us from class were going for snowboarding and a concert. I drove to Big White with Steve and Alex. We stayed at the hostel at Big White on Friday and at Steve’s friend, Mercedes’, on Saturday. The night life is wicked at Big White. The bars are packed with lots of good people–and even some not so good ones like the buff guy wearing a girl’s tank top haha.

So let’s to the snowboarding. We got two full days of riding in. Those who decided not to come to Big White til Saturday missed out on 20-25cm of fresh pow. Those unlucky people were Marie, Cam, Paul, Matt, and Jordan. But we had a blast riding together on Sunday.

I only have two complaints with Big White–low visibility in the alpine and the flat terrain (bad for snowboarders).

First is a photo of Alex and Steve standing in front of a snow ghost. Second, is a photo of a trail sign in the alpine. You can hardly see it and it’s only 15 feet away!

I was pretty beat after a solid two days of riding. But Sunday night was the main reason for my trip to Kelowna. I was taking photographs of Moneen, Anti-Flag, and Rise against for Truth Explosion Magazine at the Prospera Place in Kelowna. The concert was just shy of selling out, holding 4700 people that evening.

Moneen is my 2nd favourite band of all-time (next to Far From Heroes of course). The last is a cool shot of the crowd during “This Is All Bigger Than Me”.

Next up was Anti-Flag. They played a great mix of new and old anthems and rocked out hard. I was impressed by Chris #2 who I believe was a frog in his last life.

Rise Against played flawlessly. But there wasn’t much movement from band members other than the singer. I was also surprised to see him playing a lot of the lead guitar riffs.

After a crazy night of drinks, mini golf and more drinks with the SROAMies, I wake up to Steve pretending to hump me in my bed. I throw the covers off of myself and jump into a superman pose wearing my golf attire from the night before (sweater vest and khaki pants). It’s time to go to Red Mountain.

So we drive to the resort in Rossland. It’s a perfect blue-bird day. Okay… it was a little chilly, but still. The only thing I can really say about Red is that I LOVE that place! No new snow in 5 days and it’s still the best resort I’ve been to so far. It’s a small resort with a big mountain. Actually, two mountains. Red Mountain is 2900 vertical feet. It has loads of gnarly terrain full of steep pitches, nicely spaced treelines, and cliffs.

Here’s me at the top of the Motherlode Lift at Red Mountain. And me and Steve goofing around in the trees.

Here’s another shot of me at the top of the Motherlode Lift. Above cloud line yee!

If you ever get the chance to go to Red, GO! And chances are, you’ll probably even see me working there. So say hi!

I made it back to Nelson Tuesday morning. It’s great to be around snow again! There’s so much here in the Kootenays. I went riding Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Each day was full of knee-deep and, in some parts, almost waist-deep powder. Over the past 3 days, Whitewater has gotten over 50cm of snow.

Aside from that, I started classes again. Second semester should be a little easier than the first (I hope). We have nine classes. They are, Organizational Leadership, Ski Area Risk Prevention Management, Database Management, Ski Rental/Retail Shop Management, Guest Services and Ticket Office Operations, Accounting, Slope Grooming Operations, Snow Making Operations, and Snow Safety/Ski Patrol Operations. So it’s going to be a fun and busy semester.

I also started playing badminton again. The Nelson Badminton Club plays Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll be able to play at least once a week. And Today I played squash with Abby. And good news, my wrist is feeling good with these racket sports.

Me, Britt, and Bryan went to Drumheller, AB today. It’s almost two hours east of Calgary. The Drumheller Valley is in the part of Alberta known as The Badlands. It’s full of hills, coulees, and hoodoos. Of course, the area looks totally different in the winter. I could only imagine what it’s like in the summer.

Bones of many dinosaurs were found in the area–the first being the skull of an Albertasaurus (similar to a T-Rex, only smaller). To hold onto it’s historical past (from 60-70 million years ago), Drumheller has about 30 statues of dinosaurs throughout the town and is home to the largest statue of a dinosaur in Canada a T-Rex that stands over 86ft tall).

We also checked out the, I guess, village of Wayne. Wayne is pretty much a ghost town with a current population of 42.

On our way back from visiting the hoodoos, we walked (and ran) across a suspension bridge. That was pretty fun. Kind of scary too.

Me and Britt went to Sunshine Village today. We left around 9:30am and were on the access road to the resort within the hour (we made damn good time!). Too bad the place was PACKED today. We didn’t make it to the ticket office until noon!

We rode up the gondola (pronounced gond-ole-a [that's the fun way to say it]). Then Britt went to strap into her brand new board and the boots didn’t fit in the bindings!! Turns out the salesman sold her men’s boots with women’s bindings.

So we headed to the retail shop where we ran into Stewart! He’s a manager (I forget for which department) at Sunshine. We met him on our Fall field trip back in November. We talked for a few minutes and he gave Britt a deal–half price for board/bindings rental. That was very nice of him. Thanks again Stewart.

So it was now 1pm and we were finally headed up the Strawberry chair lift. We stayed in this area all day because Britt is still a beginner. But she did great today! She stayed on her feet and I only caught her fall on her behind once. Of course I laughed at her for that one.

We’re going back to Sunshine on Saturday. This time I will take her up a bigger lift and get her a nice, long run on the cat track back to the bottom. We’ll have to work on her toe-edge carving too!

But overall, I had a great impression of Sunshine. There is ample terrain and I was drooling over a bunch of untouched powder that I saw. Saturday should be good!

I went to Lake Louise today with Mikey. I had a blast with him. The conditions were brutal–it was cold, windy, and there was no new snow, but it was still fun!

We took the Greyhound bus from Calgary to Lake Louise a little after 8am and arrived at the resort around 11am. Also, when we arrived at the resort, I realised that I had forgotten my glasses on the bus! So I hope to get those back. If not, I guess I’ll just have to buy a new pair.

Now about the riding. As mentioned above, the conditions were terrible. Along with those conditions, one thing that I really did not like about Lake Louise is that there are TONS of mogul runs. They just pop up out of nowhere! Visibility was also bad high in the alpine. There were parts where we couldn’t see what was coming next so just to be safe, we went slow.

I know I’m really nitpicking at the resort. But I do feel that I caught it on a bad day. There is ample terrain to work with and it has so much potential on a nice powder day. Also, the lodges were beautiful and workers were friendly and helpful. I only hope that next time I ride at Lake Louise that I catch it on a nice powder day.

P.S. Photos will be added to this post after the holidays when I’m back at home with my computer.