I think John has forgotten that we have a co-located server he could upstream to.
2:38:22 PM   []

I flew out Friday and met JF 'Dynastar' (he's a rep for Dynastar..) who got us a free ride up to Banff. The end of the ride was wild because it was snowing. Check out how much snow was on the team van Saturday morning.

There was a ton of fresh snow Saturday (~30cm). Here I am plowing through some fresh snow in the morning. JF brought me a helmet fortuantely helmets are now cool. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but on Goat's Eye you could get above the clouds. After lunch Sarah's boyfriend, Chris, paid a surprise visit and proposed to her at the top of Standish chair (the photos). To celebrate we went to the Saltlik for dinner.

Here's a team photo taken on Sunday. I think at the peak of the trip there were 14 people. Adam was less experience so we did not take him out of bounds with us. Here we are (Me (blue) and Ryan (Red)) in the back country. After that we headed back to Tee Pee Town where it was really cloudy. I have a problem where I keep my knees too close together. That day Big Sugar was playing at the base. Here's The Doctor rocking out. At the end of the day we hit the hot tub. For dinner we went to the diner in town. On the drive out we saw some elk.

On Monday we discovered JF was afraid of heights so Dave and I tried to pretend to fall off the chair. Zoom zoom. Unfortunately for Dave he really hurt his foot after this shot and couldn't board Tuesday. Ryan on the other hand jumped anything (this photo was taken from JF's hotel room). Ryan also has nice ($400) headphones. Later that night JF spent hours removing the strap from this photo.

Unfortunately there was lots of waiting but we eventually got going. It was an awesome day and we found some fresh tracks. And I've got to work on keeping my shoulders level. Having hurt his foot yesterday, Dave retires. We cut the line again to get some more fresh tracks. We 'found' a good narrow trail. Check out this snow. How can it be May?? Ryan (aka Bong Boy & LOTI) jumps some more stuff. Heading in for lunch where JF tried to kiss the newly engaged, Sarah. Afterwards we hit the backcountry again. Of course JF was taking forever with photos so I tried to hit him with this massive snow boulder. I took this photo of JF and Ryan hitting two bumps at the same time. Afterwards. Here I am trying to check my messages in the back country.

Sadly all good trips must come to an end. For some it really tired them out.

I should also mention that on Monday and Tuesday the hill was empty. It was us, the national team (skiing on WaWa) and a few other random groups. There were zero lines and you could ski a whole run and never see another person.
1:46:05 PM   []

Flying out the plane was filled with teenagers headed for the Banff Music Festival. Result: No sleep.

Of course these kids needed a place to stay and that happened to be our hotel in Banff.

After two nights we transferred to the Sunshine Inn where again there was a group of young students (plus the national ski team and some model's for Columbia).

And then on the dreaded 12am->6am flight it was filled with yet another group of school kids. Result: No sleep again!

I know that as a kid I went on a lot of school trips and to all the people we annoyed because we were noisey, I aplogize!
1:29:24 PM   []