Lake Louise - Nov 22, 2008

So much for blogging in order.

This was my first day out for the year and it was pretty good. There were some equipment issues.

On my first run(!) near the Grizzly Gully, I must have caught a rock and my ski fell off. Of course, this always happens at an inopportune time and I observed a large stump in front of my. The stump and I quickly exchanged pleasentries. After shaking myself off, it came to my attention that my pole had broken! The nice collapsable poles! Dang! I skied down with only one pole to the base of the Top of the World chair to find some tools. The break in the pole was just below one of the joints, so I figured I could wiggle the pole back into service. The tools at the lift were not quite enough, so I made my way down Wiwaxy to the shop at the bottom. They let me borrow a pipe cutter, which saved the day!

Back up I go!

This little detour made it so that was I not the first to venture into the Boomerange Bowl, which had just opened for the season. Dang. Oh well. The snow in Boomerage Bowl was fantastic! The fog was also ominpresent, making it somewhat difficult to enjoy the powder.

Throughout the day, I found lots of great turns on the newly opened terrain. Not that much was open, but what was open was great! It's a very freeing experience having official rock skis in November. I watched people ski and inevitably catching rocks and grumbling to themselves about it. I would catch a rock and be glad it wasn't on my good skis!

Anyhow, it was a great first day. The legs survived pretty well. I just went by myself. We learned last year that Erin and November skiing don't mix. She wouldn't have had any fun. A few more dumps and the Lake will be ready for prime-time.

On a side note (and we'll see how long this lasts) I think I'm going to stick to Lake Louise this year. After spending many days both there and at Sunshine, I find that LL has a better variety of terrain and the lifts are setup way better to get you to the good stuff.