Apparently I’m terrible at updating my blog. Over the holidays. During snowboard season. I’ll try to be better

From today until January 2nd, I’ll be away for New Year’s at Apex Mountain with Allan, Trev, and Crista. Looks like great conditions, too. I can’t wait! We’ll be staying in a neat little bed and breakfast and riding for 3 days.

I haven’t had much time to collect a post of all the riding I’ve been doing over the past week or so… so unfortunately this silly video of some friends at Christmas will have to do. We had just gotten back from a great day of Christmas Day riding at Hemlock and were making Christmas dinner. There was drinking… I had a really bad cold so that’s why I sound so stuffy… and J likes to dance. That is all. Oh, I asked J for permission to post this video.. hopefully no one else minds!

Hee hee

Oh, here’s a summary of the past couple weeks:

Days Riding this season so far: 8

Mountains: Whistler, Baker, Seymour, Blackcomb, Hemlock, Cypress x 3

HAPPY NEW YEAR’S! I hope you have a good one. See you on January 2nd 2009 BABY!!!!!!!

Okay, so I’m a little late on the Christmas posts. I really enjoyed something about this year’s Christmas. I don’t know whether it was the food, or the company, or the fact that I decided to spend the least amount on presents that I could, or that it was a White Christmas. Everything just seemed to be just right.

Normally we do Christmas morning, with waffles followed by tea and/or coffee, and present opening, and eventually Christmas dinner. This year we decided to do Christmas Eve so we could celebrate it with my cousins and their newborn baby. Of course, life always throws a twist at you and they had to stay at the hospital with the baby, but we were still able to pull together the family and have a good one.

Getting caught putting presents under the tree

This was also the first year I was told (by my parents) to save money and not buy any presents. I decided on a compromise; I would spend as little as possible on presents but still buy everybody something. I can’t tell you what a joy it was to just focus on something small but meaningful for everyone, and not worry about the credit cards this year. It was nice to just be with my family, enjoy their company, and have a great time instead of stressing out about the material aspects.

The dinner spread my mom and dad made this year was incredible.

The place settings were tasteful and very very pretty.

The turkey (thanks to my cousin) was tender, flavourful, and had the most amazing gravy.

The side dishes were great… broccoli and cauliflower gratin with different kinds of cheeses, stuffed mushrooms, asparagus and others.

My mom made a decadent chocolate lava cake for dessert from scratch with Callebaut chocolate…

… with about 12 different kinds of home made from scratch cookies.

The tree looked the same every year. A fake tree with fun colours and lots of different ornaments. It’s not that classy but it’s always fun to put up and we don’t worry too much about it

It was great to have Allan there, part of the family now. We all love him dearly.

And my little brother, who decided not to buy anyone presents this year.

And my parents who are so kind, loving, generous, and full of life. I can’t be thankful enough to have them in my lives.

I truly love my family. My parents, brother, Allan, grandmother, cousins, and aunt… I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such amazing, supportive people. And I’m glad to be close with them every day of the year, not just on Christmas. Thank you thank you thank you for being in my life!

Allan and I both got SIGG thermoses for Christmas. Yay! Just what we wanted, and perfect for snowboarding and backcountry. I got my little brother a Luke Skywalker toy from Japan when I went there.

What a heartwarming Christmas Eve.

Allan and I have both been pretty much freakishly sick over the past week. It got worse after the Avalanche Training course and has been steadily sticking with us. I made some chicken noodle soup from scratch… which I love doing when I’m sick. It takes a long time but it is definitely worth it. It’s all about the fresh herbs, and using organic, free-range chicken.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you had a good one… a White Christmas… and time with your loved ones. I’ll be off from now until January 5th so it’s going to be lots and lots of snowboarding as soon as I get better!

This weekend we took the AST-1 Avalanche Training course from Canada West Mountain School. It was a humbling experience. There are times when I think I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. This weekend was not one of those times. I was cold, tired, exhausted, and definitely not in good enough shape for the course. Somehow, I managed to complete both days and get the piece of paper that said I did it… but I wasn’t proud of how I performed. Anyway, I had a great time, met some great people and learned a heck of a lot. And had some nice powder lines

Check out this HD video I put together of the full 2-day experience on Seymour and Whistler Blackcomb. I think it’ll give you a good idea of how fun the course was and all the different activities that we did… including snowboarding Again, above is a link to the HD Quality Video on Vimeo. If you’d like to download the full movie, you can find it here by right-clicking and save-as to download. Song is “The Adventure” by Angels & Airwaves.

The first day was up at Mount Seymour. We were given an assortment of equipment such as shovels, avalanche transceivers, probes, and snowshoes.

It was a gorgeous morning… freezing cold but we really lucked out with the early morning sun.

There were 8 of us in the group (only 5 pictured here)… a mix of snowboarders and skiers. A really nice group… everyone was really kind and patient.

My backpack was freaking heavy! I took all my camera equipment, plus the shovels/snowshoes/probe, plus a litre of water and with my board on it… wow! Too heavy for me. Allan took all the food and drinks so his was even heavier.

I was super stoked to get going, even though I didn’t really know what to expect!

My new friends on the mountain… also super stoked!

The snowshoes were easy enough to use but it was reaaaally tiring hiking with them for hours. I wasn’t in good enough shape and I was huffing and puffing up those hills.

We learned a lot about snow… from how terrain, wind, precipitation, and solar energy all affect the way the snow accumulates and behaves.

Lots of hiking. The skiers were much faster than us snowboarders! I loved Andrea and Michael’s boards!

We learned to interpret avalanche bulletins and signs, and find the optimal conditions for us to go out on backcountry trips.

We spent a lot of time working with transceivers… doing individual and group rescues with the beacons. We also spent time looking at different snow formations and terrain features, talking about avalanche safety and awareness.

The backcountry at Seymour was beautiful! Despite it being -19 degrees Celsius + wind it was incredible. Fresh snow, sun, and clear skies!

The Whiskey Jacks came out to join us, hopping on our heads, equipment, and various other things they could dig their claws into

One Whiskey Jack in flight while his friend looks on.

Whiskey Jack on the top of a ski. (The orange tab is part of the skins used for climbing)

Day 2 we went to Whistler Blackcomb. We ended up taking the Jersey Cream chair up to Blackcomb and snowshoeing the rest of the way.

Blackcomb backcountry was really neat. We spent an hour or so digging profile pits, analyzing the layers and doing various stability tests.

I was really thankful for our guide, Bruce, from Canada West Mountain school who was extremely patient with me. Despite slowing down the group, I had a really amazing time and learned a ton. I’m really excited to get my own gear and head out into the backcountry! I hope you enjoyed the photos and the video and it gave you a good idea about what it would be like to take your own AST-1 Avalanche Training course

Now, we just have to recover. Both of us got a bad chill and cold from the weekend but Allan is really, really sick. Sucks.. so much snow and no snowboarding in the near future That’s okay though… Christmas is approaching!

Last night was the single greatest, most meaningful moment to me in Canucks history. My favourite player, my hero, my captain, and my role model had his #16 lifted to the skies and retired forever. So many people have had so many amazing things to say about Trevor Linden over the past week, so I’ll try not to be too repetitive here.

You can read this post about how Trevor Linden and the Canucks have been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. I got the chance to meet Trevor a couple years ago, and I can honestly say that he is just as kind and handsome in person as everyone’s made him out to be. Thanks for taking the time to sign my jersey, Trevor. You always had time for the fans.

Despite my best efforts to get tickets on Ticketmaster for this game, there weren’t any available even when they were advertised to go on sale. So I ended up having to buy them from scalpers back in September. It was worth every penny. I could only afford to go to one game this year, and this was THE game. I thought the #16 pins they were handing out at the gates at GM Place were a nice touch. I’m going to treasure mine forever.

GM Place really lit up nicely with the old Canucks colours. I still miss the old jerseys and the old colours. We were sitting 3 rows from the ice to the right of the goalies and it was a great view.

Linden imagery was everywhere, including the sides of the stadium.

Gino Odjick and other teammates showed up to pay tribute to Linden, but I cheered the loudest for Gino.

All the current Canucks players were wearing #16 jerseys for the ceremony and the warm up. What a cool sight to see.

Linden was given a Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing gift from his teammates. All I can say is… JEALOUS!!!!!!!!

Linden’s speech was incredible. What a stand up, classy guy. He somehow managed to make a night all about him, to a night all about his friends, family and fans. Somehow he turned around the spotlight on him, to a thank you to everyone around him. I was misty-eyed the whole night, but the tears started forming near the end of his speech. I have to admit I was really bawling by the time his number was being raised to the rafters.

There ceremony ended, and I’m sure many others like myself found it hard to switch over to the fast-paced rough hockey game that ensued. It was great to see the Canucks beat the Oilers, but my heart and mind was somewhere else.

I decided to go festive and wore Canucks Christmas stockings (with the feet cut out of them) as leggings.

I wore my Linden jersey (that I custom added a ‘C’ for Captain to). I’ve never seen so many Linden jerseys at GM Place EVER! The coolest ones were the old ones from his Junior years.

Face off…

Canuck players stand up and look out over the bench at an exciting fight taking place.

I took this photo of Burrows for Amy

This shot was taken right before the goal. Shame I wasn’t able to get the actual goal, but it’s a neat action shot.

GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a good win for the Canucks over the Oilers. What a great night overall. The folks at GM Place did a great job organizing the night… making the fans feel special and putting together something really memorable for Linden.

After the game, I stood and looked at Trevor’s number in the rafters for a while. Hanging beside Stan Smyl’s and the Canadian flag. I’m so proud to be fan of the greatest player to ever wear a Canucks jersey, and I will always cherish the memory of seeing his number raised.

I miss having Trevor to cheer for. I will always be a Canucks fan, but I can’t help but feel like it’s a little different now. I can’t help but feel a little empty without #16 on the ice.

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In other news, the Canucks just signed Mats Sundin. I’m not stoked. I want a good Canadian player to join the Canucks. But if he helps us get the Cup, that’d be great, but I’m still not a Sundin fan. Darn, why couldn’t you have gone with Naslund to the Rangers?! He’s basically retired. He was a Leafs captain. There’s no real educated reason why I don’t want him on the Canucks. It just doesn’t feel right. Isn’t this a step backwards? Doesn’t it feels like we just got rid of a Naslund-like character? *sigh* Didn’t we already go through this with Messier? I know there will be a lot of opposing opinions… Anyway. From Linden to Sundin. Times are definitely a’changing’.

Mats Sundin, Photo Credit: Canucks.com

We hit up Mount Baker on Sunday for Opening Day. A big storm had finally given our coast the snow we needed to get back on the hills.

I tell you — Baker on Opening Day is a good, good thing. Especially when it snows 20 inches just before you arrive.

I put together a quick video of our day. It’s not great in terms of editing since I threw it together in about 45 minutes so I apologize for the quality. It’s not at all indicative of the HD snowboarding movie I’m working on, but it was fun to do. I apologize for the shaky cam and focusing. I’m still getting used to using the camera. I’m hoping after a few more sessions I’ll have the hang of it. ENJOY! Click the image above to watch it on Vimeo, or you can right-click save as here to download the original movie. (You will probably want VLC Player to watch it.)

We woke up at 6 AM and were off by 6:30. It was still snowing when we left the apartment building. It was nice not to have to deal with many slow Vancouver drivers in the snow at that time, too. A bit of a wait at the USA border (and no Nexus lines at the Sumas crossing, BOO!)… and we were on our way.

We got to Baker just shortly after the first chairs went up. Everyone in the line of cars we were in turned off at the lower parking lot, so we continued up to the upper parking lot… we had our doubts if it was open, but sure enough it was! There was no waits for the chairs, and only 1 in 4 chairs actually had anyone on them.

It was pretty much untracked when we got up there. The area under the chairlift (see picture above) had a few lines, but everywhere else we hiked it was completely untouched. Awesome!

Our first turns of the day, we hiked for about 15 minutes to a spot on the Pan Dome face. This was where we decided to drop in.

First turns in powder were a little shaky for me, but Allan tore it up pretty good. What a feeling to not ride over anyone’s tracks!

Of course, I decided to turn on the GoPro camera on that run and lost it in the powder. I was so upset. I spent about an hour climbing up the face where I had ridden, digging and searching for the camera. Allan met me at the top and we spent another couple hours looking for it. No luck. Yup. You heard me. I freaking lost my new camera! I don’t know what I’m going to do now.

Well, we still had a great time. We stopped for lunch in a half empty cafeteria and then got a few more runs in that day. Legs were burning and tired, but it was exhilarating to be out again!

Can’t wait to go back to Baker. We’ll see where we hit up next! Tomorrow, I go to Trevor Linden’s Retirement Game… *sniff*.