New Year's

This is the first New Year's eve that I remember from most recent times that I haven't skiied out to a hut/cabin to celebrate the new year (aside from when I was in Thunder Bay last year).  Seems like the usual suspects were spread out.

Not that we didn't have fun though!  Jenn and I went to see D.S. & N.K. and stayed with them for a few days at their new home in Whistler (D.S. = yuppie).  We dropped some coin and went skiing a couple of days, had fun - Whistler/Blackcomb are huge together and quite big on their own rights.  Jenn and I took the Peak-to-Peak at the end of the day with DS to experience the gondola and to ski down.  It was Jenn's first time and we were enshrouded in clouds, so she couldn't really see how high up we were.  Good stuff - hard to imagine that it is really only has two supports throughout the entire thing, not counting the ends.

We were later met up with El Matador Gigante & Zhan-ay as well as BG and the 'fra who made it for New Year's Eve.  Good times.  Had some sparkling wine, saw a pathetic firework display, a lot of walking in the snow, drank crazy BG drinks, a little Wii, lots of snowballs (mostly by BG, but us other boys kept up), DS pizza and breakfast, BG flambe (almost burnt down the new townhouse) & oysters...

Thanks to DS and especially NK who had to put up with us all the while still having to get up early to go to work on the hill.  And they gave up their bed!  Much appreciated!!

Oi - first day of work was rough...

Gone Hikin'...

It was a beautiful weekend this past one.  El Matador Gigante suggested we go for a hike.

It may have been a bit early to go without snowshoes but it was packed enough that using snowshoes was just silly.  The pay off at the top was pretty good though...

Sea of Fog

We have a ski & snowboard team at our school and I am helping out.  So, we hopped onto the school bus and took the 15 minute drive to Grouse Mountain to go skiing.  By the time that we got out of the gondola at the base of the ski hill, Metro Vancouver was enshrouded in fog. What you are seeing is not the ocean but the top of the fog layer.  You can see where the upper parts of North Vancouver escaped the fog, but the rest...fog.  Which is too bad because above it are beautiful clear and sunny skies!!  These are from my phone, so not the best quality.  The second picture is at night and you can see concentrated portions of light glowing through the fog.  The horizon is quite high in these pictures; you can see a smaller light island about midway up and a little to the right.  That is some building, I think the new Shangri-la monster.  I didn't go skiing but I'll go next time.  With this fog comes a temperature inversion so it is really warm at the ski hills making the slopes quite icy.  We're in for some snow this weekend so maybe it'll be better when I go next time.  It's kind of neat because our students take city transit to get to the ski hill!