Oh Canada! Part Two

Things have been great in Lake Louise Canada.

On Sunday, I was the only one who went downhill skiing. Beth, Pam and Bill headed into Banff to see what was there. They came back and reported that there was not much there. They did drive by the infamous Grizzly's restaurant. This was an establishment that I had visited 12 years ago. A fondue joint that took us nearly 4 hours to finish dinner.

They also checked into cross country skiing lessons. I stressed that we didn't need them; simply rent the equipment and go! However, all the lessons had been booked by large groups so they decided cross country skiing was out for this trip. And that was one of the reasons we came out here.

Meanwhile, I spent the entire day downhill skiing. The only place for breakfast we could find was at the Lake Louise Ski Area. After breakfast, Buffy, Pam and Bill saw me off as went to get my lift ticket. That was around 10am. I took the Glacier Springs lift first just for a warm up. The sun was shining and ski conditions were near-perfect (could have used a little more snow). Then I later took the Top of the World Lift which takes you close to the top of the mountain. It is also nicknamed the "6-pack" as it is a 6-man lift.

It was pretty windy on top, but the view of the mountains is much better than seeing it from a car. I eventually headed on the Grizzly Gondola and wondered over to the Lange area, where there was less wind.

I spent most of the time on the blue runs. But the Wolverine run, which was labeled as blue, turned out to be false advertising. This should have been a black diamond. I ran into another skier who admitted the same thing. Like me who stated "I didn't sign up for this," this gentleman stated "I'm getting too old for this much work." We were able to ski off to the side and avoid the steep moguls. I did do a couple of black diamonds, but just not into that much anymore.

And the lift lines in this area were almost not existent during lunch time. But by 3pm, I had enough and headed into the Powederkeg Saloon to meet up with the others. It was about 3:30pm by the time I arrived. Over 5 hours skiing. I was wiped.

However, Pam and Bill decided to give downhill skiing a try for Monday. They signed up for lessons starting at 9:15am. On Monday, Beth stayed in as she has not been feeling good this week. Pam, Bill and I had breakfast at the ski area again. After breakfast, I headed out to the lifts; Pam and Bill went to "get learned."

I came back around 11am to see how they were doing. Pam was having problems breathing and I knew this was going to be short lived. Bill was doing pretty good as a student and actually stuck with it until 3:30pm. Pam quit at lunch time. I came back around 2:00pm to see how he was doing and skied a bit with him on the bunny hill. I was hoping I could get him on the real lift and try a green run down but no dice. By this time Beth and Pam were in the Powederkeg.

Today we are taking it easy. Tomorrow we plan to leave Lake Lousie and spend the night in Calgary since our planes leave early Thursday.

Later