Christmas morning we skyped mum & dad and then Dom & Cee from our four poster bed. Cee proudly displayed her surprise gift from Dom - a broken nose!!!! We breakfasted on delicious granola, yoghurt & fruit followed by homemade scones then eggs on toast. Suitably stuffed we drove down to the Revelstoke Mountain Resort base, bought lift tickets and boarded the revelation gondola which took us some 3,000 feet up the mountain. We strapped in and rode down to the base of the Stoke quad chair and were soon another 2,000 feet or so up the mountain. Together we descended down the awesome Critical Path, although this is a blue run it was way steeper than any blue run I have ever seen, more like a black. The run went all the way back to the bottom of the chair lift, about 2,000 feet of vertical.
For the second run we went back up the chair and Geoff turned right to check out some black runs whilst I returned to the Critical Path (it being the only safe run for me to tackle). Let me tell you a little bit more about the run. The top third of the run is too steep to groom so I had my first taste of powder, though I am told that this is nothing compared to the amount of snow they usually have by this time of year. It was really steep and I fell several times but since there was heaps of soft snow it didn't hurt and was kinda fun. The almost complete absence of other people on the slope gave me lots of room to turn and fall. I had spent hours prior to our trip compiling a snowboarding playlist on my ipod to compliment my helmet's "tune up" kit, speakers built into the ear pads which provide a soundtrack to your day but without deafening you or blocking out conversation.
So I was happily making my way down the slope getting a feel for my new board enjoying the sunshine and generally loving life. On the groomed sections I found it easier to turn so I worked on linking my turns. I was cruising along feeling pretty chuffed with my skills and made a toe-side turn, next thing I know I am face down on the snow unable to breathe. I fell so quickly that I didn't have time to out out my hands, my ipod was in the purpose built pocket inside my jacket. It is a 30Gb video in a crystal case so no small thing and it acted much like a rock between my ribs and the groomed (therefore hard) snow. I eventually got my breath back and carried on. Geoff and I had arranged to meet at the top of the gondola at 1pm so I put in a couple more runs before heading across to the rendezvous. We lunched on fizzy wine and a granola bar then put in another run together. By now the thigh muscles in my back leg were on fire so I called it a day and rode the Gondola down to the bar at the day lodge while Geoff skied for another hour or so.
story to be continued...
