Day Zero - And so it begins

Here begins the account of the Fernie ski season 2009/10.

Arrived in Calgary yesterday afternoon after a fairly uneventful trip. Thanks the Dave and Ellen (Lynda's cousin and wife) for putting us up overnight and running us to Heathrow in the morning, and a special thanks for keeping the evening fairly sensible so we weren't totally wrecked for the journey.

Air Canada must be going through a hard time as the flight was less than half full so if you wanted you could stretch across one of the 4 seat sets and sleep all the way. They have certainly sorted out the in flight movies which suck far less than they used to and actually do entertain you for the 9 hour flight. Even immigration seemed to be playing ball and just waved us through as tourists rather than bouncing us into the main office to be questioned which is what usually happens.

Rob and Katie picked us up from the airport which is a big plus - thanks guys. When you have a long flight with a 3 hour drive on the end the last thing you want is to do that drive arriving in Fernie at 8 in the evening which is UK equivilant of 3 in the morning, So tired just came straight to the house, missing the pub and got an early night. It won't happen again.

The one advantage of jet lag flying with the sun is that you are up at 6 in the morning raring to go. Rather worringly everything seems to be going smoothly - too smoothly. So far the hot tub seems to be up and running ( thanks Vic), Cable TV and high speed internet is reconnected thanks to Shaw, I have put the battery back in the Ford Explorer and it started first time, all clocks have been corrected, answer machines, phones ( landline and cell) have been connected and generally we are ready for action and it isn't yet 9 in the morning.

Tasks today include insuring the car, taking the skis to the lockers on the hill, picking up seasons passes, stocking up with food and drink and doing a few odd jobs, lets hope our luck continues.

Why all the rush when the hill doesn't open for over a week well the answer is that it opens on Saturday (tomorrow). Ok it's only the old side and it's only for the weekend then closing down until opening proper but hey it's two bonus days skiing. I think RCR have concluded that there isn't much cost in putting on the extra two days and it gives them great publicity about how the snow is so good already and that will boost bookings for later in the season. Why people think that because we have a good December means that we will have a good March I don't know but that's how some folk seem to think.

The decision must have looked a bit in the balance as after the excellent early snow we have had two days of pretty intense rain in the valley and a lot of snow has washed out of town. I guess it's still ok on the upper hill and possibly really good at White Pass but we will have to wait a week to check that out. Best news is that there is snow warning out for the Elk Valley today with 25 cms of fresh being called for although it will probably be quite wet and heavy. A temperature drop overnight may mean that we get raincrust lower down tomorrow but it looks like there will be plenty of white stuff to slide around on even if you have to stay on the groomers low down. Fingers crossed for good powder high up in the Boom/Cedar ridge area, I think that's where I will be trying my luck.

So off to do more jobs before jet lag catches up with me. Watch out for the day one report. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.