And so it begins

Arrived yesterday afternoon in Calgary after an uneventful flight and got picked up by my buddy Rob in his truck and whisked back to Fernie. Even on the drive back it was apparent that snow conditions were rather better than usual across the praries and just got better still as we drove up into the mountains. A strong wind warning in Crowsnest Pass gave an early signal that disturbed weather was on the way.

The story so far is that we had a huge dump of snow about two weeks ago since when it has been snowing regularly. The hill statistics today show that we have had about 200 cms of snow so far and the snow base at mid mountain is just about 100 cms. The really cold temps of last week (day time highs of -30) have eased and we now have perfect conditions of highs of around -4. Today it has been snowing (not that hard) all day and I would guess we may have had about 10 cms in the last 24 with no sign of it stopping.

The hill opened early last weekend (old side only) and everyone tells me it was pretty good. The hill is closed now until Saturday when opening proper takes place. More snow is called for towards the end of this week so looks like it could be the best opening for about 5 years.

Today has been taken up with jobs - sort out hot water and heating, activate the bank account, get cable TV and high speed internet turned on, get the car back out of moth balls and insured, fire up the hot tub, shovel snow off the back deck, front deck and drive, go to the hill and get the passes sorted and the lockers paid for etc.

Problems were - Shaw turned on the internet but not the TV so they had to be chased, battery on the car was clapped out so had to buy a new one, when the car got going the ABS light stayed on so had to book it in for work at Fernie Ford, all decks had about 2 metres of snow to shovel, etc. On the bright side I discovered that I had paid for this seasons lockers at the end of last season to beat the HST increase and then forgotten about it so I am about $500 better off than I thought I was.

By the end of the day with the exception of the ABS light in the car all problems were solved so on with the game. Tomorrow we start with getting the ski gear to the hill, sorting through the ski equipment to see what needs replacing etc - at least we should be able to have a hot tub afterwards. With any luck by the end of the day we will be ready to go with a couple of days to spare.

Watch this space - another day of snow to come.