Monday, March 26, 2012

Rossland

Just got back from five days in Rossland. It was unreal! I think its maybe the best place on earth. No joke!  we had awesome snow everyday. No traffic lights. and we had about 20 mountains you can ski 5min drive from town. Melanie and I drove the trusty tercel out and stopped at manning park on the way out. We did a bunch of laps of mt Kelly before the snow turned to soft serve but the first couple laps were deep and fluffy. Then in Rossland we skied Mt Lepsoe, Mt Kirkup, mt Plewman, and then on the last day we skied mt Elgood. Melanie grew up in North Bay Ontario and went to High school with Steve Omischl, so we hooked up with him for a couple laps. What a great trip, enjoy the photos.
Melanie Vonpowder

skining up with the manning park works yard in the background. 

Mt Kelly was oh so good! 

in yo face!

first morning in Rossland we woke to this on the car. so we were off to the Nancy Greene  summit to see what we could find. 

this is also the very same parking lot for the 7 summits mt bike trail. 

skin up

there are all kinds of these little huts all over. this one was the sunspot hut. 

found this in the hut. very funny. 

von, you missed the pillow huck off to your right. 

more skin. 

dont touch the remote, you might get sick. 

the next day we headed up the old glory trail but then headed up mt Kirkup. I thought it was the best day of the trip. the snow was deep and the sun was out. The sun was making the hoar frost glimmer much like it does in North Bay. 

check out the cougar tracks in the skin track. oh so bad. 

up on kirk up. 

the top couple hundred meters were really nice open glades, we were the first ones up there that day. The total run back to the car was 680m, it was a real leg burner. 

Mel on top of the world. 

Not a bad start to the day. 

yes deep!

for the last run of the day we randomly ran into Steve O, James Minifie a honch rando racer, and a dude man from Colorado named Jason. we met the them at the top of Kirkup and then we all just killed the down. It was a full dude man run for sure.

Next day we went up Plewman, I only have this photo. It was a good one but  things were starting to warm up. we still found the goods but had to look to north facing or shaded areas. 

we did a saturday afternoon drive around rossland looking for a house to buy and ran into these little guys running around the streets. Etsell, can you maybe catch those turkeys?

Last day was a half day cause we also did the 7hr drive back to the traffic light infested fraser valley. we skied Mt Elgood with Steve and James. snow was good at the top then soon turned to tree bombs and mush at the bottom, but a fun day for sure.

vonskin

Mel, James, and Steveo on the summit of mt Elgood. 

Monday, March 19, 2012

Poutine Party.

Last week a couple of old Frenchie bike racers came to BC. Matt Toulouse was an old team mate of mine and George Visser was a legend just before my time. I only raced George a couple times as a young buck way back in the day. This time however the boys come out to shred the pow and enjoy some beer along the way. Rather then breathe through their eyeballs and eat spinach smoothies and power bars. They brought along with them Jeff Rivest who was National team white water freestyle guy back in the 90's. To top it all off the King of the Shore himself decided to grace us with his presence, yes none other then Marty Lazarski himself. We hit Whistler on day one then did two days and a night in Keith's Hut up at the duffy.
On day on Eric Crow another Legend of the sport took us up into the Whister Backcountry. We did the Musical Bumps and Cowboy ridge then skied out singing pass and right to longhorns to get jiggy with it. I think I saw Tom Cruise on the patio crushing pints. 

Matt on the up enjoying the whister experience. 

The group having lunch on the first day. I also forgot to mention Martin Lafontaine joined us also. He just bought a late 80s toyota corolla wagon and is now living the dream. 
after whister we drove up to the Duffy and just slayed the deepest pow and killed it in the hut. 

Just like Montreal

Jeff doing a double blunt flat spin. oh wait........

after the first day we were the walking dead. ran out of water, Matt's 6th toe was falling off and Marty almost lost his leg due to going huge. Tara it was out of control, it was every man for himself.

I ran into some guys from bellingham at the hut who went up for a sun set rip. 

good night at Keith's hut.

burn baby burn. 

George and Jeff getting poutine ready for dinner. 

I think we went to the top of Vantage peak but Im not sure. either way it was unreal. we only skied a half day because the snow was turning to mush. They say it got up to 12c in Whistler village that day. 

we were all back at the car killing food by noon. It was a great couple days with a great group.