Jisch
New member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2008
- Messages
- 315
- Points
- 0
I had a work trip out to Calgary, one of my coworkers is a skier so we extended one day to go skiing at Lake Louise. Due to work and home issues I really didn't have much time to set things up so we winged it to some degree. I gotta say thanks to the responses on AZ, it helped so much in getting some up front beta on so many things - really saved me a lot of time and set my mind at ease. Just as a point of clarification - I love skiing, but in a good season I'll ski 5 or 6 times in VT, I do love BC skiing in CT, but that's far different than DH for sure. I can handle just about any trail, but once it gets above a certain degree of difficulty I switch from style to survival mode. I can have fun skiing anything, but I'm sure it doesn't look great :-D
We got to Calgary on Tuesday and were met with temperatures in the -15F range, instantly making me question the sanity of skiing. The forecast called for a warming trend, but it was something I kept my eye on all week - we had two people in the meeting from Malaysia, they went from +34C to -34C - they were not prepared :-D
Fast forward through 30 hours of meetings Wed through Fri. That was a week of stress, we had a beer after the last meeting on Friday and that seat at the bar in Calgary was feeling damn good. We peeled ourselves up, got the rental car and motored up to Lake Louise - easy money with enough snow on the roads to make me glad we paid the $20 for AWD.
We got to the mountain at 8:15AM were ready to ski - rentals and all by 8:30. They asked if we were going to be skiing the bowls and as a result of that answer they gave me what I consider to be super wide skis (I think they were Peaks or something?). We hung around and got on one of the first dozen cars on the gondola. We were somewhat confused by the trail map, but some folks on the gondola helped us out with some good places to start.
We spent pretty much the whole morning on the back bowls skiing a combination of some of the mellower stuff and a few blacks and double blacks. My coworker and I were pretty well matched - she is a much better skier, but more cautious, I skied faster, but certainly with less grace :-D
I really can't say if it was my lack of fitness, the altitude, the super wide skis, or the steepness, but I have never had my legs get that tired from skiing. Conditions were about as good as they could be, short of some huge powder dump. It was all packed powder, the front side was harder packed while the bowls were loose and even some powder here and there.
My camera got busted in my luggage on the way out, so I only have Android pictures:
View from the lodge:
Skiing down the flat behind the bowls:
This stuff was steep:
I haven't ridden a Poma in 20+ years (last one was at Okemo in high school!)
Paradise Bowl:
The views from the lift were impressive:
We skied until about 3:30, at that point we were both having issues controlling our skis so it was the right thing to do (though it killed me to be quitting "early"). If you ski at LL, you really have to save something in your legs for that last run from the top, its LOOOOOONG, gotta be the longest real run I've done (not one of those meandering trails - real trails).
Overall - one of my best days skiing ever... great trails, great mountain, friendly people everywhere and tons of fun.
John
We got to Calgary on Tuesday and were met with temperatures in the -15F range, instantly making me question the sanity of skiing. The forecast called for a warming trend, but it was something I kept my eye on all week - we had two people in the meeting from Malaysia, they went from +34C to -34C - they were not prepared :-D
Fast forward through 30 hours of meetings Wed through Fri. That was a week of stress, we had a beer after the last meeting on Friday and that seat at the bar in Calgary was feeling damn good. We peeled ourselves up, got the rental car and motored up to Lake Louise - easy money with enough snow on the roads to make me glad we paid the $20 for AWD.
We got to the mountain at 8:15AM were ready to ski - rentals and all by 8:30. They asked if we were going to be skiing the bowls and as a result of that answer they gave me what I consider to be super wide skis (I think they were Peaks or something?). We hung around and got on one of the first dozen cars on the gondola. We were somewhat confused by the trail map, but some folks on the gondola helped us out with some good places to start.
We spent pretty much the whole morning on the back bowls skiing a combination of some of the mellower stuff and a few blacks and double blacks. My coworker and I were pretty well matched - she is a much better skier, but more cautious, I skied faster, but certainly with less grace :-D
I really can't say if it was my lack of fitness, the altitude, the super wide skis, or the steepness, but I have never had my legs get that tired from skiing. Conditions were about as good as they could be, short of some huge powder dump. It was all packed powder, the front side was harder packed while the bowls were loose and even some powder here and there.
My camera got busted in my luggage on the way out, so I only have Android pictures:
View from the lodge:
Skiing down the flat behind the bowls:
This stuff was steep:
I haven't ridden a Poma in 20+ years (last one was at Okemo in high school!)
Paradise Bowl:
The views from the lift were impressive:
We skied until about 3:30, at that point we were both having issues controlling our skis so it was the right thing to do (though it killed me to be quitting "early"). If you ski at LL, you really have to save something in your legs for that last run from the top, its LOOOOOONG, gotta be the longest real run I've done (not one of those meandering trails - real trails).
Overall - one of my best days skiing ever... great trails, great mountain, friendly people everywhere and tons of fun.
John
