AG in AB

Hey there Unbez fanatics. Ally G here kicking off my blog with a run-down of what I've been up to since leaving for Canada a month ago. Apologies for not blogging sooner, I will try to make it more regular from now on...

Canada is, in a single-syllable word, RAD! Much in the way that Scotland is rad but way bigger and without a single strip of snowflex to be seen. Which is a shame because I do love plasticboarding but you gotta try new sports from time to time.

My girlfriend Zara and I have been getting our tourist on big-time since we got here, absolutely hemorrhaging money on the way. It is not a cheap country by any means, but it wouldn't be a proper season without a bit of hardship.

We spent our first week in Vancouver taking in as much as we could of the incredible city. What a place. I'd recommend everyone makes at least one trip there. We even managed to get a days riding in at Mt. Seymour, one of the 3 local resorts on the hills above Vancouver. It was early season but was still a sweet day. If you find yourself in Vancouver this winter then get yourself up to Seymour! They have been given $10,000 by sponsors to make what will be a banging park so go check it out if you get the chance.

Anyway before we knew it we had to leave for Banff, which was not a bad thing. It is a truly awesome place to live. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Banff here's the scoop: Banff is not a ski-resort in itself, it is a medium-sized town that sits in the Bow-Valley in Banff National Park, Alberta (AB), Canada. It is at around 1000m above sea level and is surrounded by mountains stretching up to 2,500m from the valley floor straight up. This gives you one hell of an idea of how small you really are. The best bit about all these mountains is that there are world-class resorts very near by. Depending on which one you head for you will be riding Mt. Norquay, Sunshine Village or Lake Louise in a maximum of 1 hour. If I had to compare it to somewhere in Scotland it would be Aviemore. It is bigger but it is similar in that it is not actually at the foot of the ski-hill, but it still has the apres-ski and the resort buzz. Aviemore would definately be flattered by that comparison!

The town of Banff from the top of the Banff gondola
(you get the idea)

Unfortunately for us, living in Banff has so far been like standing at the pearly gates of snowboarding heaven while St.Terje jabs you with a pointy stick and laughs in your face. Not entirely true. We have had a day riding Lake Louise and a day riding Sunshine Village however having gone from the regular drymat sessions in Aberdeen to riding 3 times in a month has been difficult to say the least.

How many roads? Walking at dusk with Mt. Norquay in the background

Nevertheless there are good things going on that show promise for the near future. We both got jobs within a fortnight, which is impressive seeing as there are many folk now leaving Banff after 2 months without work. We have one of the biggest flats in town for a very reasonable price and hopefully in the next fortnight we should get season passes. I've also got word of a secret back-yard jib that a friend of a friend has set up and I've scoped plenty of street spots to get into edits.

Railing at the Banff Gondola: on the jib-list

So have no fear Unbezzers, there's plenty to come from me in AB. Just watch this blog

Sunday Song

Sketchy Saturday

Duthie's Diaries: It's Aliiiive!!!

Sorry for the delay since the last post. No excuse really, since I'm still jobless. Anyway, here's what's happened since the last update....

It's aliiiive!!!

After almost three weeks of resembling something out of the Twilight Zone, Brides les Bains has perked up. Bars are open, buses come and go, potatoes are no longer the only vegetables available in Spar. Most importantly, the gondola has been fired up and we've finally made it up the mountain.

As if to make up for the frustration of the previous fortnight's purgatory, as well as the stinger of shelling out for the season liftpass, the first day was a belter. As most of Meribel emptied towards Geneva and Chambery to make room for the next batch of punters, there was only a relative handful of folk on the slopes. Moreover, there had been a fresh dump of fluffy, feather-light powder all over the pistes. Throughout the day there was no shortage of fresh lines to take, most of them accessible right off the chairs. The only downsides were the intermittent flat light and the -20 degree temperature. A thermal-less Kyla needed regular defrosting and, by the time it came to eating our sandwiches, the baguettes were harder than a Barlinnie sudoku. A small price to pay for the day we'd had though, one that the rest of the week couldn't live up to. The temperature jumped, and soon Brides up to Les Allues had gone from white to green. The flat light stayed with us, but hard-packed piste was all that was on offer.

pow! right in the kisser

It may have been an average first week, but it's given us the chance to weigh up the pros and cons of doing a season in a satellite town as opposed to a resort. The 25-minute gondola, rather than being the royal pisser we expected it to be, has been fine. The lift up gets you fully stoked for riding, and the knowledge that you'll have almost half an hour to take it easy after your slide gets you riding harder, for longer. With uplift from 8.30 you can easily catch the first lifts from Meribel, and there's no danger of cutting your day short to get home. The supposed inconvenience of the gondola means that accomodation prices in Brides les Bains are around half that of your Mayerhofens and your Courchevals. The cost of our apartment also includes use of the building's swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi. Yes, there's a lot to love about Brides....

Obviously there are downsides: for starters, it's hard to predict the weather on the slopes when you're some 1000m down the valley, and there's no chance of adding or shedding a layer unless you take a backpack. Also, it's difficult to do a full day's riding without running into some issues at lunchtime. Popping back to the flat for a sandwich is not an option when it means an hour's round trip. You have to take your food up with you, and find somewhere comfortable to eat it without being fleeced for a 5-euro chocolat chaud in a Brit-bar by some reject from BBC's 'The Season'. [NB: just tried to put up a link for those who haven't seen it, but it seems even the BBC website no longer has a place for the vile, morally reprehensible piece of shit that is The Season. Count yourselves lucky].

All in all, we're stoked with our current situation. That said, we still need jobs: cut-price or not, a season is still a season, and we've been watching our respective piles diminish at a disturbing rate. Fingers crossed that we'll find something soon...

That brings us up to Christmas, details of ours coming soon. Hope everyone had a good one!

Duthie

GOTH: Team McGnarly Pants

Goat of the Hill Winning Video

Team RadStorm
Congrats to Rettie and the lads in what was the funest video!

Song for Sunday

Jenny Wilson - Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward

This is a toe tapping tune that will get you dancing! You might recognise Jenny Wilson from her guest vocals on "The Knifes" album "Deep Cuts". This song is taken from her 2005 album "Love and Youth".

Sketchy Saturday

This is a classic Armstrong and Miller sketch. We hope to keep Sketchy Saturday as weekly as possible.

The Airbag

This is the video of the airbag night two weeks. A popular night filling pretty much all their spaces. They are thinking of doing another night, lets hope sooner rather than later.

Friday Forecast

Nevis

Not quite enough snow yet though it is looking whiter, there is heavy snow forecast for the next few days.

With a NW wind of 10-15mph and a temperature at -3C at 650m.

The Lecht

Still not enough snow for snowboarding but fingers crossed.

Glenshee

Still not enough snow for snowboarding but fingers crossed.

Glen Coe

Still not enough snow for snowboarding but fingers crossed.

Cairngorms

Aviemore is the place to be this weekend, with 4 lifts open today and a dusting of the fresh white stuff with reports of some "nice skiing" on the Cas runs.

The met office have forecast heavy snow for the next couple of days around the Inverness area. Poor viability at higher levels a 30 mph north west becoming northerly to 45 with gusts of 60mph. Temperature looking to be about -4 dropping to -7 at higher levels.

Please see our links at the side for more details.

Duthie's Diaries: Les premiers mots

Aye aye Unbezzers! After almost 2 weeks in France, I'm finally on top of things enough to post an update. here goes:

After a few false starts and changes of plan, my girlfriend Kyla and I have embarked on our season. What we have is accomodation for five months in Brides-les-Bains and enough cash to cover a season pass. What we don't have are jobs, or any idea what we are in store for. How easily can you find work in what is essentially a French spa town, worlds away from the uber-resorts further up the hill? Is it better to do it this way than to go with an established travel operator, employment taken care of beforehand? Will having to take a 25 min gondola every morning just to reach the foot of the slopes eventually piss us off? We'll soon find out....

After a four-hour wait at Geneva airport, we joined dozens of other seasonaire-looking types on an extortionate bus ride to Moutiers, the main town below Les Trois Vallees. Upon arrival it became clear that, of all the passengers, we were the only two souls bound for Brides-les-Bains. As the others peeled off for buses to Meribel, Courchevel and the like, we alone got shuttled up the road in a people carrier and unceremoniously dumped at our building.

After arriving at the deserted residence Cybele and finding our room, we headed straight out to find some food. This was easier said than done: Brides-les-Bains in early December would remind one of Aviemore in the aftermath of a plague, if only it were bigger. And a bit busier. The gondola doesn't open until the 19th December, so most places don't begin trading before then. With the Spar closed and no pizza a emporter in sight, we retired to the only pub that appeared to be open, and chinned a few demis with paprika Pringles on the side. La Parisienne is now our regular watering hole, and where we go to find a friendly face and a bit more advice on how to go about doing a season in Brides-les-Bains.

The focus right now is to find jobs, so as yet we've had no time on the hill. There's not much snow right now so it's not the end of the world. Two days ago a friend of ours drove us up to Meribel to search for work up there. With it apparently being easy to hitch-hike back to Brides, even in the dead of night, we thought it might be worth a shot. A few enquiries later and it looked like there was nothing going. Neither of us were that bothered though: the commute would have been a pain, and even at this early stage the place already resembles a cross between the Big Brother house and a Marc Frank Montoya lookalike contest.

We'd rather hold out for something in Brides, and we're cautiously optimistic: every day sees a handful more people in the town, maybe another shop preparing to open. By the 19th, when the gondola opens and the place really comes alive, we hope to have something in place. Until then, we're happy enough taking in the amazing scenery among some of the friendliest people we've met. I just have to make sure i don't think too much about how people back home have been up the Cairngorms already while our boards gather dust out here....



Duthie

First Snow; Cairngorms