Australia, New Zealand, Rarotonga

We're in the midst of planning a vacation to Australia. Our plan is go in the summer for about 3 weeks. We are going to go to Australia, New Zealand, and Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Although it is going to be winter there it is still near enough to the equator to be tropical. While we're there we plan to take a 3 day boat ride, snorkle, hike, swim and posssibly SCUBA dive. It's pretty exciting. :-> It will be my and my sister's 2nd continent, my dad's 6th continent, and my mom's 3rd. My dad and I are taking the minimalistic approach but my sister and mom are taking as much as they can. I love travelling. I can't wait!!!

Mt. Baldy Scramble

Well the snows gone and there is school tomorrow. Anyhow to a more happy subject. A few weeks a go I was getting kind of restless so I convinced my dad to go scrambling with me. Scrambling is a mix between technical climbing and hiking. It is basically climbing unroped up a mountain on technically easy terrain. So as I was saying I thought a short scramble on Mt. Baldy would be a nice way to start the season. After a late start of 1pm we started up the mountain. The trail led up a forested slope until the trees thinned and a rock ridge was visible. We decided that following below the ridge would provide the easiest path in the high winds. After an hour the final summit pyramid is all that separated us from the summit. The winds lashed at us as we followed the summit ridge to the top. After signing the summit register we edged our way down the mountain in winds that would push you over. As we followed the path beside the ridge further down a man shouted to us that he had dropped his camera and had tried to retrieve it. He was in quite a jam because he was stuck halfway between the ground and the top of the rock ridge. After a while he managed to climb back up the ridge and return to safe ground. We found his camera and gave it to his friend who had already descended the ridge. Then we stumbled to the parking lot after 4hrs on the go. When the man who had dropped his camera came back to his car he thanked us and told us that he had actually found the memory stick from his camera on the ground. It must have fallen out of the camera when the camera dropped. Overall a fun day on a small peak.

If you want to see some photos click here http://picasaweb.google.com/rickymicky6/MtBaldy

YES!! :-) There is fresh snow in Calgary. Finally I can do some sledding. There is probably 15cm. I already went out and found a drift with snow up to my waist. To bad it's going to melt so soon. By Saturday the high is supposed to be 8 above. Oh well. :-(

Extreme Skiing!

Wow!! And I thought I was good at skiing check out these guys. That's practically suicide. The first and second videos are so crazy. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid627045607/bclid626926697/bctid626926694

Sunshine Village Ski & Snowboard Resort

On Saturday my family and I with some of my extended family from Manitoba drove to Sunshine Village Ski and Snowboard Resort. We decided to do mostly blue runs and easy blacks because the snow on the mogul and glade runs was still pretty crusty. In the late afternoon, when the snow had softened up, we hit a few double blacks before soaking in the Banff Upper Hot Springs for 1/2 an hour. A satisfiying day.

Lake Louise Mountain Resort

On Friday my family went up to Lake Louise Mountain Resort. There was no fresh snow but we did have a good time though. After a few easy warm up runs we headed off to do some black diamonds. Unfortunately the glades and mogul runs were quite hard in the morning. Near the end of the day my father and I took Summit Platter (the t-bar) to the top. This was my first time on the t-bar (probably because I usually go to Sunshine Village) and some parts of the ride up were quite unnerving. Anyhow we skied off the backside to Ptarmigan Chair via Ridge Run. There was some nice snow but you had to kind of power through the rest. Overall a great day!

Pic

This is my practice blog.

2nd posting

Picture test.

practice number 1

hi