Hellish trip to the airport. I decided to try the CalTrain solution to not have to fight traffic going to SFO from Palo Alto on a Friday night (I worked from home today). Well, the first issue was how to get to the train. My car was wet (it rained overnight and my top was down), and I didn't want to leave it parked at CalTrain. So I decided to bike there. My regular bike is at Rentals, but I had one of my beater bikes at home. I decided to take it (leaving the skis - I'll rent some), but the tires are almost flat. Whatever. So I packed at the last moment, bringing my ski boots, etc. in one bag. Heavy bag - it was quite a trip to the train station on the bike. Didn't help that I couldn't shift gears as the bag was on the handlebar, and the chain got stuck once so that I had chain grease on me by the time I made it to the train. Okay, locked up the bike and waited for the train. It's 4:15 pm. Train is at 4:26 pm.
BUT...
I did not realize - there is a Giants game at 7 pm. Everyone is riding CalTrain to it.
The train arrives at about 5. It's packed. I force my way on with the large bag, and get shoved towards the middle of the car. We stop at every stop to a similar scene - lots of folks wanting on, few off. They are talking about running the train in express mode, not stopping at all stops. I can't quite hear the commentary as too many folks are talking around me, but am a bit concerned. The train crawls.
Finally, it arrives to Millbrae a little after 6 pm. I spend 5 minutes before arrival trying to make my way through the crowd towards the door, persevering in the end. The shuttle has left as we're left. Wait for the next one. My flight is at 6:55 on Air Canada (I think - my ticket says 6:15, but I was contacted that the flight time changed as Canadian Air purchased Air Canada and changed the schedule - or that's as much as I believe). I get dropped off at the North counter by the shuttle driver, wait for getting to the counter that says Air Canada (shared with American Air), and get told that they no longer do my flight. It's at the Canadian counter, on the other side of the airport. It's 6:35. I run across the airport, get to the counter. They only have one middle seat left, and have to check my one bag as there is no room left for carry-on. I hate checking bags. They're not sure if my bag will make it. I'm quick though - with a book in hand and my return ticket, I'm off to the gate. It's 6:50. I make the plane. I hope for my luggage, as it has my boots, laptop, keys, etc.
In sum, 3 hours from Palo Alto to plane. Sad.
I did make it, and so did my luggage. The conditions were supposed to be grand - it snowed for a couple of days and should clear up for a wonderful ski day Saturday.
I have not seen Deep for a while, and he still has work to do, so between working and chatting, we stay up way too late. After about 3 hours of sleep, we're off to the ski resort. With a 6 am start, the roads are empty and we watch the sun rise over the Canadian Rockies as we drive over a freshly snow-laden landscape. On the lifts later, locals would tell me what a surprise the snow was, as a storm in April is rather rare in Calgary. They spent the weekend before raking leaves from their lawns in preparation for spring, and now the ground was covered by a foot of fresh snow.
We made it to Lake Louise near Banff in the Banff National Park around 8:15 am. Unlike most ski resorts I know which open at 8 am, the lifts at Lake Louise didn't fire up until 9. That gave us sufficient time to rent skis, poles, get tickets, etc. It was snowing and a bit chilly, which went against the predicted sunny clear weather, but that made for more fresh snow, so I couldn't complain too much. Deep has skid twice in his life - once when we were in high school, and once in 1992 with his girlfriend-at-the-time Laura. Needless to say, he didn't have his ski legs under him. We did a few green runs down the hill, which were really long (something Lake Louise is renowned for), and he was doing fairly well given the circumstances, but took off for formal ski lessons at 10:30. I took the opportunity to explore the back side, which was more frigid, but offered a lot of untouched powder, especially between the trees. I could not take those double diamond runs on most days, but the fresh snow slows you down enough to make any run easier.
We met up at 12:30 for lunch in the lodge. Deep had a great lesson, with a talented instructor, and after food, we were ready for more. Going all the way to the top once again, Deep and I came down a challenging green run. Unfortunately, I'm not the leader or teacher that his instructor was, and Deep did not do as well as he had hoped. Tiredness had definitely set in by this point as well - muscles unused for 9 years were getting a good shake-out. I did a couple of runs from the top of the hill while Deep waited for me in the middle of the mountain, and then we skid down. At this point, Deep declared his day complete, and I went back up for several more runs through the fresh snow. I was tired as well, and my first run from the top on the back side showed it. A cloud had moved in to the peak of the mountain, where the lift called "Top of the World" drops you off, and I had scant eye protection (my rather small glasses were it), creating a near total white-out for me. I tried the run anyway, as good snow is just too hard to resist. However, I could not see the ground, and it dove out from under me suddenly as I was skiing up, I went down into the ditch without bracing myself, and as I caught the front of the next mogul, my right ski binding came undone, not meant for such drastic shocks in a rental setting. As I flew out of the ditch, I found my left ski attached to me but to my dismay, the right one flew out in front of me. I did my best to land on one ski, but failed to do so going down face-first. Fortunately, my jacket was zipped up all the way, which prevented half the mountain from going down my shirt. After I tried to clear the snow from my glasses (which fortunately stayed on), I looked around for my ski only to find it about 15 yards downhill impaled half-way into a fresh mogul. That was fun!
I was definitely tired, but determined to maximize my day skiing, so I didn't do my last run until the lifts no longer did. I met Deep in the cabin. We went to check in to Deer Creek Lodge near the actual lake, which wanted to see. The lodge had a nice rooftop hot tub where we soaked away the fatigue, and had a nice chat with a group of Aussies that were headed for L.A. on vacation. I tried to convince them to see S.F., Sydney's unofficial sister city, but am not sure if they will. Mexico was more on the itinerary.
After the soak, we were off to Chateau Lake Louise - a 5 start hotel (even Deep thought so!) on the lake front, in ugly modern construction and painted a drab brown. Inside, it was gaudy, but chateau-like. We ran through some upscale shops, looked at the lake (which was frozen over, with a foot of new snow on top, so you couldn't even tell it was a body of water), dined (had a nice Canadian beer named "Traditional", but too much of it, and discovered that I didn't like Canadian desert wine - "ice wine" - which had a nice tang, but was sweeter than a sugar cane), and headed back for some reading, relaxation, and much-needed sleep.
Which I did not get. Deep can sleep through many conditions that would prevent me from doing so. Having people stomp upstairs and drag carts and the like outside of paper-thin walls were such conditions, so I found myself rather sleepy as the 6:30 am alarm went off. Still, we made it out to try to go skiing for a half-day in Banff's ski area, only to find out at the desk that they were closed for the season. Plans changed - it was off to cross-country ski at Sunshine, on the way to Banff, which the staff recommended. On the way, we found the one reasonable radio station that the radio could receive - the only station that was on the air, and luckily was playing reasonable '80s music, and had to drive by a truck that had fallen off the side of the road (a narrow road at that) and was saved from going much further down by a broken axle that held it on the edge of the road, perpendicular to the normal direction of travel. Needless to say, Deep drove more carefully after that.
At Sunshine, we found out that they did not have cross-country skiing, nor half-day packages, and the time was getting towards 9 am. So I decided to take a learn-to-snowboard package (I went twice before, but mastery was still far away), and Deep accompanied me on the gondola ride up to the day lodge. The ride itself was picturesque and long - half an hour with 90 degree turns through and around steep mountains. At the top, we split up - I went for the beginner lift while Deep headed for the lodge with his laptop. After one run, I joined the school, who I stayed with for about 20 minutes until I realized that they were not going to teach me anything new and were simply wasting my precious time on this gorgeous day of new snow, warm weather, sunshine (at Sunshine ;), and first ever Canada experience. I took off for the slopes once again, with better technique, but still fear of speed on a board. I was sad to go at noon, but Deep and I wanted to see Banff on the way back, which was still a 2 hour drive, and my flight was at 6.
Deep had been told that the Banff natural hot springs were something pretty cool. The Aussies we met had been there and described it more like a large hot tub with many people. We went to check it out. After a stroll around the ritzy shops of Banff and having lunch at a grease joint there, we made it up to the hot springs. Not having sufficient time for the full aromatherapy/massage treatment, we decided to just go to the springs. All the build-up culminating in us emerging into... basically a large swimming pool heated to 102 degrees that was chlorinated and full of people. Definitely a let-down. Oh well, at least now we know. Advice for the next traveler - spend time in Lake Louise or on the slopes, sleep in Banff. What hurt more was that the weather was simply perfect, the snow great, my snowboarding skills waxing, and rather than spend an extra couple of hours skiing, we got the heated outdoor communal swimming pool.
Still, it was a wonderful trip - good friend, good snow, good time. I barely made the flight back, and the supershuttle from the airport did take over 2 hours, but these are small things in the grand scheme of things. Next time, I want to ski Whistler!