Living with Canucks: Ostrich Williams

Hi All,
So here's to a blog sans negative nonsense like last week's pitiful number. In true Williams style I vow to bury my head in the sand; a la ostrich, and hope that all the difficult stuff in life just disappears when I pop back up again (this method of living has gotten me through to almost 32 years of age - so why change the habit of a lifetime?). It's not quite that easy as I am having to enroll in some course (which, if you recall, I cursed adamantly was not an option last week) to maintain my teachability status (don't want to lose the holidays and the cash) - although as of yet there is no confirmation that the courses I'm looking at will be finished in time - so my professional employment really does hang in the balance (time to get my head back into the sand).

Anyhow, here's a piccie of Mrs. W. musing over the view when we had a bonny hike up Elbow Falls Rd at the weekend. Rather nice of somebody to think of putting a bench there for us to take lunch on. We got out into the hills on a lovely day - the temps were above zero, the sky was that wonderful Alberta blue and it was a spot on way to relax and realise things aren't so bad! It was nice to get out into the sun too!
I'd ridden out to the same area on Saturday (excited that biking outdoors is more of an option) but got caught in a ridiculous blizzard on the way home. The forecast had been for snow on the day I rode out, but heading into the hills there was no sign at all (the bad weather sneaked up behind me from the East). Brina had asked if I would need to be picked up if it started to snow, to which my cocky response was something along the lines of; "you wont be able to come rescue me if the weather goes tits up in the TransRockies will you!?! so no". That'll teach me - in the head on blizzard and 70kph+ winds I endured for the last 2 and a half hours of the 5 and a half hour ride, I was desperately hoping the misses would be coming to save me - alas not - a good character building ride that's for sure!As for the snowboarding/ski-ing front, resorts remain the only option. Discussing the avi conditions with Mr.Weible over a pint in the week we reached the conclusion of "what's the point? There's always next year" - after two more people died this weekend, one was a chick ski-ing near Boom Lake where Brina and I x-country skied into last year, and which is a truly amazing place, but it'll still be there next year when hopefully the snow pack will be somewhat more stable. The big problem is that every slide tends to bring the entire winter snow pack with it - right down to the rocks - so each avi is at least over a metre deep (plenty of natural slides in K country this weekend, so you don't even need some dickhead snowboarder to trigger them!). Maybe things will consolidate and stabilise as Spring arrives - but highly unlikely.

Just a note - remember to take your phallic boomerang banana storage guard with you on any hike - it's a must, and a fine comedy talking point (bye, bye to banged up banana's in the backpack - genius... another Dragon's Den production).