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Jasper Ski Trip 2002

Whitecourt, Venturers

Friday 11, 2002

The trip began at Vickie’s house and we all piled into the beast, Bill’s corolla, and Allister’s sweet Dodge truck. Everyone one wanted to sit in the truck, but only Derek and Short Scott had the privilege of doing so. Of course the rest were packed into the beast and they headed off early to pick Tall Scott up in Edson. Hans, Darren, Short Scott, and Derek, pondered over Bill’s steam engine kit and wondered how the directions work. Around 9 pm we all arrived in Jasper and only Derek knew how to find the church. (Of course it helped having a map to look at). Next we all crowded into the McCready center at the United Church; our home for the next few days. The people who needed rentals piled into the vehicles for a short ride to skis please. Everyone seemed to know where that rental shop was. . .everyone except for Vickie that is. We found out that she was Jasper illiterate or some other disease. So when a small misunderstanding occurred at the rental shop, Derek had to come and solve the problem, which naturally was a simple task. On the short drive back to the McCready center, the people in the beast had a little “problem” with centripetal and centrifugal forces. Greg must not had appreciated “hugging” the window. Well back at the center, we all had hot chocolate and cookies before engaging in a high-risk encounter (pillow fight). Later that evening a huge mission impossible course was set up as dodgeball would have been too risky in that building. Finally after about three rounds, we all packed off for bed. I think Greg was on the top of the standings but at that time I was probably pretty tired. Of course the cool venturers (Hans, Derek, Short Scott, and Darren) made a fort to sleep under before bed. Matt can attest that the acoustics in the hall were not “the greatest” at the time.

Saturday January 12, 2001

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me how early seven am comes, but it did anyway. Well Derek, and Short Scott cooked up a meal of Bacon’N’eggers, which evidently they didn’t do fast enough. However the near perfect bacon made up for it. (and no the bacon was not English style!) The others packed the skis and snowboards into the truck, washed dishes, and made lunch. Sofianos made the sandwiches, while Hans pretended to help. We all headed into the vehicles, slightly behind schedule, and took of for marmot basin. It was slightly overcast and snowing a little bit. When we arrived at marmot basin the impatient snowbladers (Hans, Short Scott, Tall Scott, Darren, Matt) followed shortly by the skiers (Joel, Sofianos, Thomas, Bill, Vickie), and next by the boarders (Derek, Greg, and Allister). Rumor has it that the boarders took quite a while to reach the lodge, but hey how reliable are rumors. Everyone headed off to their lessons after receiving their lift tickets and lesson tickets. The Bladers I’m told had a cool lesson with their instructor. Derek and Greg had a totally different story. You see their own instructor, Len, told Greg just to head down the hill, and meet him in the flats. Of course with such poor instructions how was Greg to know what do. Planning a stunt, I’m sure Greg caught his toe edge, and did a massive aerial maneuver, which unfortunately leaded to lots of pain. For those of you are poor in math, the equation sort of goes like this: Snowboarding=high speeds= occasional unavoidable error= inevitable falls on machine groomed hard pack= pain= bad. Anyways, Greg sacrificing his body for the sport continued with the lessons where he improved a lot. Joel frequented his FRS radio, calling anyone from lifties to the occasional family. The next time we all met was at the parking lot for lunch. Allister collapsed in a heap on his truck after a morning of snowboarding. All the others seemed to be in fine condition except for Greg who still experiencing pain from his fall. After lunch, and a group picture which all (though some reluctantly participated in), people headed off to the slopes for some more skiing, blading, and boarding. Some stayed at the van and just chilled due the hard morning they had. Mostly we stayed on the lower runs off of the eagle quad, tranquilizer, and caribou chairs, because of the intense winds in the less treed areas. Well we all went for a couple runs near the end, mostly through treed trails by old road and show off. Then we all piled into the vehicles for the ride down the mountain. We stopped for a second in the main lodge parking lot just in time for Tall Scott to point out a purple Russian afro hat sort of deal. All agreed that it was really cool. Well we headed down the mountain, and towards Jasper. Before there had been some talk of going to a movie instead of swimming, but that was soon abolished when everyone realized how sore they were. In fact most people were in favor of swimming before having supper, so we headed to the swimming pool just after arriving in Jasper. Greg though was in a bit of a different situation. It seems his aerial maneuver might have left more than a broken ego, so Bill took him off to the hospital. We tried not to let this incident dampen our spirits. Well getting back to the pool (I mean the hot tub of course) for the most part we sat in the hot tub, but there were short adventures to the steam room, waterslide, and suspended monkey bars. For a while we even managed to have a water polo game when the nets were vacant. Eventually Vickie came in and decided she was going to totally disagree with the rules and dive into the shallow end. Anyways our reply was a healthy shunning- We can’t associate with rule breakers can we? Later some were getting waterlogged, so we headed back to the McCready center. Derek’s group knew where they were going- the scenic route. Tall Scott chose to take the direct route, forgoing any scenic detours. (Derek and the rest were actually lost). Then we had supper, which consisted of perogies and sausages. Of everyone, I think Sofianos enjoyed them the most. Well then we broke out the 8L of ice cream, m&m’s, chocolate chips, skittles. . .etc. All I’m going to say about the ice cream is that a few foreign objects landed in it (Body parts included). Then after dishes, Sofianos and Allister were invested into our company. Of course a good old ski pole was used as a flag staff. Matt, Short Scott, and Derek went to visit Greg in the hospital for a while. They were starting to get jealous, I’m sure of Greg’s bed and personal TV, until they learned he had to have vitals done every hour. After a while they headed back “home”, and went to bed.


Sunday January 13, 2001

This day began with many yawns, and the constant nagging of Derek to make the cooks awake early. It never worked very well. We all packed up, and loaded Allister’s truck with our stuff. Then after a pancake breakfast, we cleaned the hall, and headed off to Marmot Basin. . .early?! What we’re never early. We headed off, and arrived at Marmot Basin well in time for our lessons. Greg and Bill did not join us till later as Greg had to check out of his hotel room. Oops I mean hospital bed. Since Derek didn’t have his lesson for a while he decided to climb to the upper basin where he boarded in knee-deep powder. Was it ever sweet. We had lunch and sat around for a while to rest up. Then, we watched Hans go off jumps in the terrain park and get “8 feet” of air. Well it was really about four or five- still pretty impressive. Again it got windy, and we stayed mostly on the lower treed runs, where we could whiz through trees at incredible speeds. Eventually it was time to leave Marmot Basin, so we packed up and said our farewells to the beautiful mountain. Everyone was getting angry at Short Scott for being late, which in fact he was not. I don’t see what the big deal was. After heading off, we stopped in Jasper to drop our rentals off and continued to Hinton. In Hinton Greg and Matt stopped to pick up some “supplies”. Then we stopped at L&W’s family restaurant for supper. It is like the place for having supper when coming from back from Jasper. Not totally fast food, and not totally sit down-be waited on. After supper the gambling began in the beast as Derek, Matt, and Greg bought the goods to the table in poker. By goods of course I mean candy. Well Matt and Derek came out as the winners, while somehow Greg managed to lose just to be nice to us. Then at Edson we dropped Tall Scott off, and continued on our way. We were at home just in time for a shower and to finish homework the teachers had piled upon us. All in all a great trip.

Log By: Derek