Lake Louise

Lake Louise is the most picturesque of the fields so far and this is clear right from arrival. The main lodge facility is all fully made of a light wood, an impressive and welcoming sight that epitomises what you would expect from a Rocky Mountain resort. When we first got to the field it had by then been a few days since the field had got any fresh snow, and after the clear runs of Sunshine Village Lake Louise was looking a little bit rougher. Lake Louise has a main front face, a back face of the same mountain and then further lifts going up the Larch face behind. Being overly optimistic we headed up and over the front face, and off down a back face black diamond that end up in a tight path through the trees dodging roots. We finally managed to get to the end of that track with the lift in sight, though separated from us by a filthy mogul track. Quite an introduction to the field, though I’ll have to take the blame for that one.

We spent most of the first day on the Larch hill, which by virtue of being further to get to had the best condition runs. The second day we were there we spent more time on the front face, and split the third day between the two (the back face of the main mountain was really only good for access). 

Despite having more snow than Ruapehu normally gets, while we were there you couldn’t shake the feeling that the field needed another 30cms or so to really blow you away. The runs through the trees were great and you could get some really long runs going, but unlike Sunshine you needed to be on your guard for rocks coming through. We also got a little unlucky on the second day in that the wind came up at the same time as the snow started coming down, whipping away our fresh powder as soon as it came down.

As you may know, Kathryn and I got engaged at the Marmot Basin field, which is in a later blog post. While that was very successful, an earlier attempt at Lake Louise was an epic failure. The goal was to write the proposal in the snow for her to see, but because we were boarding together without someone else to write it I had to come up with an elaborate story to set it up. Having finally gotten Kathryn to sit above me out of view and planning to come at me a certain way (“for a film shot”) I got started on the writing. Unfortunately, at just the wrong time the wind came up and knocked my board off its perch and it was gone down the hill. I had to immediately abandon the message and chase the board, and hope that once Kathryn came down she wouldn’t see it.  Luckily for me this worked out in that she didn’t see it, but we still lost an hour trying to find the board, which we eventually found when Kathryn spotted the bindings in some deep powder. Luckily the board didn’t get anywhere near injuring anyone but it just wasn’t meant to be that day. Good things take time!

Sunshine Village

Written by Kathryn

For the next few posts we thought we would describe the three ski fields we visited around Banff instead of giving a minute description of every run we did because that would get boring and repetitive to read.  This first post will be about Sunshine Village which is about 20 minutes outside of Banff.

Our arrival Calgary was well timed as it was snowing and Banff had recently had a lot of snow as well.  Although we weren’t in Calgary long, we couldn’t have asked for a better first look at Canada.  Everything was covered in snow from a recent storm and it was still gently snowing as we caught a taxi to the bus station to catch the Greyhound to Banff.  The Greyhound depot was rather confusing,  Greyhound do not guarantee that buying a ticket will get you on the bus, and given the number of people on the queue we were a little unsure whether we would be able to get on.

The bus we were meant to be on was running late which increased the stress, as we were left waiting in line for 45 minutes after the scheduled departure time before we were finally allowed to board.  The bus did fill up but luckily we were able to get on it, so all the stress was for naught.  Banff was the first stop the bus made and we were excited to see that it was still lightly snowing.  While it meant dragging our bags though the fresh snow on the sidewalk to get to our hotel, it also meant all the ski fields had a fresh dumping of snow. 

Banff is exactly what you would imagine a small Canadian town to look like in the middle of winter.  Snow is everywhere: beside the road, on the road, on the roofs, in your shoes, everywhere. It is insanely cold, even in the middle of the day. And it is oh so beautiful in the sunlight. The buildings all use a lot of wood and stone in the traditional mountain style, and it was fun to just walk up and down the main street soaking up the atmosphere.

On the advice of our hotel concierge we visited Sunshine Village first.  This is a 20 minute shuttle ride from Banff to the base of the field, and then a 20 minute gondola ride through the trees to get to the main village and lifts.

The ski field fans out around a valley so that there are some runs on either side, one side being steeper than the other.  We started out on some relatively easy slopes to get used to the hired gear and soon found that the dry Canadian snow was a lot slower than what we were used to at home. This made the runs very enjoyable as you could really push the boards while always being able to easily rein it in. It also took some time to get used to the need to maintain higher speeds to get across any flat bits.

It didn’t take long for us to feel comfortable again and move onto the more challenging slopes.  One of the things we were most looking forward to was snowboarding through trees which we have never done before, since Mt Ruapehu doesn’t have any.  Most runs started above the tree line and then as you moved further down the runs were lined with them and there was the odd clump which would temporarily divide a track.  There are also plenty of side tracks that have been created by other skiers and snowboarders adventuring off-piste.  As we got braver we worked our way onto these tracks going through the trees, however they require really good control for tight turns and are not very conducive to going at a slower speed.

We also had a go at a terrain park for the first time.  Sunshine has a small terrain park with some rails, boxes and jumps.  We were only brave enough to try the boxes which came is a few different widths.  The fact that they are wider than a snowboard gives you a false feeling of safety.  Although all you have to do is straighten up and go in a straight line it is surprisingly easy to go off track or lose your balance as the surface is very slippery.  On the widest box my board skidded out from under me and I fell on my ass, bouncing once on the box and being carried off the end into the snow by my forward momentum.  Although painful at the time I’m sure it was very funny to watch.

In general the runs at Sunshine are nice and wide with a good mix of steeps, rolling hills and tracks as well as the trees.  We both really enjoyed it, spending 3 of our 7 days there.

The last bite of the apple

As it was our last day in NYC we wanted to fit in as much as possible.  We started by walking to Grand Central Station and we happened to get there right near the end of rush hour.  At first the building felt very maze-like until we found the main concourse, which feels like a giant dome.  It felt like the building had far too many entrances and exits because people were coming from every direction and disappearing out the other side.  We stood at one end and watched the commuters for a bit before moving on. 

After Grand Central we walked a few blocks to the Empire State Building.  First we did the Skyride, a motion master ride which gave some information about the building and local attractions that you can see from the top, such as Central Park, High Line Park and the Brooklyn bridge.  I found the screen fuzzy and hard to watch which kind of ruined the experience.  The ride didn't compare to any of the other rides we had been on but it was good to see for the view it gave of NYC.  Also, a lot of the information it gave we had already heard about on other tours we had been on.  After the ride we went to the top of the building and looked around.  It was nice to see the city from above during the day and we got a good look at the Rockefeller building as well as the famous Chrysler building, which was once the tallest skyscraper in New York.

Once we had seen enough of the New York Skyline we hit the streets again. Rob was keen to see the High Line, which is a park built on abandoned freight railway tracks which were raised above street level.  Parts of the track have already been converted and the Trust is planning on converting more.  Some of the old tracks have already been demolished but we walked roughly half of what has been restored.  The tracks are 30 feet (9.14 meters) above street level and at times pass through buildings where the loading stations were.  The gardens look like they would be very pretty in spring and summer but everything looked a bit bleak in winter.

At the end of the High Line we thought we would walk up to Central Park for a horse and carriage ride but realised we were about half way down the island of Manhattan and it was probably a bit far to walk in one go.  In the end we caught the subway, which was starting to lose some of its novelty as the station smelt horrible and there was a weird homeless man peeing on a rubbish bin.  This may have been why it smelt so bad.

We arrived at Central Park and inspected the horses.  I wanted to pick the prettiest one but we ended up having to take the one at the front of the line.  The horses name was Eddie and our driver was Mike.  We got driven around a small circuit of the park which circled the ice skating rink and went past the Zoo.  I was impressed to see that at the entrance to the park there is a water trough for the horses to stop and drink at.  It was a pretty slow ride but it was definitely a nice way to see the park.  The clip clop of the horses hooves was relaxing in the same way the sound a train makes.

After our tour of the park we walked to the ice skating rink and hired some skates.  For some reason they always make hired skates horribly uncomfortable, which means you can't skate for long before your feet hurt.  However we did have fun watching a group of kids having an ice hockey lesson.  They would have been about 5 years old and could barely skate in a straight line let alone hit a puck but it was good fun to watch them giving it their best while failing. When the lesson was over we handed back our skates and caught the subway back to Times Square.

Just off Times Square is Madame Tussaud's wax museum.  The museum takes up 5 floors and you start at the top and make your way down.  The statues are grouped into themes such as sports stars, celebrities, politicians and singers.  We were able to have our photo taken with most anyone we wanted except Barack and Michelle Obama as Madame Tussauds had their own camera set up and wanted you to pay for their photos.  Some of the statues looked very realistic but others they hadn't quite got it right such as Julia Roberts.  

We ended our last day in New York by going to Ray's Pizza for dinner again, then back to the hotel and to bed early, since the shuttle to the airport was arriving at 2:30am to get us to the airport for our flight to Canada.

Another Wicked Day

The first thing we did today after heading out into the city was to pick up our tickets for Wicked from the box office. These were pre-booked so that we didn’t miss out, which was a good idea as the theatre was full!

From there we headed up to Central Park. We were planning to walk around to the Museum of Natural History but instead we jumped into a pedicab which took us all around the park, pointing out the sights and stopping for photo opportunities. The guy then dropped us off right by the museum which was 30 blocks down the park, so I’m going to call that a success.

The Museum of Natural History is great, and is so big that we didn’t manage to get through it all. The museum itself is quite old but despite this the older exhibits were still in excellent condition and many of the areas had been developed and updated. It did still seem to be very much in the vein of read and look, unlike the interactions of Te Papa, but if you can get Liam Neeson to voice your space exhibit then you’re doing something right.

The MNH also has comprehensive dinosaur exhibits with skeletons and fossils far beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, as well as an interesting exhibit on meteorites (I’m basically still a child). Kathryn quite enjoyed the gen exhibit because it was full of sparkly things, but I’m still not convinced they’re worth the price we pay for them.

Because the day outside was shaping up pretty well for a New York winter we decided to make the most of it and go and check out the Statue of Liberty. The MNH has a subway station built into the lower floor so we jumped on a train and headed all the way downtown to the Staten Island ferry. Because of the ways our other days had panned out we would have had to pay to get on a dedicated cruise to the island (which is closed post Sandy anyway), so we instead got on the free Staten Island Ferry and saw pretty much the same thing for free. The statue is iconic and for good reason, it is very impressive standing high over the water. It was a weird feeling actually seeing it first hand, having seen it in some much media previously.

We took the ferry out to Staten Island and back, so we were able to just jump back on the subway and head up town to our hotel, to get ready for Wicked. We popped into the Italian restaurant next door which turned out to be a great surprise, a fantastic little place virtually underneath us. The fettuccine and ravioli went down a treat in what looked like a Sopranos mob meeting set.

With dinner still on our taste buds we headed a couple of blocks uptown to the Gershwin Theatre for Wicked. The place was packed with people waiting to get in but luckily our travel agent had got us tickets in the 7^th row, which meant a speedy entry and a fantastic view. The show itself is amazing, we mainly went because Kathryn had read the book but I enjoyed it immensely (and have since read the book!). The show is very funny as well as being dramatic, and I even knew a couple of the songs which I wasn’t expecting. The Gershwin Theatre has been hosting Wicked for nine years and while this isn’t the original cast they clearly have the show down to an art. I would highly recommend the show, as much for the interesting tie ins to the original Wizard of Oz as well as for the show itself.

Boats, planes, and buses

On our water taxi the day before we’d seen the aircraft carrier Intrepid on the waterfront and so today we started off the day by heading down there to check it out. The Intrepid is an old aircraft carrier that has been decommissioned and is now used as a floating museum for the ship and various military aircraft. The ship is huge as you would expect, but has been decommissioned for some time so a lot of the technology aboard is quite dated. This makes it even more impressive that they were able to operate so many aircraft off the ship so effectively with such primitive tools.

I was most looking forward to seeing some of the accompanying items, such as the Blackbird spy plane, the nuclear submarine Growler and a retired British Airways Concorde. The Blackbird is an amazing machine, designed to fly much higher than other aircraft for reconnaissance only. This in itself is pretty neat but the best bit is the way it is powered. To put it simply it operates as a normal jet at lower speeds but once it gets up towards Mach 2 the jet is no longer required as the engines effectively compress and burn air alone, with no additional fuel required. This isn’t to say that the plane is environmentally friendly, but just that this was a huge advance in jet propulsion.

The Concorde is an aircraft in a similar vein, a huge, expensive and eventually redundant step forward in passenger travel. The ability to move people around in the skies faster than the speed of sound were a huge feat of engineering, but was so costly to create and run that, even without the horrible Paris crash, it was likely that it would eventually fail in the face of high capacity jumbos. That said, I think that the Concorde is a very attractive plane and it was great to see it in the flesh. Unfortunately we weren’t able to go inside but you can’t have everything!

The other interesting exhibit was the nuclear sub Growler, docked beside the Intrepid. The sub wasn’t nuclear powered, but was armed with nuclear ballistic missiles which it would launch just off the coast of Russia during the cold war. While I generally disagree with most US military policy, it was still interesting to be able to go down into a submarine (awesome) and see how they fit 100 people into it to run it (holy hell it’s small).

Once we’d had our fill of US military history we headed back into the city and jumped on the uptown tour with Grey Line. This took us right around Central Park and up into Harlem, before coming back down Museum Mile. With only four full days to see New York the ability to just jump on a bus and see the different parts of the city is very useful, given that we don’t have the opportunity to spend much time on the ground.

We rounded out the day of sightseeing with a trip to Ripley's Believe It Or Not on Times Square. This is a whole building of weird and unusual items from around the world, which while not as authoritative as a  museum was really good for a laugh.

And because we can, we had Mexican food for dinner. Around the corner from our hotel. America is awesome.

The Big Apple

New York is both massive and tiny at the same time. It took us a little time to get our heads around it, simply in the way the streets and subways work. But once you figure out how to orientate yourself it suddenly becomes accessible, even in the way Wellington is. It helps that coming from Wellington we’re prepared to walk a lot longer than the New York locals.

One the first day we started off by picking up our tourist passes. These allowed us to use the hop on-hop off buses which included a tour guide, as well as the pass which gave us discounted access to pretty much all of New York’s attractions. These both saved us stacks of money so I’d highly recommend them.

We started off our first day by jumping on the water taxi and heading right down to the point of the Manhattan Island. This came with an entertaining accompanying commentary giving a quick little overview on our way down. This ride also included a specified booked time for us to go into the 9/11 Memorial, which was one of the things we were very keen to do. While the memorial will be free access once finished the area is under development so for crowd management you need a booking to be able to go in. While there is still a lot of major construction going on in the area and the museum isn’t open yet, it’s great to be able to experience the manmade waterfalls that cover the floor area of the original towers. Running my fingers over the names really brought home the people involved, and highlighted the sheer number of innocent people killed. The memorial has been done really well, and will only get better over time.

After spending some time watching the waterfalls we headed back out onto the streets. We needed to get a few things so headed into Century 21, a department store in the vein of Kirkcaldie and Stains in Wellington. There are two of these in New York and the downtown store was massive. The prices of the products are pretty good but the place itself is organised chaos, laid out like a maze and with people everywhere. I’m not sure whether it’s like this most days or whether people were just trying to get out of the cold!

We decided to head back up to Times Square to drop off our purchases and so jumped on the Grey Line hop on bus which was on the downtown loop. This took us back downtown and around to the East River, before heading up the eastern avenues and around to Times Square. While this covered a little bit of territory we had already seen it was really interesting to get it with a tour guide. As well as providing some general insight about the area, the guide was also able to point out the residual impact of Hurricane Sandy, which still has some major ramifications. Many huge buildings in the financial district are still running on generators and whole blocks are boarded up waiting to be repaired. There wasn’t any real impact on the transport network, many of the external escalators and elevators were shutdown but the subways were all running as normal so it was mainly superficial damage.

This time of the year it gets dark pretty early in the city, with it being noticeable from about 4.30pm. There are a lot of lights around (especially in Times Square), but the change in light does mess with your eating schedule as you start feeling hungry earlier. To celebrate New York’s influential Irish heritage we headed down to an Irish pub for dinner, with a plan to jump on the night bus tour later on that evening. After a tray of beef sliders (not great but then again mini-hamburgers, how can you go wrong) we headed back to the hotel to put on as many clothes as possible to survive a couple of evening hours on an open top bus.

The night tour was a great view of the city, a lot of the city’s Christmas lights were still up and we also went over to Brooklyn to see both Brooklyn and Manhattan from afar. 

Once we wrapped up the tour we headed over to the Rockefeller Center, to head up to the Top of the Rock observation platform. The Rockefeller Center is the home of NBC in New York and hosts Saturday Night Live, as well as being the 'location' for 30 Rock. By heading up the Top of the Rock we got the night view of New York including the Empire State Building, which was everything you'd expect.

Having soaked up a great day of New York we headed back to the hotel to warm up and try to get some sleep for day two.

Goodbye LA

Having to be at LAX by 8.30am for our Virgin America flight to New York meant that the Saturday the 5th was effectively a travel day. As a Saturday we didn’t have to worry as much about traffic, so had a smooth trip back to the Hertz drop off. Sadly we had to say goodbye to the Mustang, which Kathryn had christened Sally. A quick bus ride later and we were at the Virgin terminal.

The flight to New York was fairly uneventful, although flying over New York at night was pretty spectacular. By going to the East we were losing time so despite a five hour flight we didn’t get in until about 7pm, which didn’t leave much time for sightseeing once we got through the airport and into the hotel. The hotel itself was on a block leading off Time Square so it couldn’t be easier to get out and look around, but to save the sights for the next days we simply hit a pizza joint for some New York style pizza and then hit the hay.

Look out for the New York update tomorrow, covering all four NY days!