Looking back at the time i had in Kananaskis

  Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Sunday, April 13, 2008

I arrived in Kananaskis Country on the 6th of October 2007 having flown to Calgary on the 4th of october from Perth, Western Australia. It wasnt until the 7th that I was able to go discover what the area had to offer in terms of recreation, other than skiing/snowboarding at the hill i was to work at. What i found was quite amazing, Biking and Hiking trails, rivers, and shear mountains.



I met up with a few of the other people, who i would later come very good friends with, Justin, Travis and Brett, and we went on a magnificent afternoon of mountain biking along a few of the trails. The scenery along these trails in late 'fall' is quite amazing.



It was 2 days after this that we all started work as snowmakers at the ski resort Nakiska. The process of snowmaking took about 3 months to get the majority of the ski runs covered with snow and open to the public. There were times when i thought that the effort wasnt worth it, but having stayed through the hard times i realised that the effort i did put in was definately worth it. The work wasnt physically demanding, but you did have to have a fair level of fitness to be able to do the job as there was alot of walking, digging, running and maintenance involved. At a few stages i was the only one working as the people i was working with decided to bite the dust and quit. I didnt mind as it set me a whole new challenge.




Once snowmaking finished i then became a trail crew member, basically i did any job that the ski hill felt required, mainly rubbish duties and snowshovelling off the decks. Later i helped the lift operators when they became short on staff, but at the same time i was still doing the trail crew duties. I had a real blast in this time as i spend half of my day driving a ski-doo (similar to a jet-ski, but made for snow).





The weather during the middle of winter didn't really go lower than -30C, but there were 2 days on which the hill didnt open due to the conditions being too cold for anything to operate. Those days the temperature got to below -40C. Having acclimatised in the lead up to the cold periods, i became used to temperatures being between -10 and -25, and often i would go 'boarding on days like those when i had days off.






There is a hotel chain in Kananaskis called 'Delta' and their service was quite good. I looked into room prices and the best rates they could find were between $160/night to $300/night. Many, if not all, of the staff from Nakiska went to their restaurants, Woody's Bar and Big Horn, where we had many good nights, including our last night out there on April 6th.