Jerry and Paul took me out to one of their secret abalone spots north of Jenner yesterday for abalone season opening day.  Even though the water was, as Paul put it, a bone-cracking 47F (8C) and visibility was at best around six feet, it was a beautiful day out on the Sonoma Coast and we all had a blast picking around for our day’s abs.  The big daddy below was sitting in a mere four feet of water, definitely a personal best for me.  Paul lugged in one almost as wide, but it had to be close to twice as big, it was almost round and weighed a ton! 

We spent the last week in Banff in Alberta, Canada to celebrate Greg’s 60th birthday as well as Mrs. V’s 30th.  We split our time between skiing at Sunshine Village in Banff and Lake Louise, dog-sledding in Canmore, hiking to icefalls in Johnston Canyon and a little shopping here and there too.  (Mouse-over each image for a description.)

Banff

We found our house in Banff on Vacation Rentals By Owner. choosing VRBO.com after the fantastic experience we had when we visited Sedona last year.  We weren’t disappointed this time: our abode for the week was a four-bedroom house three blocks from the center of downtown Banff, on the corner of Caribou and Otter Streets.  We couldn’t have asked for a better location, minutes on foot from all the ski shops, bakeries, clothing stores and souvenir nooks.  Canadians sure have it sorted when it comes to food: bakeries with meat pies and sausage rolls, as well as gravy on French fries!  We ended up eating in quite a bit, but did experience the local fare a little, enjoying elk burgers one night at Wild Bill’s Saloon on Banff Avenue as well as the famous Grizzly House.

The kids skied for four of the six full days we spent in the Canadian Rockies.  For the birthday celebrations on our final evening in Banff we ate at the famous Grizzly House on Banff Avenue.  The Grizzly House gives a distinctly Canadian spin on fondue: our group ordered three servings of the local Alberta Fondue, which consisted of choice cuts of musk ox, beef, buffalo, elk and venison.  Given the choice of oil or hot rocks on which to cook our food, we all opted for hot rocks and enjoyed cooking our meat on sizzling slabs of granite located in the middle of our table.  A great time, even Hunter Luke was impressed with the quality of meat delivered for our dinner.

Sunshine Village

Banff has a small mountain, Mount Norquay, within a few minutes of downtown.  The largest resort close to Banff, however, is about 20 minutes drive from downtown and is called Sunshine Village.  We spent a couple of days skiing at Sunshine, and while the snow wasn’t the waist-deep powder the locals told us they’re usually blessed with at this time of year, we had a great time exploring the slopes.  We were lucky to score a few centimeters of fresh snow the first day we skied Sunshine and managed to put in around 21,000 vertical feet on each of the days we skied at Sunshine.

The Continental Divide Express chairlift, pictured here to the left, runs right along the ridge of the Continental Divide.  It happens that the chair also coincides with the border between British Columbia and Alberta; there’s signs on certain chairlift poles stating “Welcome to Alberta” and “Welcome to British Columbia” as the chair snakes across the border between the neighboring states.  The views from the top of Continental Divide Express chair were absolutely breathtaking.  We spent most of our time at Sunshine split between Continental Divide Express and Goat’s Eye Express on opposite sides of the resort.  While there wasn’t quite enough snow to have the super steep areas of the resort open when we were there (Silver City and Delirium Dive), you could see the entrance to both from the top of the Continental Divide Express chairlift.  It is the only in-bounds area of a ski resort I’ve ever seen that actually requires skiers to carry an avalanche transceiver beacon to ski the double blacks contained therein!

Lake Louise

Ever since I was a little tacker I’ve wanted to ski at Lake Louise, the mountain has always been up on a pedestal for me, so it was awesome to be able to ski a couple of days at Lake Louise during our stay in the Rockies.  Lake Louise ski resort is about 45 minutes from Banff along the Trans-Canada Highway.  The resort is on the opposite side of the Bow River Valley from the lake itself (which you can see tucked into the mountains in the center of the photo above).  I thought the views from the top of Sunshine Village were breathtaking, but those from the top of Lake Louise were just something else.  The only other awe-inspiring landscapes that even come close are those in Yosemite National Park and the Chamonix Valley.

Prior to arriving at Lake Louise we had been warned that due to the lack of snow Lake Louise’s front side was very icy.  We thus spent most of our time at Louise in the back bowls.  The snow in the Paradise Bowl was definitely the best we found during our time in the Rockies, great steeps and a lot of fun moguls.  At one point Katrina decided the steeps of the Paradise Bowl weren’t quite challenging enough for us so took Luke and I down an extremely hairy double black called Exit Only located in an area of the mountain called The Ultimate Steeps.  Yes, I was a little worried that a slip of an edge and I’d be bouncing my way to the bottom over an array of boulders!

Canmore

On one of our days off from skiing we took a trip down the Trans-Canada Highway to the next town in the valley, Canmore.  Canmore is just outside the Banff National Park boundary and thus represents more of a regular mountain town rather than the resort-centric Banff.  Our initial motivation for making the trip was to spend the afternoon dog-sledding, but we also discovered an amazing coffee shop in town called The Coffee Mine as well as a fantastic pub, The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company.   I think Luke could have drunk the espresso-infused stout at The Grizzly Paw until he turned into an espresso bean!  If you’re reading this and thinking of visiting Canmore, make sure you visit one or both of these establishments.

Luke, Katrina and I decided to explore the local surrounds whilst the rest of our group spent the afternoon with Snowy Owl dog-sled tours.  We ventured up the mountains toward Spray Lakes, in-between the Kananaskas Range and Goat Range.  We hiked out along the western side of Spray Lakes Reservoir, which happened to be the same path Snowy Owl tours used for their afternoon dog-sled runs, so managed to snap some good shots of our crew sledding.  The groups of six dogs pulled a sled carrying two to three people each, everyone enjoyed the 10 kilometer tour immensely, especially getting to pilot their own sleds.  The girls fell in love with their lead dog Excalibur, pictured below, and Greg was pretty stoked about getting to fulfill his childhood dream of taking a dog-sled ride.

While the rest of our group was getting whisked around Spray Lakes on dog-sleds Luke, Katrina and I hiked down into Banff National Park alongside Goat Creek.  The trail we were on makes its way from the Spray Lakes road all the way down to Banff, meandering its way over 18 kilometers between the Goat Range and Sundance Range.  Would be a fun mountain bike ride during summer!  We also stopped off at the Canmore Nordic Center on the way back to town, where we caught an afternoon cross-country ski race.  No wonder Canada produces so many successful Olympic athletes, with activities like those pictured below for kids to participate in after school.

To finish up our day in Canmore, Luke and Katrina discovered that the Canmore hockey team was playing a game at the local recreation center.  We all went along and were treated to great game (unfortunately the home team lost) with not one, not two, but three hockey brawls to boot.  And the final melee resulted in one of the opposing team being knocked out cold, how fun!  We discovered that all the British seasonal workers in the area for the ski season frequent the Eagles’ home games to act as an unofficial cheering squad.  It was an excellent reminder of the motivation for countries like Australia and Canada distancing themselves from the power of Her Majesty.

Johnston Canyon

On our other day off from skiing Carol took us down the Bow Valley Parkway to Johnston Canyon.  The canyon boasts some famous icefalls which were really a sight to see, we walked the 3.6 mile roundtrip in hiking crampons.  Emerald-colored water and window-like ice made the falls just an amazing experience, the photos don’t do Johnston Canyon justice.  Unfortunately Carol had a tooth abscess giving her a lot of trouble for a couple of days during our stay, but she powered through the pain to make sure she got to experience the icefalls.

We took Friday off to head up to the cabin to celebrate Greg’s 60th birthday with him; we didn’t expect to be greeted with close to a foot of fresh powder at an almost empty Bear Valley ski resort!  The fact that we all had complimentary lift tickets from when we saw the latest Warren Miller flick made the powder day all that much better.  Greg was working the powder on his new skis like a man about to celebrate his 40th!  We ran into the Rayborns on the mountain and all got to hold baby Kate after we were done on the slopes.  We also took a nice hike around Big Trees State Park and had an awesome feast of rib eyes, mashed potatoes, Jenni V’s famous prosciutto pumpkin salad and a fabulous homemade cheesecake (Andi’s recipe) for Greg’s birthday dinner.  Thanks for turning 60, Greg!

 
Father and daughter take a ride up the chairlift (left), and Greg showing us youngens how it’s done (right)

Me with Bear Boogie all to myself on the back side of Bear Valley

 
Greg enjoying his new skis in Porridge Bowl (middle and right)

 
Fresh powder on Feather Duster (left), some time with baby Kate Rayborn after skiing (middle), and Andi’s cheesecake recipe does it again (right)

 
Happy 60th Greg (left), and the overflow of Lakemont Pines Lake (right)

 
The overflow of Lakemont Pines Lake (left), and looking east toward the Dardanelles during our hike in Big Trees State Park (right)

I can’t think of too many more fun ideas for a 30th birthday party than an eighties ski gear pub crawl through San Francisco’s Marina District.  Nice one Tracy!  As I write this my wife’s asleep on the couch next to me trying to shake off a bad case of alcohol poisoning!

We started out with quite a bit of deciding between all the Goodwill-originated clothing everyone brought for the evening, Jarrid Bodessi was nice enough to loan me the dashing outfit to the right (which was a women’s one-piece skit suit with lycra bottoms, stirrups and shoulder pads to boot!).  First stop was the Balboa Cafe, where I don’t think the wait staff of this well-known San Franciscan drinking hole were too keen on having their bar inundated with 25 outrageously clad partygoers at 4:00pm on a Saturday afternoon.  Next was the City Tavern, Kelley’s Tavern, Bar None, Delaney’s and the Marina Lounge.  A really fun night!

Pre-party drinks with Jeffrey (left), Jeffrey and Andi (middle) and Nick trying [unsuccessfully] to squeeze into a dashing turquoise one-piece (right)

 
Bottom’s up at Connie’s pre-party (middle and right)

Assorted pre-party shots out the front of Connie and Javi’s house

On our way to the Balboa Cafe through the Marina

 
At the Balboa Cafe with Jeffrey and Celisa (left), and with Nick (right)

 
Javi, Robin and Dan with Connie and Tracy’s parents in the background (left), Connie and Javi (middle), and Jeffrey, Andi and Jim at the Balboa Cafe (right)

 
 
The birthday girl enjoying the Balboa Cafe (left and middle)

 

Jim and Michelle (left), me with Nick (middle), and Connie and Javi out the front of the Balboa Cafe (right)

 
Jeffrey (left), and Celisa and Andi (middle)

 
One our way from the Balboa Cafe to Kelley’s Tavern (left), and Connie practicing a new drinking method with Jeffrey (right)

Paul and Hilary join us at Kelley’s Tavern (left), Robin and Hilary (middle), and some awesome lycra pants (right)

 

Assorted shots from Kelley’s Tavern

Waning toward the end of the night (left), and Connie playing her favorite game at the Marina Lounge (right)