Snowy Christmas West Coast Style

It’s been a wild couple of days here in Vancouver.

For starters, we already had about 15 cm of snow on the ground, then got another dump on Christmas Eve – somewhere around 20 or 30 cm depending on what part of town you live in.

MB and I were on Cypress Mountain first thing Christmas Eve – the powder was up to my knees and super light so we had a riot. After 5 runs I was exhausted and we headed home, then off to the Playhouse to see a matinee of the Drowsy Chaperone.

While out shoveling the driveway, we managed to catch some video of our neighbour’s way of dealing with the snow…

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(the video is also on YouTube if you want to link or embed that version)

By early evening there was even more snow on the ground, and while out buying milk in Edgemont Village I passed a couple on a snowmobile driving down the middle of Sunset Boulevard – a sight you won’t see too often in North Vancouver.

Christmas Eve is pretty quiet at our house – we were all curled up watching a movie when the power went out around 10:00 pm . By Christmas morning the power was still off so I fired up my Y2K generator (who’s laughing now !) and we got the fridge and freezer powered up. And of course the coffee maker.

With the indoor temperature about the same as the temperature outside, it wasn’t hard to convince the kids to gear up and play in the snow. I did a run to the closest gas station with power and fueled up the genny.

By 10:30 Christmas morning the grid was back up – so time for a little blogging and another pot of coffee.

This will be one Christmas etched in our memories for a while.

Merry Christmas everyone.

(click any pics for larger versions)

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My Canada

It’s snowing again tonight in Vancouver, with a snowfall warning for the south coast and a few other parts of BC. In fact, there’s a weather warning of some kind for almost all parts of BC tonight and tomorrow.

And though this is a big country, we all share one thing in common.

A quick check with the Environment Canada web site gives you a good picture of what Winter in Canada means for all Canadians…

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Snow in BC,

Meanwhile Down Under

It’s white with snow all over the lower mainland, and that makes for a lovely break from the grey.

After a morning of snowboarding I started going through some photos I took in Sydney a few years ago.

Maybe because my sailboat Madsu is tucked away out of the water and undercover for the winter, two photos jumped out at me.

A couple of examples of the ultimate in waterfront living…

  • Steps to the ocean
  • Pool
  • Dry dock

Click the pics for larger versions, if you can stand it…

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It’s one thing to haul up that nice little runabout.

But get a load of this ketch.

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Gotta love those Sydneysiders.

Both of these were taken in November 2002.

Local Snowboarding Cranking

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Garnet and I got up early so we could head up to Cypress this morning for the opening of the riding season.

Guest Services and lift ticketing is now at the new lodge, and it’s a fantastic facility. For one thing it’s more centrally located to the lifts, and the ticketing area is under-cover & huge compared to the old guest services building.

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The wind was blowing and the snow falling this morning, it was surprisingly cold – but first day on the mountain it really doesn’t matter.

Not many of the runs are open yet – check the Cypress Mountain web site for info – they were selling lift tickets at a reduced rate today.

20081214_tireThis was the perfect day to find out how the new Michelin X-Ice snow tires are going to perform. The road was slippery and with fresh snow falling it was a great test for the Yaris.

Verdict = way better than I had expected.

Tire technology just gets better and better and the Yaris is now a snow-hugging-machine – makes heading up on a cold snowy morning way less stressful.

Happy Riding!  Oh, and check out Garnet’s answer to the cold

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