Blue Mountain

Oh man, I don’t even know where to begin! And I’m sorry, but I can predict it will be pretty long! I just lived the three best days of my life! Well, maybe not the BEST, but it was pretty amazing! We left our place at like 10 on Monday morning, we as in my parents, Jer Andrew, Kris and I. Along the way we made a bunch of stops, Vaughn Mills being one of them! What a great place! Then we went to Tims for donuts/coffee and stuff before we headed on for…Collingwood! We arrived there at like 3. After driving around the place for a while, we stopped in to register and stuff but were told our condo probably would not be ready till 5 at the earliest. That sucked because we had planned to go boarding at 4. But they gave us a number to call and the condo was ready at 4 anyway! By the time we were finished unpacking everything and were dressed, it was probably five. Then Jer and I headed out for the slopes, which were right behind our condo! It was amazing, my first time at blue! The runs were amazing, but the crappy thing was the line ups. Man, it took FOREVER, a literal forever, to get up there! We probably waited like up to 8 minutes from the end of the line to the chair, where 6 people were crammed onto the chair. I prefer an empty chair so that I can hold my board on my left boot, but that didn’t happen the first night! Anyways, we boarded right till 10, and then Jer and I went to the hot tubs. Awesome times…we must have sat in there for like 20 minutes! But the air wasn’t even that cold, so that kinda sucked. (it was an outdoor one) But it was helped relax the muscles. After that we went inside and watched TV before we all dropped down for the night.

The Condo was really nice. It had to bedrooms, a master one that over looked the family room, and another one with two single beds in it. The nicest bathroom was in the master bedroom and had a nice Jacuzzi tub (which my brother Andrew ended up calling a gachoozy tub, btw) Downstairs was the best. Huge windows over looking the mountain, particularly the hill called happy valley. My parents could watch us board down that hill right from the couch! It was awesome! There was a nice gas fireplace, a kitchen (with a dishwasher, btw;) and a dinning room.

The next day was even better! At like 9 we all walked a few kilometres to the inn where we had a buffet breakfast. It was so good! There was French toast, pancakes, scrambled egg, bacon, sausage, bread, croissants, cereal, fruit and I think that was it. To go boarding from 12pm -10 pm it’s $35 but from 4pm-12 it’s like $33, plus you loose two hours! Well, those are the prices for youth, anyway. My sister also went skiing that day. She had only been once before at Snow Valley this past time. So we headed for the green hills first for her and once she knew them, we headed off for the blue/black diamond ones. But just before that, Jer realized his ticket had fallen off his jacket, crap. So we managed to get back up the lift no problem and snowplow down the run we had just gone down. After having no success, we decided to take the run that ran under the lift, but that was useless too. The thing that sucked was they didn’t give us a receipt, so we had no proof that he even bought a ticket. He asked for some sort of refund, but the lady was like “oh we can’t do that, you may have just given it to your brother, or something like that.” Anyways, he wasn’t about to go spend another $50 and give some one a free ticket, so we figured we’d try to get all day without him having his ticket, and it worked till about 4:30! He just hid behind me, good thing I’m GOOFY J hehe…when he was caught, he was like “oh, I lost it cuz I’ve been out here since like 12” and we went to another ticket booth where he received another one for free, he just had to give some info. People can be so annoying, one person says they can’t do anything for you, and the next say sure. Weirdos…oh well, he got it! At like 4 we decided to head to the other side f the mountain because neither of us had been there yet, because that side was closed at night. Anyways, we didn’t see any runs that would take us that way, so we had to walk. It seemed like forever, I guess because we had been boarding all night and day. But it was quite a ways. As we walked, we could see the lift from time to time, and it was moving. However, we rounded the last corner…and the lifts had stopped, and the people were walking away with their back packs on. So, we had to turn around and walk ALL the way back, did I mention I hate walking after boarding so much? So we spent the night on the runs by our condo. It was great. We had just gone out after supper, and the groomers had started grooming the run I wanted to go down! So, by the time we were up the lift, they were pretty much done, and we went down it! It was amazing. After going down bumpy hills all day, we finally got a groomed one and just whipped down the hill! It was fun. At like 9 we decided we were tired, and went swimming and in the hot tubs. The groomers came out that night at like 11 and so the lights on the hill shined into the condo till like 12 :P I had to sleep on the couch…what a crappy sleep!

The next day…what a drag. It was our last day and pretty disappointing. Jer and I had planned to be out there by 8. When I woke up at 7:30, it was pouring rain. At like quarter after eight, it was no better, and the lifts hadn’t even been started yet. At 8:30 we just went out and decided to try it. We asked the guy at the lift if we could just get a free ride to see what the conditions were like, however, because of liability, they wouldn’t let us. But they said we could get a one lift ticket voucher, and that’s what we did! A free ride up for both of us! At the top, we cut across to the left to the next lift where we attempted to get another voucher. However, the same lady who said he couldn’t get a refund on his ticket was there. Of course, she was like “we don’t give free rides up” Man, we couldn’t tell her we just got one, so there was nothing we could do, except try to get up the lift anyways! And that’s what we did. I had taken my ticket off from the night before, but Jer still had his on and folded it over so the date wasn’t visible! We went back to back on the lift, and I was out of view of the guy. We got our ride up, and it was pouring rain still. What a drag. You couldn’t see anyting while boarding because of the fog. Jer was like 20 feet ahead of me and I could barely make him out, and even the little dips in the run made me fall just because they weren’t visible. It was really crappy, disappointing weather. We boarded right down to our condo from that run and went inside, sopped. After drying off we went for breakfast and then packed. No one wanted to leave except my dad. It was really disappointing. Today and the next they were calling for some snow and like -5 for the temp. What a change from like +5! We decided to head up the mountain, I don’t know why cuz you couldn’t see 20 feet ahead of you! But it was fun, other than the ear-popping! Then we left, what a sad departure. It was so much fun! So much…and so nice just to have 3 days where you didn’t have to do anything but walk out the door, put your board on, and go! I miss it already. The sad thing is you look forward to it for so long, live that time, and now it’s the past, history. Oh well, at least we have Snow Valley to look forward to! I just hope that we have a FREEZING cold day rather than a +4….but what can you do? It was great fun while it lasted, and hopefully next year we will do the same!

We were a bit disappointed though, because they had advertised free in-home movies and free wireless internet, but we didn't get either of them in our condo, which really sucked. We did get cable TV though, so that was good.