So Glad I Asked
Well, he is now in Calgary, our youngest child; has been for the past month. He has a nice little apartment on the campus of the university, so he has only to walk over to the laboratory each morning. All very convenient. He's undertaking a research enterprise in collaboration with an associate professor in the biology department at the university. Thought it might prove to be an interesting break from his usual preoccupation with his job with the Province of British Columbia. And, he said, he is finding it most interesting, has discovered some fascinating new data through the experience.
Among other things he had taken along his skis, his bicycle, as he preferred mode of transportation, although he had driven his vehicle from Vancouver to Calgary, last month. He uses the bicycle for trips inter-city, although he found it more useful to buy a second-hand mountain bike to negotiate the snow-crusted steets of the city last month.
He's gone on a number of skiing expeditions, and as usual, on his own, although he did have a companion the last time he skiied on the Olympic hill situated inside the city borders itself. Far better, I moan to myself, to have companions skiing back-country. In my last email to him following on our telephone conversation where he described his latest skiing expedition around Jasper, I asked about the snow, the skiing conditions. And hesitantly enquired about the potential for avalanche problems.
His responding email described the lovely light-snow conditions high on the mountains, when skiing on powder is alike foating on air, whereas further down a crust develops and the skiing in somewhat more problematical. Check out this web site, he wrote, including an Internet address for the Canadian Avalanche Alert site. And, he said, he was, as it happened, attending (yet another) avalanche safety lecture on Sunday, and they'd find themselves up in Kannanaskis digging up plugs of snow to identify safety features.
I did have a gander at the Canadian Avalanche Alert site, and no matter where I pointed the cursor the same legend came up: Extra caution required for recreational skiiers; powdery ski conditions above, icy below; avalanche opportunities present.
How reassuring.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, April 09, 2006
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