Back to reality

It's a sad day today. Although we got more than we bargained for by staying an extra day, it's hard to leave a place where some of your greatest memories have been made. The skiing has been excellent. The location, food and company likewise, but the main factor that made it as special as it was had to be the hospitality shown by Mark, Sarah and family. They invited us into their home as strangers and for those few days we were made to feel just as welcome as they were.

Traditional group photo. Great memories...

With a bit of time to spare, we helped shovel the snow off the wood shelter roof, followed by a commemorative last run down the luge track. 10am rolled around and soon the sound of the helicopter making its way up the valley came into earshot. As before the turnaround was critical and there was just enough time to hug it out with a couple of the newcomers. We didn't even need to say anything, our smiles told the story better than words ever could. With that we boarded the chopper and after watching them draw a 15ft penis in the snow, headed off back to civilisation.

New Arrivals!

Jenny was waiting patiently for us in the bus, along with the slightly less patient Fiona, Shawn, James, Tom and Gav! Soon enough they were called up and within minutes had disappeared over the horizon and once the other half of our group had landed, we set out back towards Kimberley with heavy hearts and incredible memories.

The trip back to Fernie consisted of excitedly telling Jenny all our stories (typically it wasn't long before the origin of my new nickname came about), rocking out to Johnny Cash (Tom excluded!) and necking the box of Nerds if found at a service station. We even saw/drove into a herd of deer in the road eating the salt. Clearly not scared of vehicles, even the horn couldn't get them out of the way! Must have been good salt!

Oh deer!

The rest of the afternoon faded away into nothingness as we reluctantly returned all our touring equipment, phoned home and sat down for an unusually sub-par dinner. It was no Shirley that's for sure! We drowned our sorrows with Fernie Brewing Company's finest and cured our foosball withdrawal before hitting the sack.

The boulder hut was over. Gutted.