Skiing Marmot

It has been years since I've been to Marmot Basin in Jasper, AB. Until I went twice this year. Once with the youth group, once with the college and career students. And it was pretty good. I remember certain sections of the hill with fear (the knob) and can safely say that what I once dreaded I now love. Then again, back in the day there were a ton of moguls up there and I was shaking in my boots taking the path of least resistance down the mountain hoping that I wouldn't snowplow off of the precipice next to me. And I also braved the backside. Yes, those double-black diamonds where you could quite literally ski off of a 20-40 foot cliff if you weren't careful - or in the case of John and Carson, if you were crazy.

It is a lot of work to keep a group of students rested and fed, but this year seemed so much easier than last. Then again, last year we went to Sunshine Village and then on to Castle Mountain with a stop at Longview in between. It was a lot of driving, and every moment seemed to be about preparing the next meal and getting up before the crack of dawn. Last year we took photos of all of the over-turned semi-trailers because the winds of the south were throwing a hissy fit. Only two of our youth ever made the top of Castle because they kept shutting down the chair each time the wind blew over 80 km/h. Well, when I was with our young adults group at Marmot this time around, the wind at the top of the hill was so bad that most of it was ice. We had a complete whiteout up there at the end of the day. And they closed the knob chair early because the winds were reaching over 115 km/h in some gusts. Crazy!

We played music, played with oxygem, played
with whatever wasn't tied or bolted down...

I've also never had to take a trip to the hospital while skiing for myself or anyone else. Until this year. I was in one piece - in fact, I never fell once that I recall with the youth group - something I remedied later with the young adults on my first few runs. But I digress. One student tried the rainbow rail at the terrain park with a little too much enthusiasm and landed on his wrist. Several hours later we emerged from the emergency at the hospital with a sling and a story. It turns out that when we arrived the whole hospital was deserted and we wondered first if the rapture had happened and second whether or not this was the zombie apocalypse. When we finally found a non-zombified nurse, she kindly brought us to the emergency room to await the x-ray tech and a doctor. Though we were the first ones there, we were forgotten about quickly when other ski-related traumas followed. You could hear the screaming from the guy who had his leg re-set, and they had to do the x-rays twice because the tech ignored the doctors instructions to do films on the ribs and the wrist. Turns out that the wrist was a sprain and the ribs were cracked. The kid took it like a champ and stayed with us the next night even though he had a family friend available to drive him home (sleeping with cracked ribs in your own bed is not fun - he slept on a couch!).

All in all it was all good and I would gladly do it again. But next time I need Faith with me...