Sunday, January 08, 2006

Fun with snow

Yesterday four of us went snowboarding (technically, three of us went snowboarding and one went skiing). We got up very early and headed to the station. Unfortunately, due to an accident and excessive snow (perhaps snow also caused the accident) the line we wanted to travel on was not running.

Eventually, the service resumed, but since it was a Saturday and a lot of people wanted to go to the same area as us, there was an enormous number waiting for that first train. We were lucky enough to get on, though we did have to stand the whole way.

Anyway, the really annoying thing was that the train continued to stop at all the intermediate stations where there were also large groups of people keen to get on the train. In spite of several calls from the conductor that people make more room to "allow even one more passenger" no one could really get on without invoking some child's cries of pain from being squashed (at which point they would get off again). I think if I were running the line then I would have choosen the place that most of the people wanted to go and made the first train go there without stopping at any intermediate station then send a train to the next station and do the same thing there. Then start a regular service once the initial glut has been handled. I should build a proper model to see if this is really more efficient, but I don't have the time at the moment.

Anyway, once we arrived at the station we were greeted with a view of a place that has seen quite a lot of snowfall recently.


We then took a bus to the slope and being more mature snow-fun seekers we decided we should eat first rather than rush out onto the slopes :-)



After taking the ropeway up to the start of the slopes we were surprised to find that there were not many people there at all which was great given that lots of big fluffy snowflakes were falling quite graciously all around.

If I have time I may try and put together a little video montage from the footage that I took and put it on youtube or google video or something (need to find a suitable soundtrack though).

We had a pretty great day with lots of laughs and no injuries. My back seems to be able to handle these one day trips now which is a big relief. The next big test will be in a couple of weeks with a 3-day trip, where I plan on working on some tricks and jumps (hopelessly underdeveloped).

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