Olympic tracks

I GOT to slide in the tracks of Olympians today.

I spent the day skiing at Naniska, the alpine resort in Kananaskis Country built to host the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics' alpine events, and I navigated the same runs athletes from around the world covered on their way to winning gold, silver and bronze.

Skiing Olympic-class runs isn't as remarkable as it sounds, the slopes aren't so steep but long with sections where the hill drops away dramatically for a only few metres before leveling off again.

And it's even more demoralising to realise, after negotiating a steep section of an old Olympic course, that there's a team of kids zooming down the hill behind you and they don't look the least bit fazed while you're wondering just what your travel insurance covers.

Kananaskis Country

MORE snow shoeing today, this time in Kananaskis Country.

I'm staying at the Delta Kananaskis Lodge, a hotel in what is essentially a purpose-built village designed to sit in the middle of a vast recreation area, and during the winter locals from around Alberta and even across the border in British Columbia head here to enjoy the snow.

There is a ski area called Naniska which was built to host the alpine events during the Calgary Winter Olympics back in 1988 as well as a huge belt of bush that's the perfect place to go snowshoeing, Nordic skiing and even dog sledding.

My guide Kristi and I drove for an hour to get to a remote trailhead where we parked the car, donned our warmest clothes, and headed out into a blizzard to explore more frozen lakes on foot.

The snow only fell for a few minutes and once we were clear of the car, and in a pasture of snow that was only marked with the occasional animal track, the sun came out with the pines laying long shadows on the white floor.

This part of Alberta, which is just a 90-minute drive from the boomtown city of Calgary, is completely uninhibited and so much snow falls here in the colder part of the year that the main road west is closed for months at a time.

"This used to be a huge coal mining area, and there are the remains of old mining and logging camps right through the Kananaskis Provincial Park," Kristi explained as we took a break to listen to the sounds of silence in the heart of the back country.

"There was even a prisoner-of-war camp out here during World War One and it was home to soldiers that came from Europe, and the prisoners were allowed to climb the mountains for exercise because there was nowhere for them to escape to.

"When the war ended many of them stayed here because they fell in love with the mountains, and they went on to provide the labour that built the hydro scheme up here."

Icefield Parkway

IT was time to move today and I hit the road and travelled the full length of the famed Icefield Parkway to get from Japser to a little corner of southern Alberta called Kananaskis Country.

My ride south left well before dawn, when I couldn't see anything from the bus window but the dark outline of the Rocky Mountain peaks against the cloudy night sky, and the light only started to creep across the landscape as I neared the famed Columbia Icefield.

During the warmer months tourists flock to this part of Canada to take tours on the glacier, riding along a stretch of the prehistoric ice in a special vehicle that can creep over the frozen surface, but at this time of year there's very little to see with the cloud hugging the mountains.

It was no accident that the early road workers called it "the road through the clouds" when they were working on the infrastructure project during The Great Depression.

As we drove I could see a couple of patches of the opaque blue ice that defines a glacier, but in the gloom of the mid-winter morning it was hard to make out where the mountains ended and the sky started.

My driver Fred explained the Athabasca Glacier was the spot that marked the boundary between Jasper National Park and Banff National Park, and while it looked like "an arbitrary line on a map" the location was actually decided by the flow of water.

"It's a watershed issue," Fred explained as we cruised along the empty road.

"Water in Jasper National Park goes to the Arctic Ocean and water from the Banff National Park goes to the Atlantic Ocean via Hudson Bay, and that decided the location of the boundary between the two national parks.

"There is a spot up on the Columbia Icefield called the 'triple apex hydro watershed' and, in theory, if there were three molecules of water sitting side by side one could go to the Arctic Ocean, one could go to the Pacific Ocean and one could go to the Atlantic Ocean."

Fred also explained the Icefields Parkway was avalanche country in the winter, with the road regularly closed by the snow that roars down the mountain and covers the asphalt for days at a time.

He explained I could identify the avalanche chutes by recognising the areas where blocks of mature trees stood right beside patches void of vegetation.

Fred told me that on some mornings, as he drives the road between Jasper and Banff, his journey is slowed with Parks officials dong the work necessary to prevent avalanches, which often means they cause the snow to tumble down the mountain under controlled circumstances.

"They once used a Howitzer (a military canon) with shells that were 1m long, but they decided that probably wasn't the best way," he said.

"Now they fly a helicopter around, with the door open so they can kick out shells that are set to explode after the helicopter has cleared the area, and the noise and vibration of that explosion moves the unstable snow causing an avalanche."

Grin and bear it

IT was cold in Jasper last week, with the mercury dropping well below zero and the wind chill taking another dozen degrees off the temperature.

It was so cold the powers closes Marmot Basin for a couple of days, too chilly for skiing with the lack of moisture in the air making it hard to slide over the white stuff, and the landscape was buried in a deep layer of snow.

The little town of Jasper is set right in the middle of Jasper National Park, with is the largest green belt in the Canadian provence of Alberta, with a collection of lakes surrounding the town that provide year-round entertainment for the local outdoor types.

During the warmer months you can hike, kayak or swim - just keep an eye out for the bears, because there's a healthy population in the surrounding mountains - and when its cold and white, like it is now, you can rug up to explore the frozen ponds on a pair of snow shoes.

I went out for a gentle walk today with local Wes Bradford, a former ranger who worked in the Jasper National Park for 37 years before retiring to show tourists around the wilds of Alberta, and we did our touring at the Pyramid Bench behind town.

We wandered from Patricia Lake to Pyramid Lake, through forests of skeletal aspen trees and along tracks covered in more than 30cm of snow, and once we started walking I quickly forgot about the cold and became completely immersed in the peaceful environment.

Wes was a wildlife specialist during his working days - he told me he would disappear into the bush on snowshoes for days to check on the animals - and we stopped several times to look at the old scratches on tree trunks made by bears climbing in search of food.

Looking at the thin pieces of wood I found it hard to imagine a heavy bear could even get off the ground, let alone to the very top of one of these flimsy trees, but Wes assured me they were agile critters and could race to the top without too much trouble.

Note to self, never climb a tree to get away from a bear.

Skiing the Park

THIS is avalanche country, and it seems that even the locals with four legs have to pitch in when something goes wrong in the mountains.

I spent the day sliding on the white stuff at Marmot Basin, the alpine area a 30-minute drive from Jasper, and while I was getting ready to go out there was a member of the mountain patrol preparing for a day on the hill with his rescue dog.

Marmot Basin is inside the boundary of Jasper National Park, with the slopes divided into four defined areas which make it very easy to get around, but I spent my morning on the baby hill having my first snowboarding lesson.

I have been skiing for 20 years, but decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about, so dumped my skis for a lolly-pink snowboard and headed out to experience sliding with both feet anchored to a single plank of wood.

For a long time I've been told that while skiing is easier to learn it's harder to perfect and  snowboarding is more difficult to learn but easier to master, and now I believe it.

I had a three-hour lesson and didn't make it away from the magic carpet in all that time, and during my morning I was never comfortable or confident about what I was doing.

It was easy to do the toe turns, which took me to the right, but I struggled turning left when I had to lean hard on my heals and push my weight back because that whole sensation just felt wrong, awkward and downright dangerous.

Skiing is much easier to master and as soon as you can snow plough - the move where you force your feet apart but point the toes together - you're in control, can stop yourself, and get yourself out of most mountainside situations.

There seems to be no similar move in snowboarding, and after a while I was struggling just to get the messages to the muscles in my legs to do what was was necessary to turn towards the left.

So I thanked my instructor, headed back inside to exchange my snowboard for some skis, and went back out to see more of the mountain on equipment I could control without thinking about it.

And next week when I get to Kananaskis, another Alberta ski resort but south of here down near Calgary, I will be keen to line up at the ski desk in the rental store happy that my snowboarding itch has been scratched.

Rail away

MY itinerary told me this was going to be a 20-hour journey, which sounded like a long time to be sitting on a train, so I had a pile of magazines and a good book ready to get me from Vancouver to the Alberta settlement of Jasper.

I am riding The Canadian, the sleek silver train that runs from Vancouver to Toronto, but I'm only a passenger for 20 hours which is the time it takes the engines to pull the handful of carriages through the snowy wilds of western Canada.

But the views out my cabin window have been so captivating I haven't even opened one of my magazines or found the bookmark in the novel I'm reading.

We left after dinner last night, long after the sun had set, so the first part of the journey was done in darkness but that didn't stop me from gazing out the window until well after midnight.

I had a hot shower, climbed into the bed in my cabin, and watched the lights flash past outside seeing the city give way to a snowy landscape with great piles of white stuff all that's left from last week's frigid cold snap.

When I woke this morning we were well into the elevated forests of British Columbia, with the snow so abundant I could only see the very top branches of the immature pines growing between the tracks and the sheer peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

The driver even slowed down so we could see a frozen waterfall, with ice clinging to the rocks and only a trickle of water resisting the freezing temperatures to continue tumbling.

The train will get me to Jasper in a few hours, where I will be able to snap a few pictures before the wheels start turning and it leaves the station for the next stop on the long journey across Canada.

Island life

THERE'S one place I visit every time I stop in Vancouver, and that's the Granville Island Market.

I love walking through the food halls looking at the tables of fresh produce, wandering the shops in the Net Loft where local artisans sell everything from bespoke jewellery to handmade notebooks, and sitting by False Creek enjoying a view of the Vancouver skyline while feasting on some little gourmet treat.

The locals are very proud of Granville Island - it's on every itinerary I get from Tourism Vancouver - and millions of dollars have been spent on gentrifying a patch of land that was anything but glamorous for a large chunk of the past century.

During The Great Depression one of the many "hobo jungles" that sprang up around Vancouver was set on Granville Island where "shakers" hid from the chilly winter temperatures in houses made from rubbish gathered around town.

They survived by selling the fish they caught in False Creek, and because they were basically self sufficient they were left alone.

The shanty town existed until 1949 when city officially finally issued eviction notices after a typhoid scare and a high-profile murder convinced the government something needed to be done about the place.

Gentrification began in the 1970s when Granville Island was turned into a "people-friendly place" with everything from parkland to exhibition space and now there is a marina, boutique hotel, a university and theatres in addition to the shopping and eating precinct.

Vancouver, by night

WELCOME to Vancouver, a city that look just as good at night as it does during the day.

And at this time of year there's a lot of night, with the sun hitting the horizon in this part of the world not long after the kids get home from school and staying hidden until they are almost back in class for their morning lessons.

Trip #1 (2012)

MY first trip of the year is done, so here are the stats for my jaunt to Singapore...

Flights - Two in seven days

Kilometres flown - 12,512km from Melbourne to Singapore and back again

Hotels - Wangz Hotel and Hotel Fort Canning

Countries visited - Singapore

New countries visited - A big round donut

It's a short list because it's the first trip of the year, but I will be adding a couple of categories so look out for something a little longer when I get home from Canada next month.

@ Sago Lane

 

 Sago Lane...the heart of Chinatown, on the eve of Chinese New Year.