The Banff Extravaganza

The hubbie and I spent New Year's in Banff, Canada. He had a conference there, so we went early to enjoy the fantastic mountains of snow. Banff was beautiful. We stayed at the Fairmont Banff Springs. This is a beautiful hotel with a great spa, but it's not worth the list price of $500 a night and is too far from the town center for my taste. I was glad we stayed once, but won't stay again.

Fortunately, I spent a lot of time learning to snowboard. I went to two ski areas; Lake Louise and Norquay. Lake Louise was a great spot. I took a lot of lessons there and found by day five I could actually make it down the learning hill turning on both my heel and toe edge of the board. Quite exciting! Let me just say, private lessons are worth their weight in gold! I wish I had taken one on day two instead of day five. Oh..the progress I could have made. My magic instructor, Kerri, had me linking turns in the first lesson and working the hill in "wicked" fashion on the second lesson. I even had a scary moment where I got a little air by riding over another instructor's snowboard on the hill. Oops! Luckily, all ended well. I landed my small jump and received cheers from those observing.

Banff was a good trip. There are quite a few ski areas under an hour away and there was plenty of snow. However, Whistler is still my favorite. Now I can't wait to go back to Whistler and board!