Expedition Canada

Grizzly Disrupts Skiing I liked the idea that a grizzly bear had brought disruption to the ski lift system in Whistler.  The following morning the 'Special Event & Info' had been amended to ' Glacier Lift CLOSED - Having a mental health day '.  A few runs later the details had been erased.  I assume someone had taken offence at the reference to mental health.  The lift operators are wags!  I discover the Glacier chair-lift is out of action due to failed bearings on the gearbox that carries the main cable.  Gutted!  I liked the grizzly story.  Fake news! Quiet Slopes We had three visits in the 2023/4 season, most of which were washed out, literally, due to warm temperatures, lack of snow and rain (we managed about 4 days skiing).  Our Christmas 2024 trip had low cloud and high winds that closed most of the alpine lifts.  In contrast during the last week of Jan we had 3 consecutive beautiful 'bluebird' days.    The weather fo...

Happy New Year Ok, OK, I know I do a lot of sunsets (and sunrises) - but they are so beautiful Sunset over Vancouver Island (iPhone) Well, as feared in the last blog, it turns out that coming from a new joint email address our festive messages ended up in a lot of folks junk folders. W e sent e-Christmas cards as Canada Post were on strike for several months before Christmas.   So if you were thinking "we didn't get a card from the Cronks this year", check your junk email.  If it isn't there, then our email list was clearly in error (or you have changed your email address)!   It seems e-Xmas messages are starting to replace snail-mail (not surprising if you go on strike before Christmas) and probably arrive nanoseconds after they were sent. We had several.  Our first batch of the more tactile traditional cards arrived from the UK Fri Jan 10th, apart from a couple that must have been posted last summer, or maybe even Christmas 2023! Winter seems to have bypa...

Now Fred Not content with having to manage Jack's broken leg, Fred comes out in sympathy, goes A over T at tennis and fractured the radial bone (top/neck end) of her left elbow.  I always thought tennis was a rough game.   No plaster-cast or brace, just a sling for a few weeks and no driving for four weeks. More importantly, no skiing at Christmas.  Still on the positive side we now have a built-in dogsitter while I go skiing! Jack on the other hand is now walking and playing normally, no limp, which disappeared a couple of weeks after he hit the car.  If we had not seen the x-ray we would have him labelled as a complete fraud. Fred managed to arrange the 'incident' a week before we hosted Sebby for five days while Nick and Lizzie jetted off to NYC to celebrate her birthday.  The same weekend (Dec 8 & 9) that I had two concerts with the A Cappella Strait choir I belong to.  It was, to say the least, a full-on weekend.  After dropping him back ...