Return flights back to Banff, as well as season passes for all three of Banff's closest ski hills, made it much easier to say goodbye to our friends and family and head back over to our Canadian outdoor playground. We quickly learnt that this is exactly what Banff is in winter. With only a portion of the tourists that flock through in summer, the population is significantly less and work is much more slow. This doesn't seem to bother anyone though as it simply leaves more time to ski with mates. Actually, it leaves a whole 7-8 months to spend up the hill, and although we were only around for 5 of these, it still makes it the longest, fun filled winter we have ever had!

Our good friend Ely was waiting for us when we flew in, with her car loaded with our hand-me-down winter jackets and a huge smile on her face, despite the -15 degree morning! The drive back into Banff was a breathtaking sight! It was pretty awesome to witness a totally transformed Banff, from lush green pine forests and blue lakes to frozen lakes and natural ice sculptures scattered amongst the snow covered mountains.
Everything about Banff seemed to make more sense, with the snow piled onto the steep roofed houses, slushy roads and warm inviting chimney smoke.. It looked just like a dream world, and honestly that's exactly what Banff really seems to be sometimes. It was almost too easy - beautiful surroundings, easy non committal jobs and nothing to do in our free time except to snowboard! It didn't take long for us to accept this life style for a few months :)

Ely helped us get back on our feet by graciously letting us share her little one bedroom bachelorette until we found our own place. This didn't end up taking too long at all, and although it was a little sad to move out of Ely's tiny flat, the place we found was the sweetest! It was a really cosy little hand built wooden cabin, converted from an old horse stable in the backyard of a nice B&B in town. The cabin had a distinct bear theme, with bears holding welcome signs at the doorstep, climbing all the lampshades, and decorating the floor rugs. There was even a fluffy little black bear in a cage hanging above the toilet! We had ambitions to count all the bears in our cabin, but it seemed like too much work in the end. There must have been at least 300 in our little snow covered winter cabin.

We settled in pretty quickly. Before long Jess had her old serving job at Chilis back, and Aidan was welcomed back to Abominable Sports, this time to sell Skis and Snowboards. We made use of our season lift passes and got up to a hill every chance we had for some snowboarding!

It was the first time Jess had ever tried the sport, and she was making really good progress until an icy patch got the better of her and she ended up with a broken radius! It was pretty traumatic as it happened just after she took a wrong turn and lost everyone. Not wanting to look at her swollen wrist, she tried to snowboard, and then eventually walk back down to base. Eventually ski patrol picked her up and sent her down on the gondola. We all found each other and realised the unfortunate truth... luckily the medic at Lake Louise was friendly and calmed the tears for our trip back to the hospital in Banff.

Things took another bad turn when Jess's visa prematurely expired due to a mistake by the Canadian customs officer. So, not only was she without a good arm but unable to work until the visa issue was corrected. It was a frustrating few weeks but at least we were encouraged to try some alternative winter activities - snowshoeing, cross country skiing and photography - Jess got some beautiful photos on a couple of fresh snow covered bluebird mornings while everyone else, including Aidan, were throwing themselves off mountains on planks of wood.

Jess wasn't the only one walking around with a broken wrist. By the end of the season, it seemed like every fifth person we walked past was uncomfortably supporting a pink, blue, purple or orange caste on some part of their body - all of whom were reassured by people with older ski injuries that at least Banff has the world's best bone doctors! Our good friend Yolande, who Jess worked with over summer and who we ended up moving next door to had a really bad injury only a few weeks after Jess, lacerating her spleen. This incident cost her 4 days in Calgary hospital followed by months and months of rest and recovery. At least the two of them had plenty of time together at home while her partner Keiryn and Aidan were up the hill.

By the time Jess was all healed up and no longer an illegal immigrant, her cousin Bek came to visit for a few weeks. It was nice to be able to show her around such a beautiful and fun place, and we maintained a pretty action-packed itinerary for her. We even managed a winter road trip with our pet black bear up to Jasper and back!

Aidan was doing pretty well on the snowboard until an attempted board slide left him with a badly bruised tailbone - compared to most of our friends though he got away pretty lightly. Another season and he's pretty sure he could nail a backflip off a little natural kicker! By the time slush cup came around even Jess was carving through the trees and popping little ollies.

Making the most of the cosy cabin, we spent many nights entertaining friends with board games and wine and cheese nights. This was a soft alternative to most of the Banffites who hitched up the hill still drunk from their shenanigans at the nightclubs the night before.. We slightly envied their ability to juggle energetic skiing with late night boozing, but maybe we are just getting old..

It was definitely a fun, action-packed, adrenaline-filled winter and something we'll never forget. Time for the next chapter though, and it looks like we'll stick out another summer here, to give the bank account one last good top up before we continue our worldly adventure!