Well when I last left you it was snowing. It hasn't stopped all day, yes snow, snow and more snow. This got the Albertan's excited as they were queued up the road for miles to get to the mountains. We caught the bus to Lake Louise for the girl's lesson on the instructors suggestion. Once we passed the queue for Sunshine it was a smooth bus ride. Peter (the instructor) said this was the best dump they had had so far. Over night 30cm and by the end of the day 50cm, yes that is knee deep fresh white powder for me, we might lose Tilds though. The girls had their group lesson which was good, Peter from England was great with everyone. He even gave me some advice for my first runs at Lake Louise. I caught the chair up, up, up, yep longer ride than in Aus. Took an easy green for my first runs. I haven't worked that hard in a long time as riding in powder is thigh burning. Took the gondola next time up even higher. This run required a break halfway. 1000ft drop is a long time snowboarding. I popped in to see the girls to find Tilds laying back eating snow, what's new. Emily was getting her confidence and Penny going well. After the lesson we decided to head back to Banff for a rest and walk through town. After catching the bus in, we found a decent coffee shop (Penny and Stacey trying a few), walked through the gift and other retail stores looking at the things on offer. We found a "Beaver Tail" store (this was recommended by the couple I sat next to on our flight). A Beaver Tail is a deep fried dough with cinnamon on it, flat like a beaver's tail. Tasted similar to a hot doughnut back in Oz. The bus had broken down while we wandered town so we had to walk back to our hotel, which in the end wasn't too long.

After dinner the snow came back and it was dumping it down. We watched the weather channel and the updated forcast was more snow overnight. The expected total for this snow fall was 1m, yes 100cm. We will lose Tilds tomorrow unless they groom the runs. I can't believe we have had that much snow. From Tuesday our time they are expecting sun so it will be a great few days leading up to Christmas. Time to go and watch Vancouver play in the Ice Hockey on TV. We are hoping to get to a game when we are there.

As they say, there are no friends on powder days. This might stretch to families as well.