The McDougalls take on Banff

Matt and Nicky rolled into town three days after Josh had his accident. So, they may not have timed their trip perfectly for bonding on the slopes with their brother but they did manage to time their visit with Fi's going away party, other friends in town, beautiful bluebird days, dress up parties and our new bingo festish! They were such awesome fun and it was great to have yet another special part of our lives back in Australia here with us in Banff!

While they were here we did a lot of jumping...! (obviously Josh couldn't)



We also got some quality time on the hills and even found some soft stuff.

Don't worry Matt came off second best to the little tree when he was attempting to make 'freshies'.


I deservedly won our toboggan race on our boards after Matt tried to cheat and push me over at the start (look where he is as I take out the title!).

How's the serenity... love those vistas.


Matt even did a powder bowl!!! Maybe not prettily, but he did it.

Natual hot springs just outside of Invermere..

The start of another messy bingo night :)

Matt was a hit in Banff with the ladies!!

A day trip ice skating at Lake Louise (Matt was still a hit with the ladies)

I tried to show off my new canadian skill of ice skating and in the middle of demonstrating my new feet inside each other ice skate turn, caught an edge - flew through the air and landed flat on my knees. I still have bruised knee caps 2 weeks later. That will teach an Aussie to not get too cocky about these things Canadians can do with their eyes closed..

Nicky slowed down for a bit so we could finally snap a photo of her (little speedstar).

Johnstone Canyon
It was not a pretty sight, watching us walk with ice cleats on - but we managed to make it to the top where there is this spectacular frozen waterfall..

Those McDougalls know how to party
and then there was the night life..

It's amazing what you can find in a supermarket as inspiration for a super hero party. Josh became Super Cock (due to his rooster hat he always wears) and Matt metamorphed into Bog Man. Those two were the funniest thing to hit the dance floor in at least a week!!



Ah... the memories..

I love Josh.

Bye Fi!

It had to happen eventually... Fiona finally had to leave Canada! Fi has been our partner in crime for the whole time we've been in Canada and it's going to be very wierd without her. Lucky we'll see her again in the UK in about 2 months!! Phew.

The farewell festival of Fiona was a lot of fun though..

Fi was so cute. She wasn't really happy about leaving her little Banff village. The hills will miss that hot chick on the board who could take on the boys!! and the boys of Banff will miss her too!!

Josh crashes out of the season (in style)

As I've mentioned previously.. over the last month or so Josh had just been getting better and better on the slopes. He was taking on everything the hills could throw at him.. tree runs, kickers (even building them himself), double blacks, bowls, hiking out to runs. He was on Fire!! So, it was no surprise that his confidence on the hill had reached an all time high.

That was until a fateful day in the last week of February....
We were with a group of friends and he split off with another good friend of ours Guy to go do a few runs through the terrain park. Until this point Josh had stayed away from the terrain park (as that is where most of the injuries on the hill occur). Josh decided to do one of the biggest jumps in the park - however a few factors went wrong... a) it was a really quick day on the snow b) he didn't wait to see how fast everyone else was taking that jump c) he decided to go first so that he wouldn't opt out if he thought about it too much.

He took the jump too fast, got way too much air (witnesses say the roof of a house high) and missed the down ramp completely landing on the flat ground after the jump and didn't get back up. He was consequently taken down to the gondola on the back of a skidoo on a back board, wrapped in yellow plastic (that's how I first saw him after this adventure), transported down on the gondola and straight into the ambulance to the hospital.

The whole experience was awful. However, once they had him in the ambulance they could rule out the worst possibilities - he was lucid and could feel his fingers and toes.

The outcome was that he had crushed his L1 vertabrae (which is the one in the middle of your back - common in this type of accident as it acts as a hinge point in your spine and is the first one not attached to your ribs). Luckily the doctor said after he got through the initial pain (which was really severe) he would get back to normal movement pretty quickly and wouldn't suffer any long term pain or consequences.

The bad news was - banned from riding for the next 6 weeks. The worst part of that news was... Josh's brother and sister were arriving in 3 days!!! and we were leaving the country in 8 weeks. However, when you see his helmet which was split in half at the back and think about what could've been - all we can do is thank our lucky stars and be very thankful he got out of it as lucky as he did.

Look at the close up of his helmet..

So here is a picture of the famous jump. He hit that kicker at the top and went totally past that down ramp part..

Here's our friend Guy showing us how it's done :)


3 weeks later and Josh is a lot improved. He's not in pain anymore (unless you touch the exact spot and then he yelps) and is almost back to normal with what he can do physically. And it looks like he might get 2 or 3 weeeks on the hill before we leave for the UK.