Craig's Report - April 18, 1998


Race Day in Paradise

It was another absolutely gorgeous spring day here in Fernie. Great weather for the last weekend and for the Powder, Pedal, Paddle race.  In case any of you haven't heard of this, it involves a mass race down the hill on skis to the base areas, followed by a bicycle ride through our subdivision and on into town.  The next leg is a paddle in a canoe or kayak to the base of the ski hill road and a final run back up to the base area.  Most folks do this in teams with different folks doing each leg, but a few hardy souls do the whole thing themselves.  The winning time this year was under an hour.

Here the first skier arrives to hand off to his bicycling team mate.   Apparently last night's frost left the course through Cedar Bowl quite hard and fast and a number of the front runners fell coming up to the cat track by the gully.   Two of the best skiers on the hill crashed badly into the gully and had to taken to the hospital.  One suffered a broken shoulder and broken ribs and rumour was that he might be taken to Calgary.  I understand this is the first serious accident in the history of the race and hopefully they both recover quickly.

For the first time in the sixteen years or so that the race has been run, Heiko, the former owner and creator of Fernie Snow Valley, got a chance to participate.  He did the skiing, while his wife Linda did the cycling.  Their team, which was named 300 Year's Plus to reflect the combined ages of the five members, finished second in the mixed gender category.  This shot at the ski finish line has Heiko on the right talking with Dave Wall, who is the area's MC extraordinaire among many talents.  These two guys pretty much capture the spirit of how the ski hill became what it is.  Talking with them is Barb Watts, who along with her husband Dave had done a great deal to spread the Fernie word down in Oz.

I missed the river section of the race, but my wife Chris took the camera down.  Apparently everyone made it this year without upset, which is of course good for them, but bad for comic relief. :-)  I have posted additional PPP pictures as well as category results and over all results.

I did finally get out skiing at about 2 this afternoon, but at this stage a condition report is probably pretty academic.  Suffice to say it was great although some of the lower runs are now suffering.

In Thursday's report I had a plug for WebKid who is also My Kid.  Davin is offering to take pictures, for a buck a week, of building projects on the hill so non residents can keep abreast of how their project is shaping up.  He now has his home page set up, thus justifying a second plug. <g>

It is 15C and still sunny at 6:30 PM.  The End comes tomorrow. :-(

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