Sun Peaks 2013/14
Party Time - Part 1
So the end of the season means party time. It also means spring skiing and sunshine. And in typical fashion, we have the most snow fall all season with a ton of really wet and cold days..
But enough of that, back to party time! It all started with St Patty’s day on March 17th. I had the day off with a few of the guys. This meant we started drinking at lunch and I was well out of it by 10pm and didn’t even make it to the pub. We had a massive house party pumping the tunes, a bit of beer pong and even a few beer shotguns. Everyone was dressed up in green and we had some little leprechaun hats and green glasses.
Then (after a decent hangover and a few days of work) we had the Red and White party on the Thursday night. This is a party where they raise money to purchase new supplies to help people who injure themselves. So me and Skye came up with the idea to grab white shirts and red marker pens and draw on each other and have a momento of the season. We had a pre-drinks at our place where lots of shirt graffiti happened and then we moved the party to the club where we saw “Bear Mountain” play and danced the night away.
From left to right
(Back Row): Bill, Dan J, Kieran, Ben, Malcolm, Chris
(Middle Row): Zara, Mike, Eamon, Pete, Jacob, Emma
(Front Row): Bec, Tristan (Me), Skye, Chelsea, Lilah, Laura, Kate
(Sitting on the Floor): Paul
Then we get to Tuesday this week where we went out for locals night. Was originally planned to be a quiet night with a group dinner. Ended up at the pub with lots of dancing and seeing Kylie totally pass out drunk for the first time in her life. Pretty funny and she had a great time.
Then on Thursday, the Mountain Dew Amateur Tour came to Sun Peaks. This means that anyone can enter the competition for $40 and they ride down the park and the winner got a prize (of some description). To go with this, Pepsi Co was giving away free Mountain Dew and Doritos for the 4 days from Wednesday to Saturday.
On Saturday night to end the festivities, they put on a free concert on the hill which was headlined by “The Sheepdogs” - (Link to a song for anyone interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvCq2hmlasM) We went out for that and had a great night, dinner at the Japanese restaurant first followed by music and a few beers was awesome.
And that’s just the start to the crazy end of the season. More to come in about 7-10 days.
And for anyone who doesn’t know yet, I’ll be back in Australia on the 14th May. Keep the weekend free for some shenanigans!
Did you see Scotty Lago?
Nah, I was working the whole time :(.
Some of my mates got photos with him.
My actual blog - http://bwcanada.weebly.com/tjs-experience.html. Check it out if you want to read the older posts.
Party Time - Part 2
So here it is, my last blog at Sun Peaks for the season. Everyone has moved out and I have the place to myself so I’m rocking some tunes and writing this up. I’ll try to keep it going for my travels but if Wi-Fi and time are hard to come by, you may need to wait until I get home to Sydney. Official date is the 14th May and therefore there will likely be a night out on the town on the 16th or 17th night.
The parties continue!
We had a night out with all the lifties (and a few extras) to go down to Kamloops and play hockey on the Blazers rink. We got a couple of goalies who jumped in to play and we split into 2 teams and ran a full game for well over an hour. See the highlights below! (Thanks to Michael Malcolm for the video)
I’m the one in the white Boston Bruins jersey with #17 on my back. As you can see, I’m not exactly the best hockey player lol.
Following the hockey, we had a few big nights. First there was Halloween in April, the last locals night of the year where you have to be dressed up to enter the pub. I went as a fireman as I had lost the hair to my Mick Thompson costume and I couldn’t get down to town to pick anything new up.
Overall a great night out with great people!
Fireman TJ and Ninja Dan
Pirate Ash and Fireman TJ
Then, since it was the last week of the season, I had to go riding on my days off. I ended the season with 111 days of riding (including riding for work). My last day off, I went out with Didi, she also showed me my first tree run of the season way back in December. We hiked up to mid mountain which was one of my favourite runs all season, did a few runs around the normal goodies and went back around 2:30 and cooked some food.
100 Days!
Hiking up to Mid Mountain with Didi
Later in the week, we had the silent disco. This happened on the last Friday of the season. For anyone who doesn’t know, this is where you go in, they provide you with wireless headphones and have 2 DJ’s playing. you can swap between the channels and dance the night away.
One of the DJ’s was way better this night and we pretty much stayed on his channel all night. It was good to see everyone having fun and I stayed until the lights turned on! Suffice to say that the next morning wasn’t the easiest on the body.
Bec and Janella rocking out in front of the Silent disco crowds
And last but not least was drink Bottoms dry. This is the day after the last day of the season. It starts at 10am where all corp staff get a free ride day, the bosses run the Sundance lift for us and we get 2 hours to ourselves to ride with all our mates and just overall have fun. Dan and I were on the very first chair of the day and that first ride down was extremely fast. I clocked 94 km/h on one run down from the alpine replay app which is pretty damn quick!
Then everyone moves on to Masa’s where they provide food, (soft) drinks, announce awards (5 years of service etc) and get a staff photo.
Then it’s off to Bottoms where the real party starts. Every drink is $3 and everyone starts around 2pm. DJ is rocking out the tunes and everyone is having a blast. They had a giant beer pong table in the middle of the bar and there was at least 1 group of crazies playing flip cup in the bar. Massive dance floor on the patio and a BBQ doing the fan favourites of grilled cheese toasties.
I ended up feeling pretty average and went home in the afternoon to cook some steak for dinner and then a few people came round and chilled out. There was a big party over at the wolf’s den but I decided against it due to how much I had already consumed.
Then the last 2 mornings has seen everyone move out of 113 and all around me. I got my check out at 7:30am tomorrow morning and then my flight towards Toronto tomorrow night. Hopefully everything works out the way I plan and you’ll all hear from me again soon while I travel around the states!
Staff ride day photo. Bowen (the boss) in front and all the lifties up behind
Thanks for all the good times Sun Peaks, I know I’ll come back here sometime in the future, even just for a holiday! Watch the video below made by Naomi and Tamara with all the lifties having fun! It’s worth the watch.
Toronto and Niagara Falls
Hi again, I’ve left Sun Peaks and started travelling. First stop on my North American tour was Toronto. So I got a lift down from Sun Peaks on Thursday in the morning and shipped my snowboard bag to Jim in LA. Hopefully that all goes well and I can grab it off him on the way home and buy him a beer or a few to say thanks. I hung out in Kamloops for the day and organised myself at the airport via the last bus. Had to wait at the airport for a few hours where I met up with Kieran who I worked with at Sun Peaks. We were chilling in the cafe waiting for the flight only to be called up and notified that our flight was running about 45 minutes late which would cause us to miss the connection in Vancouver. The option was to stay in Kamloops and they’d put us up for the night or go to Vancouver and see what happened. We decided to stay and get the 6am flight out. For Kieran, this meant that he didn’t have to go via Boston back to Ireland and therefore cut a chunk of flying time out and still arrived on the same day. For me, it meant I lost half a day in Toronto.
So we went to the hotel room and it turned out that it was really nice so we were stoked. We went to celebrate the decent situation with a few glasses of wine. Once we were about to pay, a gentleman who we were having a chat to decided to pay our bills. Definitely not complaining!
Once I finally made it to Toronto, I went to the hostel and dropped off my bags. Then I decided to go out and grab some food. Went to a pub and had a spicy chicken wrap. Had a bit of a chat with the bartenders but it was pretty busy so I was stuck by myself a lot so I moved on. Went to a sports bar which had the Raptors game on. Sat down for a beer and was having a chat to 2 people who were also alone there about the game and my trip etc. At half time for the game, there was a trivia game where the prize was tickets to a Raptors playoff game. Figured I’d give it a go to see if I was any good but got stumped by a few of the rules and some of the questions were popularity contests which I forgot that Steve Nash was Canadian and therefore lost lol.
After the game, Lauren (who I was chatting to) asked if I wanted to join her and her friends (who were at the game) at a different pub. So we moved onto a Jack Astor’s and had a few more beers. Her friends were awesome and we all shared a pint 
Saturday was Niagara Falls day. I had booked it in advance with the Hornblower option (Formerly the Maid of the Mist) however it wasn’t running so we got a refund on that part. So I woke up in the morning and they came and picked me up in a Limo type car and took me to the office where we had to pay for our ticket and wait for the bus. The office was really plain and didn’t even have enough room for the people waiting for the bus so I wasn’t really impressed and thought I had screwed myself and got a dodgy tour. We got on the bus and it was full so I sat down next to Phoebe from Freemantle WA and we were off!
First stop was at a winery, Niagara is a famous wine region producing regular and ice wines. They gave us some free tests of each of the wines and we were on our way. The ice wines, while really sweet, were really nice.
Then we continued up to the local town of Niagara on the Lake. It was a really cool little town with local shops and old style stuff like a horse and carriage etc. We grabbed some lunch which was delicious (they even gave me a free cookie!) and jumped back on the bus. Next stop was the Niagara whirlpools. Really it was water coming from the falls, into a bay and then continuing back out the other side.
The last stop on the tour was obviously the falls themselves. A spectacular sight to see and with 2 great new friends in Phoebe and Anna. We walked along the sidewall and got some coffee and sat in the park. Really relaxing and awesome.
Sunday was then spent at the Hockey Hall of Fame. This plus Niagara Falls was the main reasons I wanted to go to Toronto and I wasn’t disappointed. Walked in to find a lot of history on hockey, authentic jerseys from almost 100 years ago and a few different attractions to keep you occupied for a few hours. There was a shooting and goalie game in the museum which was really fun. First I shot the puck at a screen with a virtual goalie on it. I played on the hardest mode because what’s the fun in easy mode… I didn’t get a single shot hahaha. Then I went to the goalie part and they give you the goalie gloves and stick. Then there is a game going on the screen in front of you where they skate up and take a shot. Then a foam puck comes out of one of the 5 holes in the wall and flies at you. I ended up saving 4/5 (again on the hardest mode) but it could have easily been 2/5 if not for a few lucky leg saves.
To end the museum, I went up to the trophy room. They have the Stanley Cup (winners trophy) out on display. They also had the vault where it was kept when the museum was closed. As you can see when the players pick it up after they win it, it’s huge! Really awesome museum for anyone who likes hockey, definitely a must see in Toronto.
Then I had some lunch and went over to the Steamwhistle Brewing Company which was talked up to me from more than 1 person. It was incorporated into an old steam train maintenance building which was shut down. They give you a free beer and you walk around the building and they explain how the beer is made and the history of the company / building. It only lasted for half hour was was really cheap and interesting. I stayed and chatted with a few people after the tour and then decided I’d grab a feed and go back to the hostel.
Upon my return to the hostel, I went to my room and was planning a quiet night before my flight in the morning. Once I was there I ended up chatting to a few people and they said they were heading to the pub and asked if I wanted to join. Why not?
So we went to the pub up the road and grabbed a pitcher. Shared it around and some stories with the table of people. After a few beers, everyone started to head back and there was 4 of us left. 2 Aussies, 1 German and 1 French dude. It was still early days so we decided to let a quarter decide our fate. We ended up at a pub which was pretty dead but we stopped for a beer. After that one, we decided that the coin couldn’t be trusted so we asked a local where to go on a Sunday night. He pointed us in a direction and we went that way… which turned out to be a business district with nowhere to go. After about 10 more minutes looking, we started heading back to the local pub, thinking it’s better than nothing. We stumbled on another Jack Astor’s (my 2nd in 3 nights) and had drinks there. The Aussie guy got a round of Ceasars (which is a horrible Canadian drink - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(cocktail) ) He didn’t have a clue what it was so I kindly let him keep mine (since I don’t do tomatoes) and had a beer instead. We got home pretty late and I crashed out in bed pretty quick, which meant I forgot to drink water to stop the hangover. Suffice to say, the plane ride the next day was pretty painful!
And here I am now, arrived in Boston safely (Porters Airways is an awesome company if you are flying around Toronto) sitting in this hostel which is a good 15 minutes on the train from the city, think Mascot or Chatswood area distance so I’m confined here for the night. One dude here gave me his train ticket though so that saves me a bit of cash. He thought he lost one but then found it so I got free trains for the week .
Tomorrow I think I’ll go check out the Freedom trail and on Friday I get to see the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs in Boston. They play the Detroit Red Wings. Pumped is an understatement! I’ll post more once I finish this leg of the trip.
Peace out!
(P.S. If you want to see more photos, check my facebook page http://facebook.com/tristan.brown297)
That’s awesome, looks like you had an incredible time this season and made a lot of new friends.
Haha so you didn’t try the Caesar? It’s good stuff! 
That’s so sick you get to see your Bruins play! Enjoy that one.
CAESERS ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
Redwings have got that game sewn up… i hope
Ceasers are friggin gross!!!!! 
And what the fark is an Ice Wine????? I’ve never heard of it!!!!!
Yep, Caesars are f’d. Rankest ever haha.
Ceasers are friggin gross!!!!!
And what the fark is an Ice Wine????? I’ve never heard of it!!!!!
Me and Greeny got proper martini’s at Bar Barumba in Niseko and that was definitely the worse drink ive ever tasted & thats saying something since Im involved some horrible ongoing drinking games with my mates
Ice wine is made from berries grapes that are frozen whilst on the vine, i remember reading about it.
Fixed that for you - yeah I coulda quoted that but decide to use my mod powers 
Never speak bad about a Martini again!!!!!
Especially one that was made by the Master!!!!!
Never speak bad about a Martini again!!!!!
Especially one that was made by the Master!!!!!
It was a proper martini and im sure to a person who likes them it would of been a masterpiece, but we hated them!
Never speak bad about a Martini again!!!!!
Especially one that was made by the Master!!!!!
It was a proper martini and im sure to a person who likes them it would of been a masterpiece, but we hated them!
Mouth > Soap > Water > Repeat!!!!!