Where to from here

The end of my time in New Zealand inches ever closer. I have flights booked from Auckland to Los Angeles with a week-long stopover in Sydney departing in mid October, but it looks like those plans might need to change.

For a start it’s terrible timing with Mica, and since that’s the main reason for stopping over it’s worth changing. It also looks like the season here might end early. They have had a pretty warm start to spring and unless there’s a big dump to fill in the gaps the cover will probably melt out around the start of October.

It also looks like some of the ski areas I’m thinking of working at in Canada hire staff earlier than I thought. I was assuming that all the fields would hire at much the same time, and the employment information for Red Mountain says that positions are advertised in mid October. It turns out that other fields (like Revelstoke) have already started advertising for seasonal workers.

At present, I’m thinking about three different fields: Revelstoke, Red Mountain and Silverstar.

Revelstoke has only been around for a few years. It’s big – it’s got the largest vertical drop in North America at around 1700m. It also gets epic snow and is renowned for having heaps of good terrain. However, it also has a reputation for being pretty busy with a strong party vibe.

Red Mountain sounds awesome. No one can tell me exactly why it’s so good, but everytime I mention Red someone starts raving about it. I have literally never heard a bad comment about the field. It’s also quiet and the nearby town is supposed to be small and friendly.

Silverstar is a pretty big field and I normally wouldn’t think of heading there, but it sounds like some of the folks from BR will be heading over there and it would be nice to have a few contacts wherever I end up.

I suck at making decisions like this at the best of times, but this choice is compounded by a number of conflicting priorities:

Skiing:

Normally I’m drawn to places with big vertical drops. It makes for awesome bragging rights and you can scoff at other people’s puny ski fields. Plus, I have an irrational belief that skiing on a big hill will make me fitter. This would point me towards Revelstoke. There is, however, a certain problem with the connection between skiing fitness and quad size. Skiing at a big field and getting fitter means bigger quads. Unfortunately, the additional volume that makes up my quads is just coming from other parts of my body, rather than being new biomass. There is a physical limit to how big my quads can become before the rest of me wastes away or my legs explode.

Busyness:

The less busy the better. There actually isn’t any conflict here.

People:

If people and I were a couple on Facebook our status would be “It’s complicated”. Any interaction I have with new people a race against time. At some point they’ll work out that I’m a terrible person. Every moment before that happens I have to try to be nice, and every moment after that happens is awkward and weird. It’s exhausting being nice to people, so often it’s easier to just be a hermit and avoid human contact. If I go to Silverstar I’ll already know maybe three people, which is well and truly enough. With any luck I could probably avoid having to meet or speak to any new people which would be awesome. However, I’ve already known these people for a few weeks and they could figure out that I’m terrible person any moment now.

Work:

Jobs in Canada pay a pittance and take up time that should be rightfully spent skiing. On the other hand, they provide money and contacts in the local scene. I could probably stretch out my monies for the season without having to work, but it would mean coming home broke and having to find a real job. From what I’ve heard of the fallout after I left my last real job, that’s probably not a good idea for me or whoever makes the mistake of employing me. A good job opportunity would strongly influence where I end up if there are any good job opportunities for people with no useful skills.

After the winter I’ve got no plans. I have a flight back to Australia, but I also have a two year work visa for Canada, and the flight to Australia actually continues from Sydney to Auckland and I did promise one of the guys here I’d go to a dance party called ‘Shroom Doom. We’ll see.