Jonathan Claar

Today I’ve packed my life into two bags and tomorrow I am heading home. Two bags of clothes and things, gadgets. But also a lot of memories. Two months and a half. That’s how long I’ve been here. It’s been great. So much fun. Ups and downs as always. But in the end, I am very satisfied and I feel that it’s about time to leave. I’ve met a lot of new people and hopefully new friends. I didn’t improve my english as much as I hoped. But I’ve been ordering food and beer a few times, so at least I know how to do that. I didn’t get to visit Sunshine and I feel bad about that. But I did visit Banff and a few of my friends over there. I did try to do a backflip. I didn’t stomp it. I jumped a big cliff, I didn’t stomp it, I got injured instead. Just for a few days tho. I played hockey, I didn’t win that game, but I had great fun. I went to Mt. Baker. And that was awesome. I love Mt. Baker. I went to Seattle. I really like Seattle. USA is cheap. I like cheap. I didn’t go to Rogers pass, and that sucks. 

Im happy I started this blog, and my old one. Because now when I get home I can look back and see all that I did over here. How ridiculously good it was over here. Yes we had three dry weeks, but apart from that, we had 8 weeks which were not as dry. They were powder weeks. I did’t use my SLR-camera. But I had my iPhone around all time. So even if the pics are not that good, I now how good it was at that moment. 

Yesterday was our last day on RMR. It was a sunny day and we did a few laps in the Stoke chair. Then we went down to midstation for a few beers. Great day! That’s how you should end a season.

Thanks Canada for this winter. I might be back! 

If you’re going out of bounds, you should know what you are doing. You don’t want to be the guy who has to call your friends so they can get the patrol to rescue you. I just like this sign, they are so honest. They also have the sign saying “Do not ski past this point, dangerous terrain. People have died here” and thats quite a sign too. Its not only like “Be careful”

We skied swedish ridge today, it was good. Unfortunately its a very short run. The hike is like 20 minutes, but the run is more like 45 seconds. Still worth it tho!

After a slow afternoon Jocke and I had some cravings. We made blueberry pie and Carro made Chocolate cake. OH, ye, Rickard baked some bread. We’re all about baking instead of buying it.. well, this was the first cake/pie I baked since I came here.. but still! I have to say it was great. So good!

So a few days ago we went for some bowling and then dart. A great night with loads of swedish guys, it was like 20 of us.

But ye, that was a few days ago, I’ve been quite lazy when it comes to write on my blog. But that is just the way it is. There are not a lot of new things that happens, so it feels like I always write the same. I guess that’s why I’ve been not as good in the past few weeks.

At the moment, my bud James is here. We worked together last winter at Sunshine Village. He also visited me in the summer, but apart from that I haven’t seen him for a while so it’s good to see him for a few days. Today we had a great day with some swedes. Great unexpected powder day. Just love those days when the website says 10 cm of new snow and the reality says more like 20-25cm.  It’s just a few days left over here. We leave on Sunday for Calgary, and then on monday for Sweden. So today I will go out for the last twoonie tuesday. Its about time to say goodbye to folks. I dont like goodbyes, but its getting close now. See you soon sweden!

Yesterday we had planned to go to Kicking Horse to try some new terrain. But when we woke up at 5am, it was totally puking down outside. We went to McDonalds where we had planned to meet the rest of the guys. We decided not to go since the road conditions was not good at all. Instead we went to our friends place and watched Stockholm Boogie and then we headed up to RMR. 20 cm of fresh snow and a good crew to ski with. It turned out to be a very good day. I guess fresh snow and great people is what makes your day here!

Today Erik and I went down to the Luleåmafia to watch AIK-Luleå. AIK won. 4-1 today, and 3-1 in matches. Hopefully they can close it on Sunday. I didn’t really like to watch hockey before. But now I like to watch AIK in the play offs!

After a few days without any touring at all, we were finally back with our skins. Montana and Swedish ridge! That was yesterday, today we did Swedish one time and it was good. Not blower pow but still soft. We had an early lunch and then we went down town. Jocke had cravings for a new pair of skis. He bought the Atomic Bent Chetler and he is now happier than ever! Now its time for some Raggmunkar with fläsk and lingonsylt. Pretty f*ing awesome! Later

Last night we ate home made semlor! It was awesome, without a doubt the best fika I’ve had this season. On saturday we had a BBQ party, it wasn’t the sickest party ever since we wanted to be able to ski some fresh snow yesterday. I was the fifth one down south bowl and that was simply amazing. 40-50 cm of untouched snow. We had a magician here on the BBQ night. He showed off some crazy tricks with a deck of cards. Never seen that kind of card tricks so close before. And I am still very curious how it works. I thought that maybe one of my tricks was pretty cool, but I was so wrong about that.

On one of the pics you can see a t-shirt which I wanted to buy. But the fit of that shirt was ridiculous. Short and wide. Might be like my body, but definitely not my kind of style.

We are finally with a car. These coming three weeks, which will be the last ones of this trip, we’ll have a car that we’ve rented from a friend who left for sweden today. Hopefully we will make it to Rogers pass and Kicking Horse now.

Later

Here are some more pics from our Mt. Baker trip.

Photo by Martin Sundvall.

We are back in Revelstoke after four days in USA. On friday, early morning, we drove the nine hours to Seattle. Actually, I didn’t drive, I sat in the narrow back seat on two pillows. Bad back seats are not a dream when you are on a road trip.

We spent a few hours in Seattle, drove around to find some ski shops, and then we had around three hours down town. I bought two pairs of shoes, and a t-shirt, for around 1000kr, thats pretty cheap! I really like Seattle, it’s a pretty big city with around 600.000 inhabitants. And when we drove around it, it felt very big. But when we walked down town, it didn’t feel as big. I don’t really know why I like it, but I just do. Maybe it is because its surrounded by water. 

After Seattle we headed up to Glacier and to our condo that we had rented over the weekend. It wasn’t the best place I’ve ever stayed in, but it was alright. From Glacier it is a 30 minute drive up to Mt. Baker. We went to bed, stoked for the morning. They forecasted around 50 cm over night. 

When we woke up, we checked the snow report; 19 inches (48 cm)! I’ve never skied the day after that kind of snow fall. It was awesome. There were a lot of people unfortunately so it was tracked out pretty fast, but the snow was soft and good all day long. The morning after, when we checked the snow report. 12 new inches (30 cm). Did I mention they had around 10 inches the day before we came..?

We had 100 cm of snow in three days, that just doesn’t happen. Perfect timing to visit Mt. Baker! Maybe it was because of the snow. But I just loved it there. Great fun terrain, small (and big) cliffs every where. The runs were a bit short, but it didn’t matter. 

I just have to go back there some time!

We’re back in Revy and tomorrow I’m going to rest. My heel hurts pretty bad and I hope it will get better if I have another day off.