Entry 17 Plow, Groom, Maybe Eat, Repeat

Really? Just Common! Dammit!

​The day starts around 6am plowing the previous night’s snowfall from the parking lot. Once the parkinglot is clear I fire up the snowcat and begin to manicure the Alexander Falls Ski Touring Center. Once the parkinglot and base area is cleared of snow and ready for customer traffic I set off in the snowcat to resurface and build out Callaghan Country’s Nordic trail network. Due to the volume of seemingly endless snowfall this season, the snowcat is burning considerably more fuel than normal, and the day’s work plan differs largely from a regular season. In a usual winter season the snow falls in manageable increments, allowing me to slowly build out the trail network. Incremental snowfall also allows for the trail to properly settle, firm up and transform into a great foundation for the rest of the winter. This season differs in that the snow fell continuously, so I had to keep packing hoping it would eventually consolidate. Without a solid snow base to build off, the snowcat would swim through the snow rather than drive on top of it resulting in poor fuel economy, slow progression building trails and ultimately more wear and tear on the machine. During these storm cycles the day’s workload is based entirely on how much fuel the cat has on board and how much I can get done before I need to return to base for a refuel, usually resulting in a stressful gaslight ride home. By the time I return to the Alexander Falls Ski Touring Center (where my home and bus is) to start work on the bus for the evening, it is around 8 pm. A quick granola bar and apple seems to give me enough energy to work on the bus till midnight, where I force myself to stop work and go to bed. After all, it starts all over again in just six hours!

Now if I was simply just grooming for Callaghan Country I don’t believe I would have run into the same level of time crisis as I did, but in addition to running the snowcat I was also fixing most things that went wrong with the cat. As with any piece of heavy equipment, when it is run, it will eventually break down. A snowcat is no different, and although it may look like a large tough machine, it is actually incredibly fragile. Now every season has its fair share of poorly timed and comically destructive break downs with facilities and equipment, but this particular season brought a couple spectacular break downs. Everything from basic hydraulic line blow outs, broken axels, tires tearing off rims, and even a harpooned oil pan. In addition to the seemingly continues bad luck with the snowcat, we had several issues on the Journeymen Lodge front as well. The most memorable was the Christmas Day septic back up, where my Father and I spent the day and evening digging up and clearing four feet of plugged septic line. Truth be told, I actually quite enjoy the break downs and unforeseen circumstance the Callaghan Valley continuously supplies in a never a dull moment kind of way. However, this season was a different story as the time these issues kept swallowing up was already spoken for! Every time something went sideways on the Callaghan Country front, I saw the Double Decker Dream getting pushed further and further away. I distinctly remember thinking, “I could have another 8 hours a day and there still wouldn’t be enough time for one man to finish this”!

​When I set out on this project, I really wanted to do as much of it on my own as possible in order to learn as much as possible. As I have referred to in previous posts, the whole purpose of this project was to learn and better develop my skills in all aspects of the business. However, as I pushed deeper into the winter it started to become clear that sure I could do it all myself, but certain aspects would probably not turn out as I dreamt they would and more importantly would just take ages to complete. In addition, one particular night’s volume of storm snow resulted in some serious damage to some structures on site and it became painfully obvious that I was in well over my head. For these reasons I reached out to some friends to take over the second stories T&G ceiling and clean up some of my less desirable wood work. Within the week of receiving my phone call for help, Bernard, Pat, and James came right up to force some progression on the bus and ultimately gave me the best Holiday present possible. Without these three gentlemen the bus would not have the have opened at all last winter and certainly would not have the clean lines it does now.

The bus had finally made some major progression with the first real steps towards a cute cafe becoming apparent. With the spray foam finally being covered up, and a much needed injection of energy to the project the next steps were clear. In order to keep the ball rolling, Boona called his friend David the painter and we rolled right into painting both the upstairs and downstairs. I was a little afraid the colour scheme I had picked out months prior may be abit much, but the light pastel blue on grey anti-slip floor paint really brought the bus to life and perfectly complimented the clear coated pine. Once the painting wrapped up the weather finally started to ease, with the temperature taking a major dive and precipitation completely dropping off...perfect nordic grooming weather. Finally, I had the time to bite into the bus, and just like that the holiday period was over and Double Decker Coffee Roasting was on the move!