Snow Business...

I know, give me a bloody medal for that title right?!




Mount Seymour



So my last few days in Canada have all been about snow. Truth be told I was pretty crestfallen when I heard you guys back in England (if you are reading this from the UK, for all my other international followers, no snow for you!) have been getting shed loads of it, and it is in fact about ten degrees warmer here now than it is there. Suckers! But you have stolen my glory of bragging about the beautiful snow fall. But I have mountains. One-up-manship.



A snowy street in Kitsilano,
Vancouver



On one of my last days in Vancouver I got a holla from a friend of mine called Brad who lives in North Vancouver. I met him whilst travelling last year in Europe, Prague to be precise. As it turns out, Brad has a huge motherfudging truck, a truck he was planning to haul up to Mount Seymour that day and had invited me along. How could I resist?! That day, I saw the most snow I had ever laid eyes on, the mountain was truly beautiful. So whilst Brad and his girlfriend were collecting their ski passes, I ran around like a child, jumping in snow up to my knees. (In hindsight, an error, as I was wearing leggings. But screw hindsight, I never really liked you much anyway.)

Over the next few days we got even more snowfall, and my hostel was full of Australians who had never seen snow before. The nice thing about their excitement for it all was that it reignited my own memories of loving snow as a kid. One of them told me she didn't even knew that it floated down from the sky, she presumed it just fell like rain. She was the most excited of them all I tell you!

In recent years, snow has not been my best friend, especially when British civilisation just seems to crumble at the sight of a single flake. It was impractical at best. But hey, I'm not out here to live in the real world, so I got stuck in (as much as I could do with non-waterproof boots that soak up every single drop of water...which along with the leggings incident made me realise how hideously unprepared I am for this trip) and we headed to the beach...to make a snowman. On a beach you say?! A novelty indeed! In fact, we made a snow-WOMAN, just to blow all those stereotypes out the water. She had missing teeth, was called Patricia, and was the pride and joy of two boys who snowballed all over the beach in order to make her bigger and more impressive than the rest.

Dan, Matt and Patricia

I got to think about what it is exactly which excites everyone so much about snow, considering it is just weather. No one gets excited about a particularly strong wind do they?! But seriously cold rain and peoples go bananas. However, I've taken so many great pictures of snow, and none whatsoever of a decent gust of wind, so who am I to talk.

I have to say, my favourite thing about snow is the incredible way water forms into it. Whilst on top of Mount Seymour I took a look at some of the snowflakes close up, something which you can't really do with English snow as it melts too fast. So with these indestructible flakes which stick around in the colder temperatures, I wondered how on earth it is that when rain freezes, it makes such an utterly beautiful shape, of which no two flakes are the 100% identical. It is just one of those things about the world that blows my mind, and because of that I can forgive snow for all it's other flaws.