Almost every aspect of life here has changed in the 10 days since I last wrote. We’ve had over 2m of snow, our guests at the Palace have changed, and I now have 3 broken ribs.

I can’t remember enough detail to describe every day, but there are certain events which should definitely be recorded.

Simon and Kay had a day off on Sunday 22nd, and Andy was still injured, so Bob and I were riding on our own. We spent the day on Blackcomb, pausing for lunch at the Crystal Hut for the first time this year.

We hadn’t planned to have a special lunch, but inside the hut we found some amazing meals on offer. In the end we both went for the steak sandwich, which was served with roasted vegetables (carrot, courgette, and two types of potatoes). We decided this deserved a glass of wine to go with it, then agreed that we also deserved a waffle for desert. The whole meal was outstanding, and we filled in questionnaires to make sure the staff got the credit they deserved before setting off (slowly) down the mountain.

On Monday Bob and I were joined by Simon, Kay, Stan and Matt. We spent another day on Blackcomb, trying the piste on 7th Heaven, then returned to the Crystal Hut and sat outside enjoying the sun. Most of us sampled the BBQ, but Bob continued in the gourmet tradition with roast salmon.

The evening began with a panic about the Christmas presents we still had to buy, then later on Dom showed up, having finally managed to tear himself away from work. After eating, we went out to the Crystal Lounge (not to be confused with the Hut) for some karaoke, but none of us dared to sing.

When we got back to the Palace it was almost Simon’s 30th birthday, so we decided some drinking was in order. Kay and I invented the B51, which consisted of 3 layers similar to the B52, but using Baileys, Kahlua and rum. We each managed three or four of these, then madness ensued, with Bob and Si competing on the Tech Decks (see gallery) and Si and me continuing the OFT tradition of Tie Fighting, although the lack of ties meant we had to resort to tea-towels. If you don’t understand, then don’t ask.

We all took the day off on the 24th for Si’s birthday. We had been hoping to have a special meal up the mountain which we could drive snow-mobiles to, but they were all booked up, so we took the gondola to the Roundhouse on Whistler mountain, and ate in Steep’s Grill. That was a bit disappointing, especially as they stopped serving alcohol at 15:00. We headed down, had a drink or two at Blacks then returned to the Crystal Lounge for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

I can’t remember why we got up so early on Christmas Day, but we were at the lifts for 08:30. They’d actually started opening at 08:00 for the holiday season, so by 08:30 there was hardly any people queuing at all.

What there was tonnes of was snow. It had been snowing all night, and kept going as we took the Wizard and Solar Coaster chairs. On the slopes it looked amazing, and we began seeing people riding and skiing down through several feet of light fluffy powder. Because it was so light, the riders/skiers were literally sinking up to their waists.

When we reached the top of Solar Coaster we discovered that most lifts had yet to open (as a result of the huge overnight snowfall) so we decided on a run down to the bottom of Solar Coaster. Although there were loads of tracks, the powder was still quite incredible. We took some short-cuts through untouched areas, and discovered that if you fell over you were in serious trouble!

We moved on to Crystal when it opened, and spent most of the day there, enjoying even deeper powder. At the top it was possible to sink right up to your chest even when going in a straight line - turning could easily result in sinking below the surface of the snow. The depth of the snow made it very difficult to maintain any speed: if the nose of the board was allowed to drop then you nose-dived and crashed, so the weight had to be put as far back as possible, so you rode with the nose of the board high in the air. Even like this speed was hard to come by, and the steepest slopes could be straight-lined, safe in the knowledge that a slight turn would slow you, and even if you did fall it wouldn’t hurt.

The one problem with falling was that getting going again could take ages. I think everyone out that day must have experienced the 20 minute walk back from the bottom of a minor dip. Even a 5m walk could take 10 minutes due to the depth of the snow.

The other problem was dealing with cat-tracks, the roads around the mountain where you can normally maintain just enough speed to reach your destination. Dealing with these was the complete opposite of the pistes: rather than searching for fresh powder in between the tracks, the only way to deal with the roads was to stick to the 2-foot wide ski/board track in the middle of the road, as venturing into the walls of powder on either side resulted in a very long walk.

Our plan had been to put the turkey in at about 14:00, but the conditions were so amazing that none of us wanted to leave, so the bird didn’t make it into the oven until 17:00. We had a few relaxed hours after that before the main cooking began so opened our presents, then at about 00:30 on Boxing Day we finally sat down to eat.

The meal was excellent - all of the required trimmings were there, and the turkey itself was fantastic.

Boxing Day began later than we hoped. There had been talk of Fresh Tracks, but we didn’t end up having breakfast until 11:00. The snow was OK, but nothing like as good as the previous day, so no-one felt too guilty about staying in bed. We were a bit depressed by the snow actually, thinking it would be a long time before was saw anything as good as the powder on Christmas Day although, as the gallery shows, we still managed to get stuck.

Friday was the day of our party: we’d invited all of our friends from Vancouver to come up for a day boarding on Saturday. Mack, Amber and Mark arrived on Friday morning, and we had an excellent day riding with them. Mark guided us most of the day, having spent 4 seasons in the resort.

In the evening we paused in the Longhorn for several drinks, then Si, Kay, Stan, Kinga, Bob and I went for a curry. We eventually made it back to the Palace and found Andy entertaining our guests, though the party was (to our great relief) a fraction of the size we’d feared. We had a great night with some great friends, playing some excellent games.

One of our games allowed the introduction of a new rule when certain dice were thrown. Simon introduced the nights best rule, decreeing that before every drink, the drinker must adopt the ‘otter pose’. To understand this you may have to see the gallery from the early hours of 28/12/2002, although this may just confuse you further.

The next morning we managed a surprisingly early start, and the largest group of Justice Deliverers yet took to the slopes. The otter madness continued, and at its height involved 11 otters posing at the top of Peak chair. After that the group got split up, but we all had a great day, centred round the Peak and Harmony chairs.

Sunday 29th was much quieter, as most of our guests had disappeared back down to Vancouver. John and Tara had shown up on Saturday night, but they’d got up at 06:30 to make the most of it, and Bob and Dom were having the day off to drive to Vancouver themselves, so when Andy and I set off up Blackcomb we were alone.

We planned to head over to the Glacier Bowl to see how the new snow had improved that, but when we reached the top of the Glacier chair we decided to head up the Horstmann T-Bar to radio John, Tara and Jer from the top of 7th Heaven. John and Tara responded from the bottom of 7th Heaven, so we decided to have one run down there then head over to the Glacier.

At the second turn in the cat-track, on skiers’ right, we left the piste to go to a windlip jump where we’d filmed the previous year. We found a few other riders there, so waited for them to clear the jump, before Andy headed down. He pulled off a nice grab and came to a halt, then I set off and landed a reasonable jump. Unfortunately the landing was just uphill of some massive boulders, and as I braked hard on my heel edge I hit the first few and split my board. Even more unfortunate was the fact that the collision between my board and the rocks flipped me over onto my front, and landed me at some speed on top of a large boulder.

I landed with the rock under the left side of my rib-cage, and was completely winded. For the first time ever, I remember hearing myself emit a completely involuntary scream. Andy asked if I was OK, but when I tried to tell him I was just winded I passed out.

The next thing I knew was waking up out of a dream, and wetting myself. I noticed someone removing the board from my feet, and have since been told that I was lying in a foetal position. I remained there for some time, trying to breathe enough to speak, but struggling.

I established that I could move, and after a few minutes I managed to stand up. Andy suggested we ride down, making a joke about the embarrassment of taking the blood wagon, but after a few minutes I realised that I had little choice, and he began calling John and Tara to request a ski-patroller when they reached the hut at the top of the chairlift.

We walked down to the Green Line cat-track, and waited a while before a patroller called Colin arrived. He checked the vital signs and asked a few questions, then sent for another patroller with greater medical experience, called John. He lifted up my top and prodded a few ribs, then they manoeuvred me into a blood wagon delivered by a third patroller called James.

Up to that point I’d been mostly sitting, but when they lay me down breathing became even harder, and I began to feel like I was drowning. Because I couldn’t breathe properly I couldn’t speak very loudly, but I managed to get them to stick a couple of bags behind my back to prop me up.

At some point John and Tara arrived, but I think they realised there wasn’t much they could do - after talking to Andy for a while they disappeared.

The ride down to the top of Solar Coaster wasn’t too bad: the bumps were a bit painful, and I still felt uncomfortable breathing on my back, but Colin delivered me safely to the chairlift, then accompanied Andy and me down to the bottom of Wizard.

We were met there by Bob and Dom, who’d been alerted by phone. They offered to drive me to the medical centre, but Colin had arranged a ski-patrol vehicle, so Bob and I took that, while Andy and Dom took the car.

After checking in I was lead to a bed to wait for a doctor. The other three all stayed for a while, then Andy and Dom went home to get some trainers for me. Bob stayed, and had the dubious pleasure of removing my boots and trying to warm up my feet, which had become frozen during the wait for the ski-patrollers.

Shortly after Andy and Dom returned, Bob and Dom had to leave for Vancouver. Andy very kindly stayed with me, and was there when the doctor arrived, prodded me, and announced that I’d almost certainly broken my ribs. Finding some super-tense muscle and getting a scream when he prodded below the ribs he also feared I’d damaged my spleen or kidney, so gave me a shot of morphine and ordered urine samples in addition to the normal x-ray.

The x-ray proved that at least two ribs were broken. The lines of the bones were quite clearly broken, so it was more than just a crack. The doctor said he suspected a third rib was broken, but he couldn’t prove it from the angle of the x-ray.

The urine sample contained blood, which worried all concerned. The doctor explained that this meant my kidney was damaged, and told Andy and me that I’d probably have to go down to Vancouver to have it dealt with. He was also worried that the spleen might have been ruptured, in which case that would have had to be removed. A blood test was taken to see if anything else was wrong.

As we waited for a decision regarding my movement, the head of radiology showed up. He agreed to perform an ultrasound scan, and spent 30 minutes or more showing me what my organs looked like. For the first time in 6 hours there was some positive news, as he couldn’t see anything wrong.

He showed me the spleen and kidney both looking intact (apart from a couple of small cysts on the kidney), and explained that the blood in my urine could be from a small cut rather than a more dangerous tear. He also showed me the pancreas, bowels and bladder, and explained that the ultrasound could “see though” the bladder because it was full of liquid, whereas a large dark patch was caused by air in the bowels which the ultrasound couldn’t see through. Nice.

After the ultrasound the doctor was a bit more positive, and eventually decided that if the tense muscle below my ribs relaxed then I might be allowed home. The logic behind this was that the muscle had contracted to protect the damaged organs, and if it relaxed again then the organs must be alright.

Eventually the muscle did relax, and the decision was made to allow me home. Before I went, I was given two prescriptions: the first covered an anti-inflammatory and a normal pain-killer, and the second, filled out in triplicate, was for a pain-killer called Percocet, which I’m told is even stronger than morphine. The nurse said I could probably sell it on the black market, but so far I think my need for the pills is greater than my need for cash, so I’m hanging onto the drugs.

We got a lift home with one of the receptionists who happened to down the road from us, and finally got home at about 21:30. After telling my story to Si and Kay over a glass of wine and writing a quick news article for the website, I felt the pills taking effect and fell fast asleep.

Monday 30th was the first day of my three week incarceration, the day of Jen’s arrival, and also the day of Simon and Kay’s departure. Jen had arrived at about 03:30 with Bob, after some heavy snow on the way up from Vancouver, and I bumped into her as I wandered upstairs for some breakfast.

My inbox proved that there are people out there looking at the website, as there were several emails from people who’d read the article about my accident and wanted to know how I was. After replying to them I said goodbye to Simon and Kay, who were then driven back to Vancouver by Andy.

Bob and Jen went off to their respective lessons in the afternoon, and I was left at home to install the new ROJ webcam which Dom had lent us. When they returned they cooked a chilli and we had a fairly quiet night at home.

I’d promised to cook a meal for our New Year’s Eve celebration, so soon after midday on Tuesday I dragged myself out of the house and walking very slowly into the village. The exercise didn’t seem too hard - up till then the most out of breath I’d felt was climbing the stairs, but I managed the hill up Lorimer Road without too much difficulty, then spent about three hours wandering round the shops looking for lasagne ingredients and booze.

When the lasagne had been prepared we went into town with Matt and Paul to see what was being organised. We’d been warned by friends from Whistler and Vancouver that the festivities would be dire, and they weren’t wrong. There were a collection of tents claiming to display arts and crafts, but they were very firmly aimed at kids, and we came away with the feeling that $15 could have been better spent.

Whistler has adopted what it calls "0% alcohol, 100% fun" in an attempt to attract families, but we couldn’t help wondering why it didn’t have a celebration more like the Notting Hill Carnival or Edinburgh’s New Year, where thousands of tourists visit because the partying is so good, rather than trying to attract a few families.

Anyway, we returned home for a few drinks, and were joined by Stan, Kinga and Josh. We’d just about finished dinner when we realised midnight was approaching, so we quickly downloaded Auld Lang Syne, and sang as best we could. After dinner we had a fairly civilised game of pictionary, the highlight of which was Bob claiming to recognise something Paul had drawn and confidently yelling out "It’s a fire-donkey!" The offending drawing will soon be available in the gallery.

The night went downhill from there, with Bob, Matt, Paul and Stan getting stuck into some serious drinking games. I had avoided pain-killers earlier so I could have some wine, but my ribs were beginning to hurt, so I switched to water so I could have another pill before bed, and watched as Fuzzy Duck went horribly wrong...

Today began predictably late, and hasn’t involved anything very exciting. Bob and Jen have just reappeared after an quick visit to the slopes, and I’ve had an extended MSN chat with Ben.