Golf Trip 2005

Anaconda, MT

Panorama, BC

Old Works - Anaconda, MT

Our golf trip started on August 12th, 2005 when Jeff, Beth, Brad, and I drove to 11 1/2 hours to Anaconda, MT. On August 13th we golfed at the Jack Nicklaus signature golf course, Old Works.

This was some sort of crane that was used at the Old Works mill when it was open.

Jeff and Brad (both wearing red hats) on the driving range before our round. The locals from the course called us the Canadians.

Bethanie is excited about our first round of golf at such a nice course. Two seconds after I took this picture, she took one of me.

 

This is a picture of Hole #7 "Heap." The tee box is on a mountain of slag (which is a metal by product of the mill). All of the bunkers were made of slag. It was very slippery to hit out of compared to sand.

 

The Worst Lie for a Putt

Jeff ended up on the bottom tier of this green. Each picture is taken with the camera being closer to the ground.

I put the camera right near the ground. It looks like Jeff has no lower body. Needless to say, Jeff did not one putt!!!

 

This is a view down Hole #4 "Flue #5." The Flue was used when the mill was open.

 

The Pimp Hand

 

When we were waiting to tee off on Hole #5, a fox came right up to us. Apparantly its den is right near the hole. One of the foxes in the den is known to steal things like cell phones and sunglasses from people's golf carts. In the clubhouse there is a picture of one of the foxes getting ready to "tee off" or steal a golf ball right off of someone's tee.

 

This mountain of slag is on the edge of Anaconda. In the picture on the left there is a person on a dirt bike riding down the small part of the mountain. This is an indication of how much slag is leftover.

 

Right after our round of golf in Anaconda, we drove to Whitefish, MT. We stayed overnight in Whitefish and in the morning we came back to Canada. It was a short stay in the US, but we did notice some differences. When we went to the store they asked us if we wanted a "sack" for our purchases instead of a bag, and in the restaurants they refilled "soda" not pop. On Sunday, August 14th, we came back to BC, Panorama to be exact and went white water rafting.

 

Columbia Rafting Adventures

Toby Creek Rafting

Once again I was convinced to squeeze myself into a wetsuit, get into a dingy on a river and try not to drown. Did I mention that I don't know how to swim. Actually the trip was awesome and we hit some nice rapids. As for the falling out part, Brad and Jeff were trying their hardest to push each other out. Neither had any luck.

Our guide for our trip was Jeremy. This picture was taken before we set out.

 

The views that we had were awesome!!

 

I think we are the boat that is the third farthest away. At this point we were trying to soak the other boat.

 

This picture was taken right before our pit stop.

 

This was our pit stop. The guides told us that if we wanted we could jump off the cliff that was there. I thought they were joking. The cliff was only about 10 feet high and everyone else was jumping so I decided to jump as well. Once again I'd like to remind everyone that I don't know how to swim, but hey we were wearing life jackets.

 

Brad's Jump

 

Jeff's Jump

 

Jolyn's Jump

I got scared half way through jumping and I just kind of fell off the cliff. I'm definately not the most graceful person in the world. Brad was just happy that I didn't hurt myself.

 

Beth's Jump

 

 

I'm not sure which raft we are, however the mountain in the background is the Panorama ski hill. You can see the runs that are cut out of the forest.

 

The Action Shots

 

Paddling the raft. You better believe that's a paddling.

 

Apparantly when you white water raft it is custom to use your paddle as a guitar.

 

The group shot of the people in our raft after the trip was over.

 

We stayed in Panorama for three nights. Yay no long drives for 3 days!! Our hotel was an absolute gem. Check out the ice bucket.

I was absolutely baffled.

Anyways, with the rafting over we now had 3 solid days of golfing.

Eagle Ranch - Invermere, BC

August 15, 2005

The black tee marker.

 

The driving range! We spent a ton of time here. We showed up an hour before our tee time to practice, then after our game we spent at least another hour on the driving range before leaving. I think that this course had the best practice facility. And before we started we got a bottle of water and a granola bar.

 

We had to wait for the previous group to get off of the green. The grass was so green here.

 

This hole had the first gorge that we had to cross. This picture was taken from the black tee box.

 

These pictures are of Hole #16. The one on the left is from the black tees, which Brad and Jeff were hitting from, and the right picture is of the red tee, which Beth and I were hitting from. There was a huge gorge that I almost made it over, except my ball hit the rocks that are on the far side and bounced down into the valley. Oh well!!!

 

These are pictures of the 18th hole.

 

Did I mention that the golf carts had GPS in them. I took this picture right after the previous pictures. The GPS was awesome, because not only did it show how far the green was, it also showed where the group ahead of us was so we knew if it was safe to shoot. This also became quite comical when we were leaving the course. Beth and I left a minute before Brad and Jeff. We were watching the screen and their cart appeared and started to blip up the screen, however we could tell that they were going the wrong way. Sure enough their cart started to blip back down the screen and towards the correct direction. Beth and I laughed at them when they finally made it to the clubhouse.

The 18th green.

 

Copper Point - Windermere, BC

August 16, 2005

Copper Point wasn't in as good of shape as the previous courses, but it was still really nice. Just don't ask Jeff how he feels about this course.

Brad is getting ready to tee off.

 

I apparantly didn't take many pictures this day. Here we are waiting to tee off on the 17th hole. Copper Point also had GPS in their carts.

 

Looking down hole #17.

Mini Golf - August 16, 2005

We played quite a bit of mini golf on our trip, but none as memorable as this day. The course was very unique but not very well taken care of. The waterfall over this hole was leaking all over the place. Jeff figured that the play for this hole was to hammer the ball as hard as possible so it wouldn't get stuck in one of the puddles. Good in theory, however when the ball got to the end of the hole it bounced off of a rock and into the water on the left.

Jeff is contemplating how to get his ball back at this point. He decides to go down the slope and grab it out.

Jeff wasn't thinking and didn't realize that it would be very slippery. He definately fell into the water.

 

This is Jeff quite embarassed to have fallen into the water and not getting his ball back. He made Brad go get him a new ball. I couldn't stop laughing the rest of the game.

Greywolf - Panorama, BC

August 17, 2005

Ahhhh Greywolf. The most anticipated course on the trip. Save the best for last. The weather on our trip up until this point had been absolutely beautiful. Sunny and hot. However the day we play Greywolf, it rained. All day long it rained. We still made the best of it and I shot one of the best rounds of my life.

 

The driving range is right beside the ski runs. The clouds were fairly low this day or were we really high up?!?!

 

Brad warming up before the round. Did I ever mention that I hate turf tee boxes?

 

Hole #4 "Descent". This tee box for this hole is approximately 200 feet above the green.

Hole #6 "Cliffhanger"

These pictures were taken from the black tee box, 175 yards to the green.

Brad is teeing off at the black tee box.

 

Hole #11 "Panorama" This picture was taken from the grey tee box. From the white tee box, this hole is 235 yards. I used my 3 wood, teed it up super high, lined up for a spine buster, and absolutely crushed the ball. My ball landed around 3-4 feet in front of the green. This is one of the reasons this round was one of the best of my life.

 

It was rainy and kind of chilly all day.

 

Hole #14 "Notch" This par five measures 509 from the black tees, and 429 from the white tees. This picture was taken after the dog leg approximately 225 yards from the green all uphill. Hole #14 "Notch" got the best of me.

 

After our round at Greywolf we changed out of our soaking wet clothes. (Oh yah, my advice from the rainy day is that it is not a good idea to wear linen pants when it is raining. They definately become see through. It's a good thing I was wearing light underwear). Anyways we drove to Canmore and checked out a couple of courses that will hopefully be added to next years trip. The next day we drove to Calgary and decided that we didn't want to head back to Regina yet. We decided to go to the zoo.

 

That night we stayed at my brother's house and then came back the next morning.

We had such a great time on the trip and I can't wait until next year.