As I type, I'm in in the town of
Corner Brook (which, as Rainboe says above, is where we stay during our 3 / 4 days layover on Deer Lake / YDF / CYDF flights).
Outside the snow is falling, and I can report that the snow condition for skiing / snowboarding on
Marble Mountain are SUPERB.... lots of fresh snow, giving deep
Deep DEEP powder!!! ... and
NO queues at the chair lifts = nice!
Nb. The Marble Mountain ski centre is about midway between Deer Lake airport and Corner Brook (i.e. about 20 / 15 minutes respectively by car).
Newfoundland time zone is UTC -3.5 hours.
UK £1 pound presently exchanges as Canadian $2.25.... which means that things here seem very cheap. There's a
hire shop at the ski centre which will hire boots, skis, poles, snowboards at very reasonable prices.... especially so given the exchange rate (UK folks remember to divide the listed prices by 2.25).
If your looking for accomodation, places to stay can be found
here - wherein the
Glynmill Inn is more than comfortable.
Nb. If you really want to push the boat out, you might consider renting a place at the '
Humber Valley' resort (this approximately midway between Deer Lake airport and Marble Mountain ski resort.. and are seriously nice properties !!!).
Downsides are that the weather can get cold very quickly, and it can get very windy (which does nothing for the windchill
)... the snow can almost be too much (
surely some mistake?)... and there's not a great deal of
apres ski activities.
The local airport dudes are used to dealing with winter ops and, flying wise, the weather in Newfoundland can be described as '
challenging' (to say the least!). E.g. the other day in St.John we landed in 15-20kts and good visibility but within 40 minutes we had sustained blizzard conditions in 40 gusting 50Kts (
which has to be seen to be believed!) and therein was on the limit for the de-icing rig to operate (i.e. in case it blows over). When we back tracked on rwy 11 and tried to turn-around to face up the runway the wind weather-cocked our B737-700 in the wrong direction (slippery runway), putting us into the deep snow at the edges of the runway, and we were bloody lucky to get the thing back where it should be and pointed in the right direction (mostly through judicous use of assymetric thrust)... it's all character building stuff.
... and "Yes", we did used to go LGW-YDF-LGW in a single duty day... but it was always a bit tight on flight duty hours and, commercially, didn't suit the passengers. Hence, we now go westbound departing around about midday and then return east bound through the night.... and a very satisfactory arrangement it is too !
