Blog: Kevin’s Ski Extreme Trip to Western Canada February 16 to March 1 2018

The following blog is intended to inform and entertain while providing a little insight and humour about a ski trip I took recently in Beautiful British Columbia.

On Saturday February 17 I began my journey arising from sleep at 3:45AM to be at the airport for a 7 flight from Ottawa to Kelowna B. C. Given it was Family Weekend we were advised to be there three hours before our flight. Ugh! We settled on 2.5 hours. I never sleep very well the night before I leave for a trip anyways but slept okay this time.

After a long flight to Kelowna – some 4 hours – we (Ski Extreme Club www.skiextreme.ca ) were unable to land as the region was in the midst of wicked snow storm which ended up dropping over 50 centimeters of snow in the area. Even though we were diverted to Vancouver for the night we were very excited about the powder awaiting us the next day at the Big White Ski Resort (www.bigwhite.com ) about an hour southeast from Kelowna.

Air Canada put us up in the Gateway Pacific Hotel and gave us meal vouchers for $40. We had an early rise to catch our 7:30AM flight back to Kelowna. Unfortunately, we were delayed twice and did not lift off until 9:30 and after landing around 10:30 we had to wait almost an hour to receive our luggage. You should always expect the unexpected when travelling: delays are inevitable and I know this sounds cliché but you just have to role with the punches.

One man with a large, extended family (17) was taking out his anger with the delays by dropping numerous F** bombs. This is simply a waste of energy as the only one you ending up suffering is you; you have to learn to expect delays. However, his trip to Big White was for only three days and it was likely he would miss two of them. Bummer!

Once we arrived at Big White we registered at the Inn at Big White around 11:30 and prepared to be ready to ski at 1PM. The rooms had kitchenettes which were great for breakfasts and preparing lunches. This is a ski-in and ski-out Inn. The Resort is located in the interior of beautiful British Columbia (Beaverdell area) and is part of “The Kootenay Rockies” which have over a dozen excellent ski resorts. They receive on average well over 750 centimeters of snow annually and average daily temperature of -5 C; this world class sports facility features 122 marked trails, 2, 565 acres of land and a 777 metre vertical drop. There is a large village half way up the mountain with sports facilities, two spas, restaurants, bars (with local craft beer), wine tasting (local from the Okanagan)and even a grocery store (which is not surprisingly a little pricey FYI). In addition, cross country skiers and snowshoers can enjoy up to 25 kilometers of trails, half of which are groomed daily. Other activities include tubing, ice-skating, dog sledding, snowmobiling and even an ice-climbing tower. In the evening they keep 38 acres alight for night skiing too.

We finally hit the slopes around 1PM. Rather than a traditional ski tag Big White uses a plastic electronic card you slip in your coat pocket which you align to the gate sensor which beeps and then opens the gate for you to get on the chairlift. We found this very convenient. We were able to ski 3 or 4 runs before the end of the day just off the “Snow Ghost Express Chair” mostly on blue trials called

“Exhibition” and “Paradise” which enabled one to jump into the glades easily. The run under the chair was great.

Toby and I at the top of the Gem Chair

Gendron - our travel agent and booking company - (www.ski.voyagesgendron.com or 1-800-561-8747) hosted a cocktail hour at the “Happy Valley Lodge” (accessible by the “Yellow Gondola”) on our first evening with beverages and scrumptious munchies. I have been very impressed with Gendronski as they take care of all details (my trip with them to Banff and Lake Louise, Alta. and Revelstoke, B. C. last year was excellent without any glitches and/or delays).

Over the next two days our gang of 4 or 5 skiers and snowboarders (Steve, Ron, Toby, Diane and Cathy sometimes) focused mostly on trails off the “Powder” and “Falcon “Chairs. These trails and glades are predominantly black offering challenging terrain for the advanced to expert skier. The run under the Powder Chair was awesome with a good fall line, plenty of moguls and tons of very soft snow; the glades in this area were tight but doable. My favourite trail at the Powder Chair was “Shaken-Knees” with snow ghosts (treetops covered in snow), steeps, glades and plenty of nicely spaced moguls. The nearby “Grizzly Chute” along with other chutes are well worth checking out.

Later in the afternoon and the next day we checked out the “Gem Lake Express” which features a mix of much longer blue and black trails with glades abound including “Black Bear”, “Talon” and “Thunder”; once again one of my favourite trails was right under the chair (I often find this to be the case) because of it steepness and skiable glades. “The Westridge Warming Hut” at the bottom of Gem Lake offers respite from the cold and wind with a pretty good choice of food and beverages.

Steve, Tobey and I amidst the snow ghosts just off the Powder Chair

I was unable to explore the Cliff area but Ron and Toby did where they found some decent glades; the trails were windswept and a little hard packed that day unfortunately.

You likely have been warned about skiing to closely to a “tree well” where ever there is deep powder. I have my own little “tree well” story to share with you. I was heading to lunch with Tobey near the “Paradise Glades” on our third day; it was beautiful and sunny with soft powder in abundance heading down towards “Ridge Day Lodge”. Nevertheless, I skied a little too closely to one tree well and my right ski sank deeply and diagonally into the snow to the point it caused me to tumble unexpectedly on to my right side towards the tree top. As I tried to extricate myself with the aid of my right arm and ski pole, I sank even further to the right and deeper into the top of the tree well. I had to calm myself at one point and just breathe. It took me a good five minutes to extricate myself and then I sank again as I inched forward taking another 5 minutes to wiggle free. This was distressing to say the least; stay a meter and a half away as some resort signs suggest. I strongly recommend skiing or boarding with a partner and an inflatable parachute-avalanche-airbag to give you an opportunity to breathe if you fall into a tree well or worse get buried by an avalanche. It just may save your life as it did for a snowboarder in France who was caught in avalanche recently (March 7, 2018).

The first night we ate dinner at the Globe which featured a variety of dishes; we opted for the Spanish tapas which we shared and was excellent. The next evening we (almost the entire group, some 40 of us) tried the “Bull Wheel”. I had the spaghetti seafood which was not very good especially considering the price at $27.00.

On Tuesday we tried “Sessions Pub” – a local’s recommendation. It was raucous, featured great craft beer and the Thai dish I had was pretty decent. The pub held a fund raising trivia contest which was fun and rowdy. I recommend chatting with the locals for their recommendations as this can save you a fare bit of grief by avoiding subpar restaurants.

Steve and I near the Powder Chair.

We left Big White at 6:30AM on Wednesday February 21 as our president or presidente Diane whipped us into shape for the 3 hour bus journey to Sun Peaks Resort (www.SunPeaksResort.com) some three hours north west of Big White near Kamloops. We stayed at the Cahilty Lodge (www.CahiltyLodge.com ). This is where the world famous skier Nancy Green-Raine is the Director (see picture); her trophy case in the lobby of the hotel contains all her medals (some 15 or 16 in all) including Olympic Gold and a World Cup Trophy. She and her husband, Al, were the highlight of this part of the trip for most people in the Club. We actually had the pleasure of skiing we both of them on Thursday morning for a couple of hours mostly in the area of the “5Mile” Trail; more on this later.

Nancy Green-Raine

Sun Peaks is also a ski in/ski out Resort with access to the trails from Burfield Drive/ Heights, Sunburst/Sundance Drive and the East Village. There is also a 10 acre Terrain Park for the ski “tricksters”. In addition to skiing, there is the Sundance Kids Centre, tubing, outdoor skating and the Sun

Peaks Nordic Centre which features short mostly groomed trails marked green, blue and/or black; backcountry trails are marked in red. My favourite trail name in the Nordic ski center was “Holy Cow”. Free Wi-Fi is available in most of the facilities in the Resort too.

Morrisey Express Chair offers access to long cruiser type trails of the “blue” variety; perfect for nice long and wide G. S. Turns. These runs are designed for the intermediate to advanced skier not keen on skiing bumps or moguls or powder.

Burfield Chair enables the skier to access the “Juniper Ridge” giving one access to black runs like “Sunny Side”, “Toilet Bowl”, “Back Door”, “Chief Shoulder”, and get this, “Kookamungas”. We found great glade skiing and lots of powder on and in the vicinity of these runs. Ron, one of our boarding buddies, did an unintentional cartwheel after nearly missing me and side swiping a tree top on his way down one of the runs – it was spectacular! Too bad I did not catch it on video (unfortunately, unable to load video clips in this blog because they are memory hogs).

Crystal Bowl Chair gives access to the namesake Bowl plus a variety of blues and blacks of which the “Headwalls” was my favourite because of it very steep pitch and even fall line – what a rush! “East Bushwacker” offered an excellent challenge as well. Further south of these runs is a series of blacks that includes “5th Avenue” which was completely full of the some of the softest moguls I have ever skied – brilliant! Toby and I did this one to end this day.

Atop Gil’s Bowl with Diane and Jocelyn

The best and virtually untouched powder was to be had at Gil’s Hike and Traverse at the top of the Resort; although it took approximately 15 minutes to hike up to from either the Burfield or Crystal

Chairs it was well worth the trek (the T-bar was busted unfortunately). We did it numerous times over our three day stop at Sun Peaks. The powder remained mostly untouched as very few people bothered to “take the hike” but I would highly recommend it for sure. We were able to shoot a number of different videos of each other skiing and boarding through this winter paradise of snow covered trees and excessive powder - wonderful!

Ron, the gang and me ready to jump into the Bowl; below, me in the Bowl

Nancy Green looks amazingly fit for a woman in her mid seventies. She is still a Senator in the Red Chamber in Ottawa until retirement at 75 this year. Nancy left us with 3 straight forward and easy to remember ski tips:

1. Keep your head up and enjoy the scenery; do not stare at you ski tips as this compromises your balance and hence your body position especially the upper body - stay square to the hill with your upper body;

2. Apply pressure with the ball of your foot on your downhill ski to engage as much of the ski’s edge as you can in to the snow which gives you total control as you turn from one side to the other; and,

3. There is no need to plant your poles as the new ski technology makes turning the skis “so easy”(one still has to plant poles as a pivot point in the moguls, powder, and/or the steeps FYI otherwise you will crash).

Her tips for snowboarders: “Buy some skis”.

Nancy Green-Raine

Meals included dining at Sun Peaks Grand Hotel; I had the butter chicken which was filling and tasty. The next night, I tried the seafood spaghetti once again at the Bella Italia (be sure to make a reservation) and it was much better than BullWheel at Big White. Our final dinner at the Cahilty Lodge on Friday

February 23 featured either prime rib or salmon. Both were excellent and priced reasonably. We ate breakfast in the dining room each morning and it was passable.

I won the beer drinking contest on this day with Ron a close second and Steve in third.

Skiing the “Headwalls Run” at Sun Peaks; nice and steep (planting poles a must)

Most of the Ski Extreme Club left on the Saturday to return to Ottawa. However, five of us drove another 4 hours south west to Rossland, B. C. where Red Mountain Resort is located which became our home base for the remainder of the trip. In Rossland B. C. we stayed at the comfortable Prestige Mountain Resort and Conference Centre from February 24th to March 1st.

Red Mountain Resort is located about a 5 minute drive from Rossland (www.Redresort.com ). Their alpine guide states the following: “RED has endless natural tree stashes, bottomless bowls, squirrel shortcuts (not sure of this lingo), and this natural terrain is comparable to heli-skiing”. Interestingly RED allows a “360 – degree descents off Granite Mountain and a 270 – degree access off the top of Red and Grey Mountains”. Given this topography you are unlikely to encounter areas where skiers bottleneck; you literally are able to choose your lines unencumbered by other skiers unless they are your friends. They refer to this phenomenon as “P3” – Pow Per Person. By the numbers Red has a vertical drop of 890m, 4, 200 acres (service by 2, 877 acres of the 7 chair lifts), 110 trails (the longest being 7 kilometres), receive over 750cm of snow each year with a daily average temperature of -4, and over 50% of their runs are marked black or double black diamond.

Memorable trails off the “Red Towers Chair” (this lift dates back to the 1960s with a post in the middle of the chair FYI but functions fine) included “Hole in the Wall”, “War Eagle” and “Poochie’s Trees” which was full of powder, steep terrain and plenty of bumps. We spent most of the morning Sunday February 25th in this area to our glee.

“Mount Kirkup” (see photo above; Steve, Nico and Abigal)

On Mount Kirkup Cat skiing is usually available; unfortunately “The Cat” was busted when we were there so we had to trek up to the top of the bowl for about 15 minutes. The fee for the ride is $10 taxes in; Kirkup offers approximately 1, 600 vertical feet and 200 acres of open runs labelled simply 1, 2 and 3, glade or tree skiing and rolling advanced terrain. It leads to a green trail called “Get Up, Stand Up” which becomes your ski out back to the chair. We had fresh tracks on this day and were joined by Nico and Abigal who became our de facto guides.

We next moved to the “Motherlode Chair” which gives access to excellent black trails with glades abound like “Powder Fields Travers”, “Pale Face”, “The Orchards”, “Paposse Bowl” which I really enjoyed skiing and “Granite Towers”. I eyed “Shoulder “ but was not able to ski it due to circumstances beyond my control (ran out of time)which means I will just have to return to do it.

On Tuesday February 27th we travelled to Whitewater Ski Resort (www.skiwhitewater.com ) located about an hour away from Rossland and a 20 minute drive from Nelson B. C. The Resort receives over 1, 200cm or 12 feet of snow annually, has an average daily temperature of -8, has a vertical drop of 623m, and a total skiable area of 2, 044 feet. They have 82 runs with the longest being 3 kilometres. Like Red Mountain over 50% of the runs are marked black but here are a number of blues and a few greens. They also offer up to 5 kilometers of Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, snow biking and they have a terrain park. The powder at Whitewater was particularly awesome but that much more plentiful compared the previous three resorts.

Sweet! A look from “Blast”; wickedly steep yet soft (notice I am under the chair yet again)

Warm up

We started the day on the “Silver King Chair” warming up on “Upper and Lower Connector” with knee deep fresh powder. Next we moved on to the “Summit Area” featuring trails we tried called “Blast” and “Igniter”; the glades on either side of these runs were excellent: steep and full of bumps.

In the “Glory Ridge” area we were greeted by signs warning of potential avalanches and to stay a meter and a half from tree wells; I must say this did spook me a bit. But only for a short period as the skiing and boarding turned out to be some of the best of the four resorts we had visited on this trip. We tried “Bound for Glory”, “Jack Leg Glades” and “Giddy Up Gully”. On this last run we became separated from other but I found Steve and Diane at the bottom of the run by the chair. We waited for Ron but he turned out to be at the top and when we arrived there he had left; we contacted ski patrols fearing the

worst. We eventually found him on the Summit side after about a half hour. If there was ever a case for carrying walkie-talkies this was it for sure.

Found Steve and Diane; where is Ron?

As we loaded our gear into our Suburban at the end of the ski day a young German lad asked us for a ride to Nelson; we agreed. We asked him why he came such a distance to ski in B. C. and he replied

“because of the legendary powder and the glades which you do not see in Europe very often” (their last few winters have been abysmal with little snow fall unfortunately).

As an aside, my cell pinged off a tower in the U. S. (we were about 10 minutes from the boarder) and yes, I was dinged for a $50 charge on my bill with Telus; I gave them a quick call after I arrived home and was credited for the charge. I also bumped up against my data limit of my phone plan - mostly because I had posted about 10 short videos clips of our epic skiing and boarding to my FaceBook account. A word of caution: it does not take much for this to happen and as you know your provider will be ready to ding you with extra charges the second you exceed your limit. As a result I could only text outside my home for March 2nd to the 22nd. I also learned how to use the Air Drop function on my iPhone to share photos and videos with various ski friends that owned Apple products (you just have to be in close proximity to share) - really cool technology.

We stopped off at the historic and majestic Hume Hotel Pub in Nelson for a beer after skiing on this day. Out craft beer went down smoothly as we shared a plate of nachos and marvelled at the beautiful woodwork of the interior of the 100 years old plus building (should have taken some pictures).

Powder Hound trickster complete with photo bomb at Red Mountain après ski

On our last day at Red, Wednesday February 28th we encountered “Powder Magazine” dudes in the vicinity of “Granite Mountain” in the early morning. These freaks of nature where skiing off 20 to 30 foot cliffs, doing back flips, helicopters and the like all the while being photographed and videotaped by their crew. We were blown away by their talent. As well, they had an après ski party in the bar all dressed in the zaniest, retro ski – outfits one could imagine.

As well, I decided to rent a pair of fat boy skis to give them a try on the fresh powder which had fallen overnight; the charge was about $45 for a pair of K2s. The width of the ski under my boot was just shy of 100 millimetres; not sure how wide they were at the tips but close to double that of the boot area. What a difference! I cannot believe I waited so long to try a pair of these “babies” out. The beauty of these skis in the powder is they stay above the snow especially the tips for the most part making it much easier to turn them than my narrower but trusty pair of Volkl P60s. More than a few times on my P60s I sank in the deeper powder stopping me in my tracks as opposed to allowing me to turn. I still love these skis and will keep them handy for “eastern powder” conditions (aka icey). I will rent or buy “fat boys” for my next venture into powder as it makes the skiing so much easier, effortless and fun. I must admit I have suffered from powder withdrawals for a couple of weeks after this fantastic trip. I came home exhausted but a good exhaustion nonetheless.

The “Fat Boys”; I’m not fat.

I look very much forward to my next trip with the Ski Extreme Club. Feel free to send me your constructive feedback and suggestions. Thanks! Cheers!