K2inCanada's Blog

January 24, 2013

Day 10: From the Town with no Internet to Vancouver – Mount MacPherson (Dec 31)

Filed under: BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 10:31 PM

Woke up to another cloudy morning but it felt almost warm, it was only -2C. Bodies felt tired though yet again – maybe skiing for 10 days in a row is taking its toll. First off though we had to find the trail system of The Revelstoke Nordic Club. Since we didn’t have internet last night Jeff wasn’t able to check. We assumed that it is somewhere located near the downhill ski area – like in many other places we had been to that offered both. There were lots of signs leading us to it. But when we got there people hardly even knew what cross-country skiing is never mind where the trails would be. We finally found the one person that knew and got directions. Of course it was on the other side of the river at the Mount MacPherson Recreation Area. It didn’t take us long though to get there – another nice cabin and a good trail system with mostly green and blue trails. Since it was just below 0C it was questionable if my grip tape would work but I wanted to try it anyhow. Jeff took his classics as well. It was nice to be able to dress up a bit less warm and to tie the shoes without pain :-). We hit the green trails first to warm up – well I had Jeff in sight for about 1 min. Like Golden, these trails were quite a bit more up and down. The grooming was good but unfortunately classic tracks were only set on one side even though these were bi-directional trails. So you always had to watch out for oncoming traffic on the downhills. So I went outside the tracks on most. Otherwise the trails were really nice. Nice long climbs and fast downhills – even the black portions that connected some of the blue runs weren’t too bad, now that I know how to snow plow :-). And the grip tape worked great the whole time. No real views though mostly because of the clouds – only got a couple glimpses of the valley from the top of the black trail since it went along the power lines. Saw some moose tracks on the trail – they looked quite big. Apparently Jeff had not seen them even though he was ahead of me. Could I have just missed the moose?! I did feel tired the whole way even though I managed another 21km in 2hr45min.

When I got back to the cabin Jeff was already waiting even though he had said we wanted to do another hour and a half more skiing when I met him on the trails an hour ago. But the hills were too much on skates on those tired legs. He probably did between 30-40km every day!! That’s a lot of time on skis. So we both were ready to give it a rest and instead of stopping over in Kamloops for one last ski we drive all the way home that day. It’s a long drive and it got dark before we hit Kamloops. We stopped for a nice New Year’s Eve dinner at our favourite Pub in Merritt. So far the roads had been great the whole way and even the Coquihalla was nearly snow free the whole way. So the remaining part of the drive went super quick while we were listening to an audio book Jeff’s dad gave us a while ago. We were home by 10pm and in bed by 11pm too tired to stay up till midnight. It will be New Year for a whole year :-). What a trip though!! It wasn’t cheap but I would do it again. There wasn’t a single place I wouldn’t want to revisit – maybe with the exception of the noisy motel in Golden. So many great places to ski in this province – almost 200kms of trails. And we didn’t even hit them all…. Now I need to start working on speed. Below a map of the whole trip (use this link https://k2incanada.wordpress.com/category/bc-ski-trip-2012/ if you want to read them in sequence):

 

Map of the whole trip

Map of the whole trip

Day 9: From the Town of the Noisiest Motel to Revelstoke – Dawn Mountain (Dec 30)

Filed under: BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 7:34 AM

All night long people seemed to come back to their rooms and talked noisily in front of their doors for a while. Why could they not just quietly hop into their beds? In the morning we got woken up by the neighbour warming up his big diesel truck for about an HOUR – what an …. I felt tired and cranky and wasn’t really looking forward to another ski. The sky was grey with low hanging clouds. And guess what, it was freezing out. -18C with the windchill (never mind there was no wind) – brrr! At least they said it would be “warming up” to -7 by mid day. So we delayed getting up to the skiing area a bit by stopping in for breakfast at the Big Bend Cafe. Great food and well worth it – a place the locals come for breakfast. After breakfast I felt a whole lot better and was ready for another day on skis. We weren’t really sure what to expect from Dawn Mountain. Mind you, the club had hosted Canadian Masters Nationals last year so there should be some good trails. The drive up there was mostly in clouds but just before we reached the Kicking Horse Resort we broke through the clouds into some sun. Yeah! The Nordic Club had a really nice, big cabin with a nicely groomed stadium area right out front – completely flat – where people were learning to skate (I should have joined them but I wasn’t feeling like skating today rather some easy classic skiing. The trail system was quite extensive as well with a nice mix of green and blue trails (few black ones that could easily be avoided). The trails fee again was only $9. I put on my Peltonen. My fingers hardly worked in the cold trying to tighten up the shoe laces – why can’t they use velcro for those? Jeff took off on his skates skis on what was supposed to be an easy green trail (Beaver). I followed slowly in behind. Man, that green trail was more of a Whistler green – lots of ups and a few gentle downs. I thought this might become a short ski for me as my legs turned to rubber early on. But once I warmed up it got better. After Beaver were a couple more green trails that went mostly down and were really fast and had a few decent turns in them. All I could think about was my face getting numb and that I had to climb all this back up :-). Then I hit the long blue trail (Raven) which was again up and down following the mountain side. Not any worse than Beaver really just longer. By now I was having fun. Views were few and far in between because of the clouds covering up the valley below and the mountains tops but it was really nice skiing on perfectly groomed trails. Even had okay grip. After I finished the “long” trail Raven, I had only gone about 10km. So I kept skiing some of the inner trails – offering some different but also nice scenery going gently back and forth along the mountain contours – great for double poling. By the end of it I had covered 20km without even noticing it. Another 2hrs 45min on skis that day without feeling too tired afterwards. Maybe I am now fully recovered from my cold? Back at the cabin I had to wait for Jeff though – so I went for a walk to take more pictures after I warmed up in the cabin for a bit. But man was that cold!!! It’s one thing to ski in the cold and at least stay somewhat warm vs. walking out in it. It NEVER warmed up to the -7 they promised.

I was looking forward to the next part of the drive through Glacier National Park – I have been through it in the summer a few times and it is a beautiful park. Unfortunately it was already getting late by the time we got into the park and there were still a lot of clouds mixing it up with some sunny sections. A great drive though nonetheless. It was pitch dark when we arrived in Revelstoke. First we wanted to check in with our friends Alex and Leah who own Glacier House Resort – a place people come to for snowmobiling. As expected this was their busiest week of the year and both of them had to work. So we ended up only stopping in for a quick chat with Alex in between him parking snowmobiles. They were fully booked out as well and we went to find a place in town to stay. Alex had offered us to stay in one of his staff rooms if we couldn’t find anything in town. The first place we drove into just gave away their last room but the second place, Mountain View Motel, a bit off the main drag still had rooms. So we got a nice room for $75 + tax. Only bad part – internet wasn’t working for us – or maybe that’s a good thing :-). By now we were starving – breakfast had been good but except for a couple cookies on the drive we hadn’t eaten since then. We had seen this Steak and Pizza place on the drive into town and walked back to it. Lucky us – we were just in time for getting the last table without a wait. Food was really good – it started with a trip to the salad bar before our main entrees. Good selection of salads and veggies! Only the plates were a bit too small :-). The main dish though filled us up well enough. The night was nice and quiet.

January 20, 2013

Day 8: From the Town that made Olympic History to Golden – Canmore (Dec 29)

Filed under: Animals, BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 10:04 AM

Got up refreshed for another day of skiing after breakfast in the room. Another blue sky day and the mountains surrounding Canmore looked stunning. The Nordic Centre is only a short drive from town although the drive through downtown was slow. Canmore was really busy, all the places we saw said “No Vacancy”. We made it to the Nordic Centre by about 11AM again and managed to park fairly close. To our surprise, the trail fee was again only $10 per person. Why do we get gouged at Cypress, Whistler or even Manning with trail fees of $20 or more per person? The trail system is quite extensive and has nicely marked loops anywhere from 8 to 13km in length besides of course all the competitive trails. The map also showed the loops elevation profiles. We started out on skate skis and I picked an easy loop – an out and back with very little elevation gain of about 11km in total, Banff Loop. The steepest climb – and least steep you can pick – was right out of the stadium area and one reached the high point less than half way out. From there it was a gentle downhill. Well, that also meant a gentle uphill on the way back. But again the views were beautiful and made up for any pain – actually it didn’t feel bad at all. Slowly getting better at this skating business, although I am sure my technique is pretty crappy. For a while it looked like some snow heavy clouds were moving in from the northeast but somehow they disappeared again. Back at the Nordic Centre I switched to my Peltonen and this time picked one of the moderate difficult trails – Bow and Meadowview Loop – even though the profile showed some nasty climbs on Meadowview. Anyhow the first part – Bow loop – was a gentle rolling course. The very first part of it wasn’t groomed and I had to work my way through some deeper snow. Mind you, again there wasn’t that much snow in total. Soon enough I was back on perfectly groomed trails. About half way along Bow I saw a whole bunch of deer next to the trail. I stopped to watch them – and catch my breath – together with some other skiers. The animals didn’t seem to mind us at all. They crossed the trail about 2m behind me!!! Very cool. Bow turned into Meadowview at the intersection with Banff Loop. Now I thought the tough climbing would start but it actually wasn’t too bad. Only had to get out of the tracks once on the way to the high point with the most stunning views over the valley and mountains. Great place to stop for pictures – again:-). The toughest part was finding your way down through all the Olympic trails above the Nordic Centre – what a maze up there and no more convenient corner signs. But at the end all I had to do pick any trail going down – they were steep but really wide and easy to ski on. By the way some of the trails like Banff were really busy – tons of newbies were out enjoying the sun. Mind you I was COLD. It said at the lodge that the temperature was only -8 to -6 but there was a bit of a wind and as soon as I stopped skiing I started shivering! I am most certainly not made for cold weather. Good thing we had missed the cold snap they had in Calgary a couple days earlier of below -25C. I would have never skied in those temperatures. Definitely not for 25km and 3hrs25min.

We stopped at Tim’s for a bowl of chilli to warm us up before staring the drive to Golden through Banff and Yoho National Park. Again stunning scenery. Unfortunately, it got dark way before we reached Golden and we missed out on the cool drive down through that narrow valley into Golden. We picked one of the places along the HWY, Ponderosa Inn, and got us another room with a king size bed. Really king size is too big – can’t find each other to huddle up for warmth!! Saw this place for dinner on the drive into town we could walked to. Unfortunately the food wasn’t as good as the outside and name, Golden Grizzly Cookhouse, promised. I had ribs with just a side caesar salad for a whole lot of money. Oh well, it filled the hole in the tummy.

January 19, 2013

Day 7: From the Town of Hot Springs to Canmore AB – Nipika (Dec 28)

Filed under: BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 9:03 AM

Leftovers for breakfast before we finally headed into the Rockies, Kootenay National Park. The drive up to the Hot Spring really only took 5 min and was just as scenic and it stayed scenic all the way through the narrow canyon up over Kootenay Pass into beautiful Kootenay River Valley. Nipika Mountain Resort is not mentioned on any of the tourist maps. Neither is the turnoff to the resort marked on the Hwy – no commercial advertisement in Canada’s National Parks I guess. Luckily there was only one groomed road in the area we thought we had to get off the hwy and we took it – Settlers FSR. We drove deeper into the Valley for about 10km on a snow covered but good road. Then finally were a few signs :-). We were the first car in the lot at the day use lodge, an old barn – at around 11AM. It was sunny and COLD, -10ish. We met the host Lyle inside and got some tips on the trails to take. They have 2 sets of trails, one going North which is the bigger trail system and the more hilly one and one going South which is more open and flat. In total over 50km of trails and all that for $10 per person! I was a bit intimidated by an expert skier saying there would be some nice climbing on the North trails but apparently the canyon trail was supposed to be super nice. So I figured what the heck, I can always walk up the hills with my classics, Peltonen. So Jeff and I headed out onto the North Trail system first. Lyle had a great system set up with numbered intersections that could be easily identified on the maps. What the map didn’t say is if the trail is flat or not. So the first one I picked went from the lodge all the way DOWN to the river – a pretty steep decent of at least 200m loosing at least 50m of elevation. It was so worth it though to get some views of the river close up. And the climb back up wasn’t too bad either. Great views of the mountains made the climbing much less painful and I worked my way up into the canyon. Had to herringbone up some of the hills. There was this one little loop that was called “waterfall loop” and even though it looked like a steep decent, the alternative route was going down too, So I went down to check out the waterfall – except the loop didn’t get anywhere close to the waterfall. I could hear it but not see a darn thing through the thick forest. All this was good for was another steep climb up. And it turned out the trail I thought was the alternate one was really only the loop coming back up. There was another hidden track to the right going further up :-). I worked my way up to the Natural Bridge to cross the narrow canyon and down from there to the warming hut. I skipped the last little loop one could do up there and descended down steeply to the “Canyon Bridge” to get back across the creek. Awesome vistas all along. Only bad part I had to climb up from the creek again. Lots of ups and downs so far but all fun. For the way back to the lodge I picked some different routes and they were mostly gentle downhill runs – lots of double poling. So by the time I got to the barn I was rested up enough to take on the South Trail system as well. Had only done 14 or so km so far in about 2hrs. The south system was for the most part fairly flat and open, offering some different views. Except for the back end – new trail – that went up and down like crazy. The uphills were short but steep and the downhills were fast with 90 degree corners near the bottom. Definitely not easy skiing and I was getting tired – no more grip with my grip tape. Nevertheless, I did the whole outer perimeter of the south trails even though there was an alternative route which didn’t involve one last steep climb. Jeff admitted later that he had skipped that last hill :-).  All in all about 21km and 3hrs10min on skis. A wonderful place to ski or snowshoe in the winter!! Al they needed would have been a bit more snow to make it the perfect place. In some places sticks and roots were still showing but it was all ski-able. Seems the further away from the coast we get the less there is snow, hmmm!?

The night before we had talked about driving into Canmore instead of spending 2 days in the Golden area. So instead of going back to Radium and then Golden, we continue on through the Rockies to spent a night in Canmore and ski at the Olympic Nordic Centre the next day. The drive through the snow covered mountains was stunning. The good weather stayed with us and we managed to get to Canmore with a little bit of light left. There seemed to be a lot more traffic going west though – looked like Albertans were going for a long weekend in BC.

Once in Canmore we pulled into the first place off the highway we saw. They only had 2 rooms left. One fancy one with king size bed, fireplace and jacuzzi in the room for $150 incl. tax or a simple room with 2 beds for $90 on the 2nd floor. The guy at the front desk told us to look at both. We went to the cheaper room first but the key didn’t work. So we checked out the expensive room and man was that ever nice!! Really too much luxury for me but hey, we are on vacation! So we ended up taking the “Suite” and even got it for $10 less. First though we had to get some food into us – hadn’t eaten anything since the morning. The guy at the desk recommended a place in walking distance, Patrinos, which had some good food and I had pasta in again, this time in brandy cream sauce – yummy! After dinner we quickly stopped in at Safeway to stock up on groceries before soaking in our jacuzzi for about 45min watching Ice Age. I love those movies!

Day 6: From the Town with the best Pizza to Radium Hot Springs – Greywolf, Panorama Mountain (Dec 27)

Filed under: Animals, BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 9:01 AM

By now we were tired of buns for breakfast and stopped in at “The Bistro” in Invermere for a good old eggs, sausage and potatoes breakfast – was really good – before driving up to Panorama Mountain Resort to ski the trails of the Toby Creek Nordic Club at Greywolf. It was still cold and overcast in Invermere. Driving up into the mountains it got colder but also sunnier. Lowest temperature we saw while driving was -16.5C, brrr. Jeff had looked up the trails the night before and it didn’t look overly exiting. And there was much less snow around Invermere than Cranbrook. But we wanted to stick to the plan to ski in a different area every day. And I am glad we did. Panorama Ridge is 18km west of Invermere high up in the mountains and had enough snow to ski on. And even though they only had one long trail, that trail was well groomed and tracked and offered wonderful views over the mountains towards the North. The trail dropped down steeply towards the Creek – Toby Creek – and then is a more or less a steady climb up to the end some 8+km from the trail start. The trail was marked as a blue trail and I think that was about right. Apparently Jeff tried one of their green trails to warm up – Grey Wolf”- but he said that was the scariest trail he had been on in some time. Single track, narrow, icy and fast downhill. Good thing I wanted to do the “hard” one fist and stuck to the blue trail up the Valley. It did start snowing for a while the further down the Valley I got..Jeff must have passed me while I did a small loop that dropped me way down into the valley only to have to climb it all back up. Oh well – what do you expect from a trail called “No Name Loop”. Originally we didn’t think we could get to the very end of the trail since the website said it was not groomed yet. Lucky for us, it had been groomed not too long ago and only hand a couple cm of fresh snow in the tracks – good thing Jeff was ahead of me to clean the tracks up nicely :-). The views up the valley weren’t as spectacular as they could have been due to the clouds hanging low of the mountains and it was only grey in grey ahead of us. But on the way back we got to enjoy the blue sky and mountain views again. Met Jeff half way back and together we climbed up to the warming hut “Hale Hut” only to have to go down this steep downhill section. But the trails were wide and good to ski on up or down. The way back was mostly downhill and took us no time – except the last climb back up to the start of the trails. It was still well below -10C, sun or no sun. Another 18km day in 2hrs35min.

We could have stayed one more night in Invermere since tomorrow’s skiing destination- Nipika – isn’t that much further north but decided to stay in Radium Hot Springs instead and to actually make use of the Geothermal Bathtub in the Rockies just outside of town. First we picked a place in town to stay – Crystal Springs Motel. Nice big room again with a kitchen (bit pricier at $89 + tax). We asked the woman that booked us in if one could walk to the Hot Springs from town but she said no way, that would take at least 40min :-). Guess what, we walked but not without stopping in for some late lunch at the “Eatery”. Upon leaving the restaurant we saw 5 deer across the road. The walk up to the hot springs was actually quite nice in the fading light. Even though it goes along the Hwy to Banff and there was quite a bit of traffic coming down the mountains but the side walk was nicely cleared and the views were stunning to say the least. We entered Kootenay National Park without having to pay :-). The hot springs are quite developed and right along the highway. Obviously we weren’t the only ones there (apparently there are some nice natural hot springs a bit further south near Whiteswan Lake – no secret mind you just we didn’t know). It was nice though to soak in the warm water – wasn’t too hot – under starry skies and snow-laden trees. Must have spent about 45min soaking in the water – I had been cold all day ever since we started skiing at -15C this morning. Finally the red skin on my legs turned a normal colour again. We finally left the hot pools when Jeff grew tired of ice forming on his head.

The walk back down was in the dark but just when we left the pool area the full moon climbed above the mountains and remaining clouds. It was a nice walk down as well and enough to build up the appetite for a real dinner. Only had a bowl of soup earlier. We skipped the German restaurant and went to the “Horsethief Canyon Pub” which had phenomenal food, pasta with lots of veggies and chicken and prawns in a curry cream sauce, which we washed down with the Nelson’s After Dark ale. We took a small detour back to the motel. Spent all evening writing on my blog.

January 13, 2013

Day 5: From the Town that doesn’t exists on Garmin maps to Invermere – Kimberley (Dec 26)

Filed under: Animals, BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 9:59 AM

Getting used to sleeping in and breakfast in the room :-). It was still overcast and a thin layer of snow covered the car. And it was also still cold. The car said -14C on our drive to Kimberley. Now going more North than East. It wasn’t far to go and the sky cleared up as we drove deeper into the mountains. Kimberley is a cute little tourist town. Like one would expect from a resort town even though the actual resort was still a few minutes up the hill out of town. The Kimberley Nordic Centre was really nice even though the trail system wasn’t as extensive as some other places. They had a great, green 6km loop though that was perfectly groomed for skates and classics. Since it was really cold and the snow looked hard, I decided like Jeff to give my skate skis a try that day. The trail was wonderful – some ups some downs nothing crazy and I was able to skate okay – with lots of picture stops mind you. The sun was shining and the snow sparkling – most of the trail was more in the open than hidden in thick forest. I really enjoyed the skiing and even went for a second lap on my skates before switching to my Peltonen for one last lap. Jeff was flying around the course on his skates – he did 5 laps in less time it took me to do three. Mind you on the last lap on my classics I ventured up into some blue trails which meant a bit more climbing but I had good grip with my grip tape. Actually too much grip – I think the 5-10 pounds I gained since I bought those skis are showing:-). All in all for me another 18km day and 2hrs20min on skis. I was still fighting a bit with coughing and runny noses – actually my nose felt like it was freezing up on the inside… Almost too cold for me if not for the sunshine :-). I could feel it warming up my back. A great day!

We stopped for lunch in Kimberly – a tiny German restaurant called Bernard’s Kitchen. Weird place – loaded with stuff inside and the tables seemed to be just an afterthought. Cute really and the food was good even though our Hunterschnitzel came with salad rather than red cabbage. The Tourist special even included Apfelstruddle for dessert.

We continued on along Hwy 93/95 north towards Invermere, our destination for the night. The drive was awesome – blue skies and huge mountains on either side of the Kootenay Valley we drove through. I took a million pictures as well as some video, first through the dirty windows and later on out of the open window. My fingers almost suffered frostbite from holding the camera out of the car :-). We saw a couple elk and  a few deer along the road – in the actual forest not front lawns. We got to Invermere just after the sun disappeared behind the mountains in the west. Got one last glimpse of the frozen lake in the fading light. There weren’t that many choices of places to stay in town so we ended up at the “Invermere Boutique Hotel” right in town – which was nothing more than a motel really. And the cost was just about the same as a motel ($79 incl tax) – the room was one of the smallest though. The nicest part about it, it was in easy walking distance of a great restaurant – “Peppi’s Italian Fuel” was just across the road. Best pizza I had in a long time – especially the Chicken Pesto which was loaded with chicken, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and cheese. Yummy. The brew of the night was Fernie’s Winter Ale. Again we went for a walk through town after dinner to digest AND find the local deer. But as much as we stared into each front yard, there were only tracks. It wasn’t until we hit main street again where Jeff spotted the deer right in front of the lit up store front. Guess Invermere’s deer are business deer :-).

January 6, 2013

Day 4: High Mountain Town to Cranbrook – Black Jack, Red Mountain (Dec 25)

Filed under: BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 11:09 PM

Tossing and turning till 9AM. Still felt quite awful with a big headache on top of coughing and runny nose. We had breakfast in the motel room. It had snowed a little bit over night and actually was still snowing lightly when we finally got going around 10-11AM. Went back up the mountain to the Black Jack Nordic Centre. Weather was overcast. The sign said most trails were freshly groomed either the day before or the same day actually. Decided to take it easy (on my Peltonen) and stay on the green trails that promised an easy loop. It went up a little bit then down into an open bowl with good views (on a clear day) then up again to a little warming hut. The classic tracks were pretty awful – very soft and it felt like being off centre so that I as sliding left and right all the time. Apparently the skating was awesome -Jeff had taken his skate skis. The tracks had a thin cover of fresh snow on them but the snow was so light and fluffy that it apparently didn’t matter. On my way back I discovered that the trail I wanted to take back – designated as classics ONLY – was actually not even groomed. And with 2 feet of fresh powder on it not really passable on my classic skies – or at least not with that headache. So I went the same way back. Thought I might do another small loop but by the time I got to the parking lot I just had about enough. Even though I only did ~11km which still took me 1hr 45min.

Tonight’s destination was Cranbrook. I was only half awake most of the time but my headache finally started to go away. We tried to find Cranbrook on our Garmin GPS but apparently Cranbrook only exists in Illinois, Ontario AND Great Britain – why the GPS would find a town in Britain while we only had a roadmap of North America loaded is still a puzzle to me. But we found it without a problem. We also crossed over into a different time zone – Mountain Time!

Our cozy room - Merry Christmas

Our cozy room – Merry Christmas

Jeff had found this Motel on the Internet but they were closed for the afternoon and early evening. So we went to the first place we saw driving into town – the Flamingo Motel. Didn’t look like much from the outside but was really cozy on the inside. Rustic cabin style with a full kitchen. Obviously nothing else was open on Christmas Day and we had a cold dinner in the room of buns with cheese and salami and carrots and chocolate. Afterwards we went for a long walk through town. On the way back through some residential areas we spotted a deer lying down in someone’s front yard. First we thought it was just a Christmas decoration as it didn’t move. But eventually it turned its head away from us – so cool. Saw a few more, either lying down or walking the roads. Must have walked for almost 1.5hrs. And it was fricking cold – minus 10C :-). Last highlight was this huge mansion with tons of Christmas decorations around it – polar bears, penguins, horses, trees, an old car, etc. I wished I had my camera with me.

January 5, 2013

Day 3: From the Town of Borscht to Rossland – Paulson (Dec 24)

Filed under: BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 10:36 PM

Slept in even more and had breakfast in the room. Headed out on Hwy 3 again towards Castlegar but we never made it there – on purpose. The drive through the mountains was great. Lots of snow near Paulson Pass. And shortly after the pass we stopped at the Paulson Cross Country ski place in the middle of nowhere just off the highway. Sun tried to come out when we set up. Trail fee was cheap at only $8 per person. Took off on my Peltonen skis towards the long route thinking I might have to cut it short. First trail was a green trail for ~3km, fairly flat terrain through the trees. Then I went UP the only black trail for 500m, which was more or less single track and really steep. Herringboning didn’t work too well since the trail was so narrow and my skis always got stuck in the steep snow banks along the side. Must have looked funny like hell me falling up the trail more than walking :-). By now we had blue skies and awesome views over the snow covered hills. Next was a blue trail “Old Growth” which slowly wound its way up towards the top. Climbing was steady but at a shallow angle. Great views along the ridge. Back onto a wider  track to connect to Glenmerry trail. Onto the big loop on single but wide track which slowly wound its way up through the trees to the warming hut. Great sunshine and sparkling trails. After the cabin the trail was called Norwegian – what a gem. Single track, very narrow. mostly gentle down but a few roller coaster parts and awesome views over the mountains. So much fun even though I was getting seriously tired. After Norwegian I could have taken the shorter route back turning left but it didn’t look that much shorter and there was another option to cut short. So I turned right onto Gloryview. Oh my – what a trail – again single track very narrow but also steep downhills with a couple killer 120degree turns on the bottom. Luckily I was too tired to be scared. Finally on the bottom the trail turned left and a gentle climb up to the final stretch still beautiful trails all single track until they finally opened up into the wide very nicely groomed trails around mud lake. A fast last km to the cabin. 95% of the skiing was all diagonal stride covering 26km in 3hrs50min.

The drive into Rossland was short passing tomorrow’s ski area at Red Mountain along the way and dropping below the clouds. We picked the first place on the road we saw even before we got into town – Casa Alpina Motel. They advertised the biggest outdoor hot tub in town and it was great! Had it all to ourselves and soaked our tired bodies in it for 30min under the dark sky. All we needed was a glass of wine but hot lemon tea did the trick too :-).

For dinner we went back up to Red Mountain to the Cut Rock Pub. Had a pitcher of local dark brew from the Mount Begbie Brewery in Revelstoke that came with 10 free wings. Followed that up with a great rib dinner – it was Christmas eve after all. Back to the hotel by 8 or so to watch some TV.

Bad night though. Lots of still liquid coughing and bad headache. Took an Advil but that only made it worse as it seem to get stuck in my throat and made me feel sick all day….

January 3, 2013

Day 2: Fom the Town of Deer to Grand Forks – China Ridge (Dec 23)

Filed under: Animals, BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 4:56 PM

FINALLY I got to sleep in, kind of, if not for the coughing that woke me up a few times. Sure I woke up Jeff as well. Our motel was right next to our “usual” breakfast place Billie’s. Well we ate there twice before and it’s the only place I have eaten in Princeton so that must make it my favourite, right? Breakfast was good but too much. My dish – potatoes with sausage, ham and green pepper was loaded up with cheese on top and they didn’t go easy on the sausage either (only because I didn’t want the bacon).

After breakfast we drove up to China Ridge. Even though the sky in Princeton was grey, we moved above the clouds on the drive up the snowy road. Right at the edge of town we saw a couple blacktail deer crossing the road ahead of us with no urgency while we were watching them. When we got to the ski shelter on top the views were fantastic. The shelter already had a nice fire going as well. Must have been about -4C on the top. The snow looked nice and I decided to use my Peltonen with the grip tape. We (well Jeff was out of sight within 2 min while I had to stop to let another coughing fit pass) skied along the Ridge Trail to Lind Burn and back along K9. Awesome trails and great views – mostly blue skies all the way. Gentle ups and downs only – easy skiing even though I had to stop after each little climb to catch my breath. Some of the trails were really narrow single track – more like hiking trails, especially K9. My legs sure were tired from the day before and it felt really slow with some of the trails covered in 1 inch of fresh snow. I should have probably done a shorter trail but it was so nice out there. So I did another 16-17km  which took another 2hrs 45. Obviously I had to stop for pictures a lot :-).

On the drive out of town we saw 4 more deer right in the town centre at mid day! Not being bothered at all by all the cars driving by. So cool!. The drive to Grand Forks was long but pretty. The roads were fine even though we actually got snowed on in Keremeos. We didn’t get into Grand Forks till after dark though. Found this cute little motel – Riverside Motel- at the other end of town right on the Kettle River. Cheapest place we stayed at, $50. We were the only guests. For dinner we had Italian food at the Russian restaurant just across the road from the motel. After dinner we went for a walk through town before retiring in front of the TV watching Bond. There were a lot more Russian restaurants in town – all offering the best Borscht in town. Never knew that Grand Forks was a Russian town – actually don’t know anything about Grand Forks except that is on Hwy 3 on the way to the Kootenays.

January 1, 2013

Day 1: From the City of Rain to Princeton – Manning (Dec 22)

Filed under: BC Ski Trip 2012, Canada, Ski, Travel — K2 in Canada @ 9:56 PM

Get ready for posts of our 11 day cross-country ski trip through southeastern BC with a short excursion in AB. Here is day 1…

The alarm at 7AM came way too early. So I curled myself up under the warm blanket for another 30min. We had planned to leave at 8:30 to meet John G in Manning around 11. Needless to say we were a bit late leaving. I still wanted to call my parents, dishes needed to be done and the car had to be packed up. But hey we were only 15min late leaving. I still felt under the weather but was so sick of being sick that I tried to not let it get to me. The drive to Manning was relatively quick, 2hrs20min, the road being pretty much free of snow the whole way. Sky was mostly overcast although the sun tried to come out by the time we arrived at Manning Resort. Even though Manning is so close to home, this is the first time we skied here. Last time we were in Manning was for New Years of 1998 or so. We were camping at Lightning Lakes in Jeff’s old VW camper “Babes”. It was a very cold night – the coke froze in the bottle but the champagne luckily did not. But we did have to cut ourselves out of the van the next morning as the doors had frozen shut. But back to 2012. This time, we skied. I put on my crowns thinking I need to take it easy. To see how things will go, we did an easy loop to the Beaver Pond first – very level trail and lots of double poling. Was nice and I felt okay as long as I went slow and steady. The boys were going for the big loop up to the lift and I figured I may try that as well. Only 10km one way – should be okay. But that one way was all up. Nothing really steep or crazy but up. And up was hard. My lungs didn’t like that and I had to take it really slow. Nevertheless, I made it pretty much up to the top. Just had to turn around before I got to enjoy the nice flat parts on top. But I was already out there for about 2hrs….and still had 8.5km to go back to the lodge. Lucky for me most of it was downhill. The few climbs felt like mountains. Well, I guess that’s what you get after 1 week of being sick and no activities other than blowing my nose and coughing my lungs up. I really liked the trail system at Manning though. Definitely have to come back when I am fitter again. Nevertheless, I managed to be on my skies for 3hrs15min and did 22km in total. Not bad for day 1 of 11.

Before hitting the road again we grabbed some food at the “Bear Den Pub” which we washed down with some dark ale while sitting around the fireplace. We left John behind to give the hot tub a go while Jeff and I continued on with our road trip.

Our final destination for tonight was Princeton. I was hoping for a nice hot tub as well but the motel we stayed at (Villager Motel) only advertised a “heated” outdoor pool which was full of snow :-). But we did get the room with the best bed!! Usually mine workers/contractors stay at this motel but due to the mine running out of the 2012 budget everyone has been sent home till the new year/new budget. The Copper Mountain Mine is located 20 km south of Princeton. The Mine commenced production in the summer of 2011 and is planned to produce 100 million pounds of copper per year (for the first 12 years) plus precious metals such as silver and gold. We skipped a mine tour though and even though it was still early – only 5PM we crashed in front of the TV to recover. But that didn’t work that well since my legs wanted to cramp up the whole time. So eventually we did a night walk through town. It was probably about 9:30PM but not a soul was on the road. Maybe a couple of cars drove by. But the town looked quite pretty with everything covered in snow and buildings and trees lit up by Christmas lights.

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