Susan and I just got back from a fun week of skiing at Silver Star Resort in British Columbia, Canada with the Clear Lake Area Ski Club. We had 52 club members go on this trip.
Our timing for this trip could have been a lot better, as far as the snow conditions were concerned. Depending on who you talked to, it was either their worst snow year in the last 25 years or the worst in the history of the resort (which opened in 1959). Their snow had really started to melt off the week or two before we got there. About 80% of the mountain was open, and some of the open runs were in pretty bad shape. We still managed to have fun, however.
We flew up in two groups through Calgary into Kelowna, then taking a bus to the mountain outside of Vernon. The first group got there late Saturday afternoon. The second group arrived a few hours later, after flying to Vancouver before heading into Kelowna. Susan and I had time to go by the only ski rental shop at the mountain to get her some skis. They had an extremely limited selection, but she ended up liking the Volants they gave her. Of course, we found out the next morning that they had completely misadjusted her bindings. Another club member and I were able to get them adjusted so her boots would fit them. She didn't have any problems with them the rest of the week so I guess we didn't screw anything up. Several other people reported problems with the shop as well, but seeing as how they were the only game in town, there wasn't much we could do. At the end of the week I had a talk with the supervisor but I'm not so sure he was competent either.
The first morning Susan and I skied with the "Beaumont Boys" (Gary, Terry, and Terry). We were not thrilled with the snow conditions or the layout of the mountain. The quote of the morning from one of the group: "If these are their blue runs, their greens must go uphill." In order to get to most of the good black runs on the back side, you have to take a long cat-track traverse. Then you have a long ski-out at the end of the run to get back to the lift. After lunch, we hooked up with one of the "Ski Partners" for a mountain tour. Our guide was great and we had a blast following him down the better runs. It really turned the day around for us. For the most part, the snow was in decent shape at the tops of most runs, but it turned to slush at the bottom part of the mountain. Nothing like skiing through patches of mud to end a run.
For the next two days, Susan and I skied with various members of our club, including our roommate Bob, who is almost as big a ski nut as I am. The snow on most of the black and double black runs was starting to soften up as the temperature got warmer. At some points, sections of runs were in great shape. Of course, you still had the bare spots and slush towards the bottom. Not to mention the never-ending cat-tracks. On the plus side, my skating technique on the flats improved tremendously. One of our favorite runs was a double black that had a fairly steep and narrow section that fed into a long gully that was appropriately named "Where's Bob". We skipped one of the premier double blacks named "Free Fall" as it seemed to have more rocks and stumps showing than snow. Late Tuesday afternoon it started snowing. It was coming down as BB-sized pellets that really stung if you didn't have your face covered. I was just happy it wasn't raining.
On Wednesday morning about a third of our club took a 2 hour bus ride over to Big White Resort for the day. Our trip leader, who otherwise did a fantastic job, had decided that 7:00AM was just too early to make everyone get up, so she moved our departure time to 8:00. We didn't get on the snow until 10:15, an hour and a half after the lifts opened. Seeing as how this was a genuine powder day with over 15cm of fresh snow, I wasn't too thrilled. One of the locals I talked to said this was one of the top three ski days at Big White for the season, as they had been hurting for snow before this latest storm. I was only able to cover maybe a third of the mountain. We did have some intermittent visibility problems when the clouds would roll in and the mountain would live up to its nickname of "Big Whiteout". It also continued to snow off and on throughout the day but ended with sunny skies.
We were all pretty tired at the end of the day, but I bet my legs could have lasted another hour or two, especially if it had involved untracked powder. There were no crowds to speak of, as it was middle of the week. I guess the locals don't have "powder clauses" in their job contracts. Most of the black runs I went on had almost a foot of fresh powder. At one point, we mistakenly let Gary lead us into the trees and ended up in some extremely tight trees that were pretty much unskiable due to fallen logs and scrub brush. There was a wooden sign nailed to a tree pronouncing the "run" as "Bark Buster". Very appropriate. It took quite a while for us to fight our way out of it, but it was still fun, albeit in a masochistic kind of way. After that we mainly stuck to the official runs. Lots of soft bumps to be found, and most obstacles were easy to spot. We even got to see a beautiful sunset over the Okanagan Valley and lakes from our bus on the way back. Something else the rest of our club missed out on. As far as I know, everyone who went had a blast. It was by far the best ski day of the trip and well worth the bus ride. I would have gladly gotten up a couple hours sooner to get fresh tracks.
On Thursday we were back to skiing at Silver Star. What little new snow we had really improved the conditions on most of the runs. One of our favorite runs was "Spruce Meadows", an intermediate glade run with widely spaced trees and moderate sized bumps. It was a blast flying through it, especially when we had 10 or 15 of us skiing together. After the rest of our group quit for the day, Bob and I took advantage of the night skiing hours and skied until about 5:30. We thought about skiing until the club's pizza party at 7:00 but our legs (and especially my knee) had other ideas. It resumed snowing at the end of the day and continued through most of the night.
Friday morning greeted us with almost four inches of new snow. We got down to the lift before it opened along with most of the locals who could get off work. We started off with a fast warmup run through Spruce Meadows. We then headed over to the back side and hit our favorite black and double black runs. Bob and I decided to try out some of the trees next to "Three Wise Men", a double black steep gully run. Some local in the bar had told Bob there was an unmarked run in there, but we never found it. After working our way through the very tight trees, we dropped back into the gully. So much for going off-piste. I did find another couple of short runs through the trees, but for the most part we had to stay on the marked trails due to the limited snow cover. This was an excellent day. After the rest of the club had headed back to the condos and the superheated hot tub, Bob and I ended the day during the night skiing session with three fast runs through the trees in Spruce Meadows followed by a finishing high speed run down "The Face". A fitting way to end our week.
For our trip home, the second group had to catch their bus at 4:00AM on Saturday. Those of us lucky enough to be in group one didn't load the bus until 6:30AM. When we got back to Houston that evening, several of us were missing some luggage. All three of my bags arrived at my home at 10:00PM Sunday night. At least I didn't have to carry them home. Going through customs was a bit more of a hassle than I've had in previous trips to Canada. One of our group was even shoved by a security guard when we had a traffic jam trying to get our luggage loaded on a conveyor belt after clearing customs. Good thing Elmer didn't shove back or we might have had an international incident on our hands to start the trip.
In addition the excellent pizza party, we also had a great group dinner at one of the restaurants featuring a Swiss buffet. There were only a handful of places to eat at the resort, and on busier nights you almost couldn't get a table without reservations. Susan and I lucked out most nights and were able to enjoy some good food. Our condos were very nice, although we weren't always able to figure out the bus schedule to the village.
In summary, it was a great week, especially considering the snow conditions. Silver Star has lots of good runs, but the long cat tracks and poor lift layout really take a lot of the fun out of it. Big White has tons of fun runs, but I could see how it could be a pain when the visibility is bad. I wouldn't mind going back to either mountain in a good snow year but otherwise, Silver Star probably won't be at the top of my list of places to return to until after they expand the area and add/realign the lifts on the back side. During the early part of the week, Susan and I considered taking a day off to try cross country skiing, as they have a huge network of x-c trails there. The fresh snow changed our minds. Maybe some other time.
Until next ski season, Think SNOW!!!