Baldy Mountain was the best on this trip

Baldy Mountain is great.  The name can be confusing, because there are several Baldies in North America.  There is a Mt Baldy in Southern California.  The main mountain at Sun Valley is also called Mt. Baldy.   So, note that this Baldy Mountain ski area is in British Columbia, located about an hour's drive east of Osoyoos, a short detour off of Highway 3 in Canada.

View of the bigger mountain as seen from the parking lot.  Where is everyone?  Not on the slopes! This was a Sunday!

There are two hills here.  The main hill offers 1,400' vertical.  Next to it is a smaller hill with just 800' vertical.  The smaller hill begs a comparison with Phoenix Mountain, which also has 800' vertical.  But while at Phoenix Mountain the uphill transportation is a T-bar, here at Baldy, there is a fixed quad with plush padded chairs.

I skied here on a wonderfully sunny bluebird day. It was Sunday.  And yet there were no crowds anywhere.  When I first arrived, I wondered if the ski area is even open, because it was so quiet here, and I couldn't see any skiers on the slopes.  Judging by the number of cars in the parking lot, there must have been at least 200 people here, but they were dispersed all over the mountain.

The bigger hill is served by an older double chair.  It was surprising to see how much terrain it serves. There is a huge field of perfectly skiable trees there. Just traverse along a road at the top, and you will be able t choose from dozens of different powder runs.  In some way, this is similar to Cy's Glades at 49 Degrees North (You know, the 7 Deadly Sins; pick your sin and ski it!)

This is only a very small sliver of the large chunk of Baldy that offers tree skiing.

 Compared to some other ski areas on this trip, such as Marmot Basin, Nakiska, and Castle Mountain, where even the groomed trails can be scary steep, at Baldy Mountain, though there are plenty of advanced, black runs, none of them seemed too scary.  The blue trails are truly blue.  Everything is on a human scale, manageable and enjoyable.

There are more skiable options here than one could cover in a single day.  The groomers are not straight clear-cuts.  Instead, they pleasantly meander through the forest.

Some of the trail names are creative, such as the trail called "Chix Dig It".

Overall, I had a good time here and would definitely like to return some day.  It's not far from the US border, if you travel north of Wenatchee along highway 97.   Several other ski areas are located not far from highway 97 including:

Apex - near Penticton
Big White - near Kelowna
Silver Star - near Vernon
... and north of Vernon, the road splits. If you go left, that goes to Sun Peaks, near Kamloops.
If you to right, that will take you to Revelstoke.

So, if you are driving in that direction, Baldy Mountain is just an hour's detour east from highway 97 as soon as you enter Canada. Give it a try.  You'll like it.

Phoenix Mountain ski area is not so small

Phoenix Mountain was a pleasant surprise. It is just 16 miles west of the town of Grand Forks, BC.  In fact, you turn off of highway 3 (Crowsnest highway) just 11 miles west of Grand Forks, and then you follow the access road for another 5 miles.

Phoenix Mountain offers 800' vertical, but it sure feels like more.  This is a little less vertical than at Anthony Lakes, but the pitch is more consistent.  There is no long flat runout at the bottom.  And Phoenix has more black trails than Anthony Lakes.

Phoenix Mountain ski area. There is much more out of the picture to the left.  The T-bar is behind me (in the distance).
The forest where the little kid took me is partially visible near the upper right edge of this picture.

A sign on the outside of the day lodge describes Phoenix Mountain as "the Greatest little ski area in British Columbia".  This year, they are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ski area.

There is plenty of powder skiing and tree skiing too. I am now tired after more than a week of skiing, but I couldn't resist exploring the trees a bit.

On my very first run there, a little tyke of a kid, maybe just 8 or 9 years old, said something to me, but I didn’t quite understand him. His voice was muffled by a neck-warmer he wore over his whole face. Also, he was actually quite far from me. But he was obviously talking to me and pointing at something ahead of us but to the left. Even as he skied away in that direction, he kept saying something. I was pretty sure he wanted me to follow him so he could show me something. You know, he was at that age when they want to tell you things and explain things, because suddenly they are full of knowledge that they want to share.

So, I followed him, at a respectable distance. He looked back a couple of times. Once or twice he stopped, like he was waiting for me. But before I could ski down to him, he skied on. Eventually, he took a narrow path through some trees. It was just a shortcut that connected with another trail. My initial plan was to explore the ski area systematically by starting from the left-most trail and working my way to the right. This kid was definitely leading me along the edge of the ski area on the left side. But, after that narrow passage through the forest, I started suspecting that he is actually taking me a little out of bounds, to show me his secret stash of powder or his favorite place to ski.

To some extent, that was true. This forest is a bit remote and hidden. But I later found out that this was not really out of bounds, only a bit hidden from view. Still, I would never have gone there if the kid hadn’t encouraged me to follow him. So, he showed me a part of this mountain that I would not have discovered on my own. It helps to “make friends”. The kid eventually just disappeared somewhere. Still, it was a memorable experience.

These trees are just a small part of where the kid took me to.  It really feels out of bounds, though it's not really..
The main part of the ski area is that white hill in the middle of the picture.

Later, at lunchtime in the lodge, a man of approximately my age, with a gray beard, befriended me in a similar way. He ordered the same thing as I did, smoked sausage with sauerkraut, and eventually we sat down together in a crowded cafeteria and chatted. He told me he was born in 1951. He had several children, and now he came here with two of his grandsons who were participating in a kids’ ski race. He himself doesn’t ski. He tried it a long time ago, got hurt, and decided not to try it again. But his little grandkids were about the same age as the kid that took me into the forest earlier in the day.

Friendly folks, both kids and adults! I love these smaller, less well known ski areas. Nobody is in a big hurry. Everybody is relaxed and having fun. People are willing to lend a hand it you need some help. There was plenty of fresh powder here today, but none of that attitude of "No friends on powder days."

Phoenix Mountain is served by just one T-bar, but it offers some excellent terrain. And the prices are reasonable. Adults can ski here all day for $39. Seniors pay only $30. So, why would anyone want to go to places that charge $150 per day. Is the experience really 5 times better? Not for me.

Oh, by the way, those popular expensive places are also quite crowded. Meanwhile, here at Phoenix Mountain, I was here on one of the busiest Saturdays ever. Their parking lot was completely full. No room for even one additional car. Every spot was filled. And yet, I had to wait for 10 minutes or more just to catch a glimpse of someone skiing near me in order to try to get a picture of them. Most of the kids were on the race course. The rest of the mountain was as uncrowded as it gets! It really felt like I had the mountain to myself.

Here's a couple of shots of the inside of the day lodge cafeteria. Cozy and warm.

Notice the "Ticket Sales" sign in the upper left corner of the picture. 
They sell tickets at the same counter where they sell food and drinks

This is pretty much the whole cafeteria.. About 4 or 5 long tables.

Red Mountain - a growing powder giant with kinks

Red Mountain ski area is big and growing. It has 2,919 vertical feet, spread out over 3 mountains:

1. Red Mountain - the original one, approximately 1,400' vertical. Not as small as it might look. It offers several black trails, plus a couple of blue ones.
2. Granite Mountain - the larger one, about twice the size of Red Mt.  In the upper part of Granite Mountain is an area called "Paradise", served by its own lift. The mid-mountain lodge is in that area.
3. Gray Mountain - the newest one, opened in 2013 via snowcat only, and with a new lift installed in 2014. Our last club trip to Red. Mt. and Whitewater was in March 2013.  It was a well attended carpooling trip. Some of us took the snowcat to the top of Gray Mountain.  This year, I wanted to take a few rides on the Gray Mountain's lift. 

The whole ski area seems to be geared toward powder and tree skiing.  About a third of the terrain is intermediate, but about 50% is for advanced and expert skiers.

This is me on an earlier visit.  This trail on the back side of the original Red Mountain descends directly toward Rossland.

Gray Mountain seems to be mostly full of steep ungroomed slopes, with just maybe 2 or 3 groomed trails.  For my last run of the day, I usually like to pick an easy cruiser trail, because I am tired.  So, on Gray Mountain, I picked what seemed to be the easiest trail called "Get  Up - Stand Up".  On the trail map, it is shown as a blue trail.  Great!  No problem.  The only problem is that this trail begins as a large field of moguls that are moderate at first and then get bigger and steeper.  If you survive that, then you can relax on a blue trail the rest of the way.

Someone told me there is a way to bypass those moguls, but this was not made obvious because there was no trail sign pointing at an easier way down.

It was a rather gray day on Gray Mountain.  This is the easier part of the "Get Up - Stand Up" trail, after the mogul field.

Maybe it's just my luck, but there is always something not quite right with Red Mountain. I have skied there at least 4 times.  A couple of times by myself.  Once with Bob Voss at the tail end of one of our Canada Ski Safaris. And once with the club trip in March 2013.  It seems like every time there was some kind of an issue.  For example:

1. On my first visit, some 10 years ago (or more), I had fun on Granite Mountain.  At the end of the day, feeling tired, I decided to try a few runs on what I though would be the easier hill, the smaller, original Red Mt.  But, that lift closed at 2 pm in those days, and I didn't know it.  I was disappointed at not being able to ski Red at least once.

2.  On another visit, the one with Bob Voss, the whole of Granite Mountain was closed.  So, this time, we were forced to ski only at the smaller Red Mt. hill.

3. Another time, I was caught at the bottom of the Paradise lift when that lift broke down.  No easy was of skiing out of that hollow.  Everyone had to climb up a ways before catching a road that took us around the mountain to the bottom of the Granite Mt. main lift.

Just today (Feb. 9, 2019) there is a notice on Red Mountain's website that "Paradise Chair is currently on wind hold."   Always something!

Three significant news about Red Mountain:

1.  The lifts now ALL close at 3 pm.  This is a mix of good and bad news:
     a)  I had complained for a couple of years about Red. Mt. closing at 2 pm. So, 3 pm is good.
     b)  All ski areas in the US close at 4 pm.  Many in Canada close at 3:30 pm.  Silver Star closes access to the lifts by 3:15 pm, which always irked me.  But closing at 3 pm?  Nobody else but Red does that.  Well, maybe it could be said that Red is such a vast mountain with 3 separate hills that it takes a long time to sweep it, to make sure that nobody was left injured up there.

2. Their lodging options expanded just a few months ago with the addition of "Josie's" a beautiful, modern but expensive hotel right next to the first chairlift at the base area. Probably only 50 or 60 yards from the lift.  Great for ski-in/ski-out, but it is expensive.  Even with group discounts, a room with 2 beds costs around $211 plus tax.   If you can afford it, it's the best place to stay on the mountain.

3.  The main connector lift starting from the base area has been removed.  It was a relatively short lift whose job was just to take you up over a hump in the terrain, so you could connect with the main Granite Mountain lift.  It was a slow chair, but it was tolerable because it was short. It went n a straight line straight toward the longer main Granite Mt. lift.  Some time within the past 3 or 4 years, this lift was replaced with a much longer fixed quad that takes you off to the right and away from the Granite Mt. lift.  This lift now serves two purposes:

• It takes beginners and lower intermediates to some easy slopes.  And ...
• It serves as a connector for everyone else who wants to get to the Granite chair.  The problem is that they now have to sit on this connector lift at least twice as long as on the older lift that has been removed. 

The main Grainte Mt. lift is barely visible in the fog straight up near the middle of this photo.
The old connector lift followed the same line through the clearing in the center of the picture..
The new connector lift takes off at an angle to the right, antd it is much longer than the old lift.

Finding out about lodging options on the mountain is also an issue.  There is no "Central Reservations".  There is no one brochure that would list all the lodging options.  You literally have to go to each hotel, motel, or condo and inquire separately about prices, availability, etc.

Some of the lodging options are a total mystery.
Morningstar, apparently a large condo building on the other side of the parking lot is like a locked down fortress. Thee is no receptionists.  The front entrance is always locked.  Access is possible only if you have a key.  But where do you get a key?  Where can you even ask about it?

Red Mountain Village Lodgings is a large complex of condos.  They at least seem to have an office. But there is nobody there.  A sign on the door says: " Our office is closed.  We can be reached at (phone number) or (website)."  Well, at least there is a way to reach them, as opposed to Morningstar.

Like I said, there's always something about Red Mountain that spoils the overall experience.  But, overall, it is still a good place to go if you are into skiing powder and trees.

Night skiing at Pass Powderkeg

Pass Powderkeg is a relatively small ski area at the edge of the town of Blairmore, AB.  It is visible from highway 3 as you drive by. It is not far from the town of Crowsnest Pass.  Note also that the whole of highway 3 is called the Crowsnest highway.

Small is a relative thing. It offers 980 feet of vertical served by 2 T-bars, one above the other. Some of the blue (intermediate) trails are steeper than expected, just like at Castle Mountain.

Pass Powderkeg is less than an hour away from Castle Mountain. After skiing at Castle Mt. till about 4 pm, I arrived at Pass Powderkeg by about 5 pm.  I thought that night skiing here starts at 5:30 pm.  But I confused that with Salmo, where night skiing does indeed start at 5:30 pm.  But at Pass Powderkeg, night skiing starts at 4 pm.  If I had known that, I could have come here a bit earlier.

Still, I got here early enough to be able to see the whole hill before dark.

Unfortunately, only a few runs were open for night skiing.  Both T-bars were running, thus serving the complete vertical available, top to bottom.

As it got darker, I noticed the crescent of a new moon.  Also, from the top of the hill, there was a beautiful view of the town of Blairmore down below.

Notice the crescent moon in the upper right of the picture

There were not many people on this Thursday evening, but here was a ski patroler riding up the T-bar with a kid.

Castle Mountain is full of surprises

I skied for free at Castle Mountain, because it is part of the Powder Alliance.  And I found something interesting.  Everyone who has any kind of Powder Alliance Pass, including our Fusion Pass, is in a database available to all the Powder Alliance ski areas.

I showed the lady at Guest Services my Fusion Pass, and she yelled to another woman at a desk across the room.  She said,  "Look for 'Emilio Trampuz' -- There must be only one like that!"  And, sure enough, within 10 seconds or less, the other woman responded that she found me on the list, and I was good to go!

Second surprise:  Castle Mountain is BIG!   And its size surprised me twice.  First, as soon as I drove to the parking lot, I looked up and couldn't believe how steep and how long that first chairlift is. It might not have the same impact in a photo, but the top part of the slope under the lift looked insanely steep.  It turned out to be a bit of an optical illusion, but still, it was steeper than I ever expected.

In fact, most of the slopes here are very steep. Their blue trails would be called black everywhere else.  If those trails weren't groomed, they would deserve a double-black classification.  A whole bunch of basically steep black trails are groomed to perfection and then labeled blue.  Not to worry.  There are easier ways down the mountain too.  But the fact that almost all the trails are classified a whole category lower than they really are is something I have found only in one other place so far, and that is at Sun Valley.

Third surprise.  I got to the top of that first steep lift.  I thought the one lift covered the whole ski area. But then I spotted a second lift taking people even higher.  This was the Tamarack lift. At first, it looked like that lift was a short one, just long enough to take people to the top of a small hill above the first lift.   I hopped onto it.  After the lift took me to the top of the hill I saw, it didn't stop there. A whole gigantic bowl exploded into view. The lift is a truly long one, taking you to the top of that bowl.

Castle Mountain does a fantastic job grooming such steep slopes.  They must be using some kind of winch cat.  But a comparison with Nakiska ski area is inevitable. At Nakiska, everything is groomed to perfection too.  But while at Nakiska everyone who can skis at maximum speed, here at Castle Mountain, people ski more carefully, picking their way down both groomed trails and ungroomed powder.

Castle Mountain offers everything that Nakiska lacks.  At Castle Mountain, you will find an endless supply of powder and tree skiing.  Including some relatively easy miniature trees.  I love using small trees as slalom gates.  So I left my mark among some of them.  But there is so much tree skiing here that you couldn't cover all the available lines even in several days of skiing here.

The scenery is fantastic. There are tall peaks everywhere around you. One particular mountain with a flat top reminds me of a fortress, so I asked some locals if that was the real Castle Mountain.  They rattled off the names of all the surrounding mountains and not one of them was Castle Mt.  The ski areas actually got its name from Castle River that flows nearby.  And apparently there is a real Castle Mountain, but somewhere farther away.

The flat-top fortress-like mountain is called Mt. Tombstone.  The smaller hill at the ski area is called Gravenstafel.  The snowcat skiing is on Mt. Eloi -- well on one of the St. Elois -- there are apparently 3 of them.  To the north is Syncline Mountain.  To the south are Mt. Haig and the Rainy Ridge.


At the top of the highest lift, I got a little scared, mainly because of the steepness and the strong wind.  The gusts of wind were picking up a lot of very fine powdery snow and whipping it high into the air.  This wind-blown snow particles made it look like there was some fog in the air, so visibility wasn't good at times.

While still sitting on chairlift, the wind was buffeting my skis.  I had my new fat skis on, and they felt like sails.  I was concerned that I might lose a ski to the wind.

Some of the terrain near the top is also insanely steep, not quite like a cliff, but close enough. Some of it must have been 70 or 80 degrees.  Combine that with low visibility (a kind of foggy whiteout), and almost everybody took a road traversing the slopes to the other end of the big bowl.  I stopped near the edge of the road to take a picture.  But then I was concerned that the wind gusts might blow me over the edge.

My first reaction was: "I am not getting on this upper lift again (the Tamarack lift)."  But by the time I skied the whole way from the top of the highest chair to the base area, the sun came out, the wind died down, and suddenly everything felt a lot more friendly.  So, I went to the top again.  And I am glad I did.  That's when I discovered a whole field of small trees and skied it.

Fourth surprise.  After lunch, I decided to explore a somewhat smaller nearby hill.  That hill was full of surprises too.  On the trail map, it looked like it was all blue and green trails.  But, the blues were more challenging than your average intermediate trail.  And there were lots of hidden nooks and crannies. On the chairlift ride up, I spotted a particular trail that had some untouched powder left on it.  I wanted to ski that.  Usually, I am pretty good at orienteering, but somehow, I ended u on a different trail and missed that powder spot.  The trials here split and re-combine, and it's a bit hard to figure out where you are.   This smaller hill turned out to be more challenging than expected.

Fifth surprise.  At the top of the smaller hill, there was a snowcat taking people snowcat skiing onto another bigger adjacent mountain.

Sixth surprise.   At lunch, in the cafeteria, the y had a bunch of different sausages, all with creative names.  One was called "The Americano" and had some jalapeno peppers in it.  I opted for the "Das Ski Boot" (if I remember the name correctly),  and that one came with sauerkraut and caramelized onions, and a bunch of other ingredients.  It was the messiest sausage I have ever eaten.  It lookedgreat and tasted good, but I ended up with sauerkraut and caramelized onions all over my fingers. It is impossible to eat that sausage without getting some juicy stuff all over your hands and fingers.  I should have eaten it with a knife and fork.

Seventh surprise.  Condos.  After driving for hours through rural, cowboy country, with several tiny towns with just a few houses, I was surprised to see lots of condos at the base of Castle Mountain.

Overall, Castle Mountain offers a lot of terrain, more than one could explore in a single day. Their slogan for Castle Mountain is:  "Closer to Heaven. Down to Earth."

The only negative thing about Castle Mountain is that it is remote.  Very remote.  But, hey, that's good, because it means no crowds.

Castle Mountain ski area is actually within maybe about 20 miles from Montana, as the crow flies.  But there is no way to get to Montana from there.  The road pretty much dead ends at the ski area.   To get back to the US from there, you have to drive up north first, to Crowsnest, past Pass Powderkeg ski area, past Fernie, and after almost 2 hours of driving, you have completed a semi-circle at Elko, BC.   From there, it takes another half an hour to get to the Roosville border crossing on the road to Whitefish, Montana.

Alternatively, you can stay on Canada's highway 3, which roughly parallels the US border, not in a straight line but rather zig-zaging up and down and then you can turn south into the US at a number of places including:
a)  On highway 95, south of Cranbrook, toward Sandpoint and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.  Or ...
b)  Highway 6 south of Nelson and Salmo, toward Spokane, WA, ... Or ...
c)  Highway 97, south of Oliver and Osoyoos, toward Wenatchee, WA.

I will be taking this third option, since I want to ski at Red Mountain, Phoenix Mountain, and at Baldy Mountain, all along Highway 3. 

Nakiska opened today - My impressions

Nakiska is one of the 4 RCR resorts in Western Canada. That is Resorts of the Canadian Rockies.  The other 3 are: Fernie, Kimberley, and Kicking Horse, .... all three clustered around highway 95, which runs north-south from Coeur d'Alene (Idaho) to Golden (British Columbia).  Well, technically, Fernie is almost an hour's drive away from highway 95.  But Nakiska is many, many hours farther out east, in Alberta.  In fact, Nakiska is the closest ski area to Calgary, so it gets very crowded on weekends.

Nakiska was one of the venues for the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988, and it might host the Olympics again in 2026.

So, ski racing is a big part of the local ski culture here. Today, half of the people on the slopes were young racers in training.  They had their own race course set up on a trail that was closed o the public.  But, after they were done with the race course, they came out onto the public slopes and continued practicing their carving technique.

A jumbo jet could land here.  Wide trails with lots of corduroy everywhere.
This setup invites speeding, because there is nothing else to do.

In a way, most of the groomed trails at Nakiska seem to have been designed for racing, or at least high speed skiing.  The trails are very wide, like airport runways.  That makes them kind of boring, and also makes them all look very much alike.  Since there is nothing else to occupy your attention, the wide open trails practically invite high speed skiing, since it is the only available entertainment.

Some time very recently, Nakiska added some "gladed" terrain. They call it the "Monster Glades". Aha! Some nice tree skiing, I thought.  But this is not the kind of tree skiing I was expecting.  It's not a forest that was thinned so you could use the trees as slalom gates.  No, the trees have not been thinned. Instead, they were like clear-cut along some long lines, so that there are now relatively wide passages within the forest.  You are not skiing through the trees. You are skiing through these spaces cut in the forest. And these spaces develop big moguls.  So, you are really just skiing ungroomed bump runs that happen to be surrounded by trees.

Everywhere else, outside of these Monster Glades, the trees are always extremely tight and with lots of brush and fallen branches and trees, so it's like an impenetrable jungle.  The only place where you can ski is the very wide trails.  And those wide trails invite speeding.

I was impressed by the amount of vertical available.  The statistics say it is 2,400 vertical feet, but somehow it feels like it's more.

There are 3 high-speed quads here.  But one of those three serves only as a backup on weekends. During mid-week, only 2 high speed quads are operating.  One serves the lower mountain, and the other goes much higher up.

From the top of the highest chairlift, there is also a platter lift that could take you up to the very top of the mountain on a very steep slope.  But this lift wasn't operating today. In fact, I don't think it has operated at all this winter, because the snow would have to be groomed differently to allow access to those higher slopes. Right now, there is just a big wall of snow that makes it impossible for someone to ride the platter lift.   Also, those upper slopes need more snow to cover up the small trees growing there.  The snow probably gets blown away from that relatively bald top of the mountain.

Overall, for me, it was a so-so day.  I wish the slopes were a bit more varied.  I wish there was at least some more accessible powder skiing available.  And I wish that I didn't have to constantly watch over my shoulder for some unexpected high-speed kamikaze carving down the slope at top speed.

NOTE ABOUT THE NEXT DAY
Tomorrow (Thursday) I will not be able to post another entry in this blog.  It will be a long day with lots of skiing and lots of driving, and I probably won't get to the next motel until late at night.  At that point, I'll be too tired, so I'll just go to sleep right away.

I will hit two ski areas tomorrow.  First: Castle Mountain.  This is one of the newest Powder Alliance ski areas and I am looking forward to seeing it.

After skiing at Castle, I will drive for about an hour, and then I'll do some night skiing at Pass Powderkeg ski area, starting around 5:30 pm.  This is a small ski area, but I want to give it a try.  After that, I'll have a 4-hour long drive to Salmo, British Columbia.  During this drive, I will cross from Alberta into British Columbia.

Starting shortly after I leave Castle Mountain tomorrow, and for the next 3 days, I will be following highway 3 that goes east-west just a little above the US border.

The next update in this blog will be in a couple of days.

Nakiska, Kananaskis River, and Canmore

Is it just my luck or what?  Nakiska was a ghost town today.  Eerily quiet.  The sign in the ticket window said: "Closed due to extreme weather."  Extreme?  Not really.  It was sunny and calm. No wind at all.  Yes, a bit colder than usual, but I walked around in just my base and middle layers of clothing, with no jacket, no hat, and no gloves, and I felt perfectly comfortable.

At Nakiska, all the ski racks are empty.  There is nobody here.  A ghost town.
I am not wearing a jacked otr a hat, but I was perfectly comfortable. Lots of sun, but no wind.

The temperature was around -17ºF, which is -27ºC.   It sounds worse in degrees Celsius because it's a larger number.

I also chatted with an employee who happened to pass by, and we stood there engaged in conversation for nearly half an hour, and I still felt perfectly OK.  Only my bare hands got a little cold so I kept putting them into my pockets to warm them up every now and then.  Why were we talking for so long?  We were comparing notes, because it turns out that both of us had skied at numerous ski areas all over the American continent.

I liked to the look of the ski area.  You could see many of the trails from the road as I drove up. It offers 2,400 vertical feet, served by 3 high speed quads and one double chair.

So, what to do?  I have already skipped Marmot Basin, which was closed due to the same Arctic cold blast.  I really don't like skipping Nakiska too.

The employee I talked to assured me that Nakiska will be open tomorrow (Wednesday, Feb. 6), because the temperature will rise to around  5ºF (or -15ºC). But I am on a tight schedule.  I had carefully planned an itinerary to  visit all the ski areas when they are open.

As I drove out of Nakiska's parking lot, I saw this sign.  Well, when they ask me so politely to come back, how could I refuse?!!!

NEW SCHEDULE, NEW ITINERARY
So it's time to improvise and rearrange my trip plans a bit.  My trip will still be the same 10 days, as originally planned.  But, I will stay here one more night and ski Nakiska tomorrow (Wednesday).

Then I will shift all the other ski areas on my route by a day.  As it turns out, there will be no conflicts with visiting the other ski areas in Canada along highway 3.

But I will have to skip the two small ski areas I was planning to ski at on the last day of my trip in Washington, on Sunday, February 10.  The two are:  Sitzmark (east of Tonasket) and Echo Valley (west of Chelan). Both are very small and I was planning to ski them both on the same day, with just a couple of hours at each.   But, giving them up for now is not a difficult decision because of the following factors:

1.  The two are closer to home than all these Canadian ski areas, so it should be easy to visit them at some future date.

2.  Sitzmark has announced (just a few days ago) that they will not open at all this winter. Interestingly, their normal operating schedule normally ends right after Presidents' Day (middle of February).  But this winter, they simply didn't get enough snow till now. January was too warm and dry.

3.  So, I will only skip Echo Valley.  Essentially, I am trading Echo Valley for Nakiska.  Nakiska is so much larger, so there's no contest here.   I'll stay one more night, this time in Canmore, the closest town to Nakiska, and I'll ski Nakiska tomorrow.

WHAT ELSE TO DO? 
Since there was no skiing today, I used some of my time to do some sightseeing.

I had noticed on Google Maps that there is a section of the Kananaskis River, right by the road to Nakiska, that is called the "Widowmaker".  Interesting!  I have to see that!  It's probably a lot of turbulent white water.

So, I parked my car in a snowplowed parking lot at Canoe Meadows and went for a short walk.  Interestingly, a Japanese (or maybe Chinese) couple did the same.  They were quite adventurous to follow a path that was covered under some 3 inches of fresh snow.  They were just slightly ahead of me. The path led down to the Kananaskis River.  I was still descending when they started climbing back up.  They were boh cold, and he was visibly shivering, but I was actually quite comfortable, though I did notice that the temperature seemed to be colder down by the river.

Kananaskis River

This is what it looks like in Summer

But no white water at all, at least not at this time of the year, in the middle of winter.  I am sure that more water rushes down in the Spring and Summer.  But, right now, the water level was very low and the river was quiet and peaceful, and very beautiful.

There are some permanently attached cables across the river.   Hanging from the cables are some tubes that can obviously be moved along the cable to hang above any section of the water, thus forming something similar to slalom gates, where kayakers can prove their mettle by negotiating this slalom course..

Overall, a very beautiful and peaceful scene, with even a rocky kind of beach.  If it hadn't been so cold, I would have loved to jump in for a little swim!

This is how it looks right now, in Winter.

Then I drove to Canmore, a town between Calgary and Banff.  Canmore is in a valley surrounded by mountains, just like Banff.  I am staying at the "Rocky Mountains Ski Lodge", which has reasonable prices and even offers a hot tub.

This is part of the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge. My room is right behind this minivan's hood.

All around town are giant rocky peaks.  From my room, when I look through the window, this is what I see:

This is Canmore.  My room is away from the street.  I cannot see or hear the traffic.  But I see those tall mountains!

 I'll try to catch up on my sleep tonight. Tomorrow, it's back to Nakiska.

Marmot Basin - sunny but cold and closed

The tempearture was -25ºF, as shown on
my car's display panel.

The Arctic cold blast persists. It got even colder.  Yesterday at Harper Mountain, it was -10ºF.  Today, at Marmot Basin (which is further up north), it was -25ºF (which is -31.6ºC).

It was actually a perfect bluebird day with plenty of sunshine and no wind.  But it was cold.  So, the Marmot Basin ski area decided to not open the lifts at all today.  This was actually the second day of closure.  The day before (Sunday), while I skied at Harper Mountain, Marmot Basin was experiencing even colder temperatures of -34ºC.  So, they closed the ski area due to "extreme" temperatures.

Marmot Basin posted on their website that if it warms up to better than -30ºC on Monday, they would then open the lifts.  But with the temperature today at -31.6 centigrade, the management decided the ski area should remain closed.  There were a bunch of skiers and snowboarders waiting in the cafeteria, but eventually, everyone went home.

Marmot Basin should perhaps be called "Black Diamond" mountain.  When you look at the trail map all you see is black diamond runs and many double blacks too.  In fact one whole hill on the left side of the map consists of nothing but double blacks.  And the area on the right side of the trail map is called "Tres Hombres" (Three Men), named after 3 guys who first skied there many years ago when that area was out of bounds.  Now it is all in-bounds, but all the runs in Tres Hombres are double black.

In between these two extremes are mostly black diamond trails, with just one or two green and blue trails, so you can get down easily if those black diamonds are too scary.

That hill on the left is all just double black runs.
The slope behind me is the easy blue/green runout at the bottom of all the black runs behind it.
And, see, I am not wearing a hat or a jacket, and I wans't terribly cold. The sunshine helped.

 What you see from the day lodge is just one of the green/blue trails at the bottom of all those blacks.

Basically, you have 3,000 vertical feet of challenging terrain served by 7 lifts:  2 express quads, 2 fixed quads, one triple and one double chairlift, and a magic carpet for beginners!  And skiing would have been free for me here with the Fusion Pass, as part of the Powder Alliance deal.

Oh, the only thing I would have had to pay was an admission fee to the National Park.  Both Marmot Basin and the nearby town of Jasper are within the National Park.  So, if you want to ski at Marmot Basin, you have to pay the National Park fee, which is something around $5 per day.  Also, if you stay the night in Jasper, you have to pay the additional fee of $5 per day.

Why couldn't they have opend just for an hour or two?!!!

But, you know how it is.  Misery loves company.  So, bad things rarely happen alone. Something else bad usually comes along too.  In this case, it was the closure of highway 93, known as the Icefields Parkway. 

The icefields parkway has lots of interesting attractions along the way, such as waterfalls and glaciers.  I was hoping to stop and see some of them along the way.   The drive to Banff would have been about 3 and a half hours.

But this road south to Banff and Calgary was closed because a recent avalanche had dumped a lot of snow onto the highway and crews were cleaning it up.  Nobody was sure if the highway would open later this evening or perhaps the next day.

But, I had to be somewhere around either Calgary, or Canmore, or Banff by tonight, because my next ski area is Nakiska, the closes ski area to Calgary.  I should ski there tomorrow.

The only other feasible alternative was to make a big semi-circle, driving east to Edmonton and then south to Calgary.  So, instead of a 3.5 hour drive, I now had to deal with a 7 or 8 hour drive. This literally doubled the driving time!

Well, I did it, and I shaved off at least 30 minutes (or possibly up to an hour) of drive time by not going all the way east to Edmonton.  Instead, I turned southward on Highway 22, which turned out to be relatively free of snow and ice, so I could drive fairly fast on it.

I am now staying in motel in Calgary.  Tomorrow, it's Nakiska.  Let's hope they will be open, despite the cold.  By the way, the cold is actually good for the snow, which stays nice and dry and powdery.

Great powder at Harper Mountain

Minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit, as displayed on my car's
instrument panel

When I arrived in Kamloops last night, the temperature had dropped to about 17ºF.  This morning, it was down to just 1ºF.  As I drove up to Harper Mountain, only 30 minutes away, the temperature dropped to -10ºF.  That's -21ºC.   Cold.

There was lots of fresh and super light powder snow on the mountain, and it kept snowing lightly almost all day.

This was Sunday, and yet, there were no crowds.  In fact, when I took pictures on the slopes, most of the time there were no people around.  The easier side of the mountain, served by a T-bar, had a bunch of young skiers and snowboarder.  But on the more advance side of the mountain, served by a long triple chairlift, I saw other skiers maybe only once every 10 or 15 minutes!

Hey, there's one skier, finally!

I lucked out with the powder.  It was so light that when I go back to my car, there was an inch of snow accumulated on my windshield, but I could simply blow it away.  No need for a scraper or a brush.

The slopes you can see from the parking lot are only a small part of the ski area.
The best part, are the meandering trails that you can't see, both on the left and the right of this picture.

 But what I liked most about this ski area (in addition to the lack of crowds and fantastic powder) is the way this mountain is sculpted and the way the ski trails were laid out.  The mountain has lots of natural features, such as rolling hills and gullies, and those who built the trails took advantage of this. 

Many of the trails meander through the forest and follow the natural contours of the mountain. This makes the trails much more interesting than the boring straight clear-cuts at many other ski areas.

One one of the more secluded trails, not visible from any of the lifts, I laid down a fresh set of tracks. Before me, there was only on snowboarder who rode through there, but his tracks were already being partially covered up by the snow that kept falling.  I liked that trail so much that I returned to it later, and I had to stop and take a picture -- because there were still no other tracks there.  I took a picture of my own earlier tracks.

Notice two things:  a) It was cold.  I normally never cover my face!
b) The tracks in the picture are mine.  Nobody else had skied here before I returned for another run.

 Taking pictures was hard because of the cold.  Taking videos was even harder. My camera kept freezing up on me.  I think the battery got too cold and couldn't produce enough power.  So, I stored my camera deeper inside my clothing, where it could warm up a bit.  Still, that was only enough for 2 or 3 pictures or maybe a very short video clip.

Taking my gloves off every time I needed the camera, and having to unzip my jacket to reach the camera, let in a lot of cold air, and eventually I got a bit too cold and had to retreat to the day lodge. But notice that the staff in the cafeteria (two young ladies) were all bundled up in extra clothing, a hat, and a hoodie!

Notice the hood one of the ladies is wearing.  And both have hats on.

 This reminds of an earlier Canada ski safari with Kay Kinyon, when we skied at Lake Louise (Alberta) in -30ºF.   After each couple of runs, we had to retreat to he day lodge to warm up a bit.  And we noticed that even the lodge wasn't very warm.  The cold penetrated everywhere.

I love Harper Mountain.  It's near Kamploops. If you ever go to Sun Peaks, which is only slightly further away from Kamloops, and in a slightly different direction, remember to stop for a day at Harper Mountain.  If there is enough snow there, you will love it!

Inside the day lodge, a model of Harper Mountain is on display.

 After skiing at Harper, I got in my car, drove back to highway 5 and followed it north for another 3 or 4 hours to spend the night at Valemount.  Tomorrow morning, I still have about another 60 miles to Jasper and then just a few more miles up the access road to Marmot Basin.   This will be the farthest north I have ever been.

In fact, I am already at least 3 hours farther north than I had ever been.  Every time I drove up I-5 to Kamloops and then just past it, turned off to Sun Peaks, I remember wondering what might lay beyond, further up north.  Well, today I saw part of it, and tomorrow I'll see more.

Sunshine at Manning Park

What a difference a day makes, plus some 80 miles further west!   At Sasquatch, it was snowing all morning and then it gradually turned to rain.  This morning, it was raining in the town of Hope too. But some 40+ miles west of Hope, Manning Park ski area greeted me with blue skies and some sunshine.  There were some clouds that blocked the sun from time to time, but there were also several really sunny periods.

The Orange chairlift at Manning Park ski area.  And notice some blue sky!

Manning Park has about 100 feet of vertical more than Sasquatch.  Also, since it is located further inland, the snow is a bit lighter and drier, and there is not much fog, like there was at Sasquatch.   According to a local I talked to on the chairlift, Manning Park is almost always either above the clouds, or the clouds are high above it.  Either way, there is usually no fog at the ski area.

There are two hills here, just like at Sasquatch.  The bigger hill is served by the Orange chairlift.  The other is served by the Blue lift.  The lift towers are painted accordingly.   The Orange lift offers longer cruisers and many more ungroomed black diamond trails.  It offers more powder and more tree skiing.

In the picture, I am standing at the top of the Blue chairlift, with a view of the Orange lift served hill in the background.

This ski area is only about 5 or 6 miles off of highway 3, the highway that traverses British Columbia east to west not very far from the US border.

A powder skier. This could have been me,
but I can't photograph myself like that.

Just when it came time to find the turnoff from highway 3, I was a bi confused by a sign that announced the "Gibson Pass ski area".  Are there two ski areas near each other?  No.  Manning Park ski area used to be called Gibson Pass ski area many years ago, and nobody has changed the sign on the highway.  Also, the day lodge still bears the name of Gibson Pass day lodge.

If you want to stay the night here, there is a Manning Park resort lodge right at the highway 3 turnoff, which is some 5 or 6 miles from the ski area.

The building on te left is day care for children.  The building on the right is ticket sales.

The base area consists of several smaller cabin-like structures, instead of one big day lodge.  The  building bearing the sign of "Gibson Pass Day Lodge" is the largest structure.  It contains the cafeteria.  Several smaller nearby buildings house a day care for small children, a rental shop, lift ticket sales, the ski patrol, ... each in its own log cabin.

I curtailed my enthusiasm and left the ski area early, by about 2 pm, in order to try to complete the 3 hours of driving to Kamloops before nightfall.  I could have driven back to Hope and then onto the Coquihalla freeway (Highway 5).  But, I have driven that road multiple times before.  So, this time, I followed highway 3 east and then north to Princeton -- which describes itself on its website as "the town beyond Hope".  

From Princeton, I drove on highway 5A and then highway 97C to Merritt.  Merritt was a good place to stop for a bite to eat.  And then one more hour of driving to Kamloops.  I am staying here at the Riverland Inn, a nice place right by the bridge over the South Thompson River.  It's the bridge everyone crosses on the way to Sun Peaks, as you leave Kamploops.

But, I've skied Sun Peaks lots of times.  So, tomorrow, I am crossing that bridge and then within just a couple of miles further north, I'll turn off the freeway and drive about 25 minutes to Harper Mountain ski area.  Something new to me.

Sasquatch ski area (Hemlock)

What a day!  Lots of ups and downs! But it ended up great!  Sasquatch is definitely worth visiting. It's a pity few people know about it, because it is relatively close to the US border, only about an hour from the Sumas border crossing.

Sasquatch was known as the Hemlock ski area until just a couple of years ago, but the name Sasquatch is not new to the area.  There is also a Sasquatch Inn and some other businesses with that name.  The ski area is located approximately half way between the towns of Abbotsford and Hope, but you cannot access it directly from some point on the Highway 5 freeway that is half way between those two.  The best access is either from Abbotsford or from Hope.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, this ski area - like so many others in British Columbia - has a small village at its base.  In this case, it is not a village with shops and restaurants, but there are a number of condos and also what appears to be some private homes.

The two main lifts serve two adjacent hills.  A triple chair serves mostly blue (intermediate) trails as well as some tree skiing.  A double chair serves the more advanced hill that offers mostly advanced, black diamond terrain and lots and lots of tree skiing.  There are also 2 shorter beginner lifts. And there is even night skiing on certain days of the week, but the night skiing is mainly on the beginner terrain.

The total vertical is 1,300 feet.  That is about 50% more vertical than Anthony Lakes. Plus, Sasquatch has two hills, not just one.   I am comparing it to Anthony Lakes, Oregon, simply because our ski club has skied at A-Lakes so many times, so we can use it as a point of reference and comparison. 

My day began on a gloomy note. It had rained all night and it was still raining when I started from Abbotsford.  It rained almost all the way to the ski area, with a temperature of 41ºF.  I thought the lifts might not even operate this day because of the rain.  But then, within the last 12 - 15 miles, the road starts climbing at a steep and relentless pitch.  Good thing it was relatively warm, because this road could be dangerous if it was icy.

The temperature started dropping rapidly during those last few miles, almost a degree per mile. Within the last 2 miles before reaching the ski area, the rain had turned to snow.  At the main parking lot, it was 32º and snowing.   And there were already about 20 cars in the parking lot.  It was a rainy Friday, so there were no crowds.  Still, by about noon, the number of cars in the parking lot had doubled.

There were 3 - 4 inches of fresh snow on the ground, so even the groomed trails were covered with snow that kept falling all night.  It was wonderful.  One of my powder runs was particularly joyful and memorable. It was on a trail called "Bigfoot".  That was one of the highlights of the day, leaving my signature in all that fresh powder!  All my runs were in powder, but this one was somehow more joyful than the others.

Not far from "Bigfoot" is a trail called "Big Dog", a black diamond.  I am not mistaken, because I took a picture of the trail's name.  But when I consulted the trail map, that trail wasn't there!  Hmmm! A mystery worthy of a ski area named after another mystery - the big hairy guy himself!

Most of the day, I had a feeling that someone was watching me.  And then I finally came across the big guy!  Not only were his feet big.  He also has very large hands!

Here I am, blissfully unaware that Sasquatch is right behind me!

After lunch, unfortunately, the temperature had warmed up just a tad, from 32º to 33º, and that tiny difference was enough to turn the snow into rain, at least at the base.  So, suddenly, I felt simply too wet.  It was time to get in the car and drive to Hope, where I'll spend the night.  Tomorrow, I'll visit Manning Park ski area, which already has a lot more snow than Sasquatch does.

I would recommend Sasquatch ski area to anyone, especially if you are a powder skier.  On a good powder day, Sasquatch offers some amazing skiing.