Ah, this was an excellent day that was full of adventures. The morning started with my boyfriend heading out to meet up with an instructor for a three hour private lesson through Silver Star’s Snowsport school. I would find out later that the lesson was taught by a guy named Pat and that it was expensive but worth every penny! The instructor was very helpful and I can testify that my boyfriend was feeling very confident afterwards. He was trying in the trees jumps that I was too scared to do!
While he enjoyed his lesson, from 9 until 12, I was on my own exploring the hill. I spent most of the morning on the backside of the mountain at the Powder Gulch Chair (post to an overly friendly liftie). I made pretty much first tracks on Aunt Gladys, Gypsie Queen and El Dorado and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I blasted my way down Sun Ridge so fast that my knees were shaking when I got to the lift. I decided to head up the T-Bar to go back to the front of the mountain. Upon reaching the top (without incident, thank you very much) I noticed a group of snowboarders heading into a relatively untracked and powderful area – this is when the adventure began.
I decided to follow them and would later find out that it was out of bounds. When I got to the bottom of the first incline, the group of boarders I’d been following was stopped and had put up their boards. A member of the group had landed face first off a jump and was knocked out. She was also bleeding from her eye. A girl with a cell phone called for help and the others covered their friend with a jacket. The injured girl was very obviously in shock. I asked if they needed my help and they assured me that I could carry on.
The run was extremely long and went through the trees. I eventually met up with a girl that had been with the group but was on her way to find help. I let her know that help was already on the way. She told me that her group was in from University of Victoria for their reading break. We boarded together for the rest of the run and then went our separate ways.
After lunch my boyfriend continued to explore the mountain. That evening we had booked the Starlight Cabin Rendezvous snowshoe tour. We met in The Village at 10 minutes to 6 to gear up to go. Our guide gave us snowshoes and headlamps. It was really neat because we were in a group of about 15 people from a bunch of different places. There was a family from Seattle, a couple of people from Australia and a couple from Toronto. It was so dark that we could see the marvellous stars as we began our trek. We started out by learning how to glissade down a steep bank along the trail into the forest. My boyfriend mastered this technique but I had a lot of trouble – glissading involves sitting down and sliding on your bum with the crampon part of your snowshoe lifted up to prevent you from digging into the snow. We broke off from the group and explored the forest. Periodically we all turned off our headlamps to enjoy the intense darkness and bright stars.
At a particularly steep embankment we tried glissading again and I went flying off into the trees. The group was extremely amused and for the rest of the trek I found various other ways to face plant into the snow – much to the groups’ enjoyment. We also learned about Snow Ghosts – where the trees collect a ton of snow on top of them and look like big, white ghosts.
After a 5 km trek, we reached the Wild Horseman’s Cabin, where the staff had been cooking all day on a 100-year-old woodstove. We’d pre-ordered our meals but it was set up buffet style so we were welcome to try everything. It was nothing short of amazing!! The cabin had no water or electricity and ate by candlelight on wooden benches. Home-made Okanagan apple pie was the dessert.
The night finished with a horse-drawn sleigh ride back to The Village.
The experience was fun, exciting and romantic. I would recommend taking this tour to anyone!!
