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All set for a road trip Canadian style - a decent 4x4, plenty of Tim Hortons coffee and most important - a huge box of Tim-Bits - me and Duckie are all set. |
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Mind you, we had to share the car and Tim-Bits with Al and Pete...
After spending the night at Pete's in Panorama we headed off towards Roger's Pass and hopefully a night or two in a back country hut up there. |
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Al gets a taste of some Canadian winter driving conditions - a little sketchy at the best of times - but those trucks add to the fun by creating a mini snow storm as they rattle by. |
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Al at the pass. As the Canadians would say - "she was pukin'". I laughed when Al said he was renting a Jeep... |
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There is a great visitor centre at the pass - a taxidermist's paradise. The centre is manned by Parks Canada - besides providing general information the centres are a great resource for planning any back country trip. The Ranger advised us against heading into any of the huts near the pass. Getting up to the huts would have been fine, but with lots more snow forecast we would have had few ski options in the next days. Plus the Ranger believed there was a good chance the highway and pass could close. |
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So, it was back on the road and down to Revelstoke. As you can see - still dumping. The town is a base for alot of Heli-Skiing, Cat-Skiing and skidooing. Just outside the town is Mount MacKenzie, or Powder Springs as it has been renamed. We got there with an hour of lift time left and managed to get 3 passes for $20 - not bad for a half dozen powder runs. |
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MacKenzie is a one chair deal - the chair is just below one of the cat operations. From a postcard we could see that above the chair there was plenty more tree lined skiing, and above that some great alpine terrain too. We spent the night in Revelstoke and woke to yet more snow and a lot of highway closures - so it was back to MacKenzie for the day. |
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By the end of the day there was one road out of Revelstoke open - and as luck would have it there were some hot springs with accommodation along the way. Difficult to tell from this shot, but by this time the snow had turned to rain... |
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We woke to more rain and driving conditions that you'd expect to see in March or November rather than January. At least we could drive - if we had gone East rather than West at Rogers Pass we would have been trapped in Golden for 3 days. Can anyone spot the difference between this shot and number 3? Besides the rain... |
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A donut will always cheer you up though! Well, Al anyway. I'm sure I took this not long after we'd had a huge brunch in Nelson. The guy in the cafe told us the temperatures up the local mountain, Whitewater, were above freezing - not wanting to battle with the mush, we decided to head back to Pete's. By this time our trip was turning into a mammoth driving rather than ski session that we'd anticipated. The rain was doing a lot of damage almost everywhere. |
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Waiting for the ferry to cross Kootenay Lake, Duckie got to meet some of the folks - but Duckie wasn't on the road trip just to meet and greet... |
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...back at Panorama, back on skis and back to work for Pete. Duckie gets some advice from Ski Patrol. Panorama looks like a great place to ski with good snow. We braved the rain for a few runs and decided to cut our losses. Most roads back over the Rockies and home for me were still closed by the time we'd finished for the day - either due to avalanche danger or bad road conditions. So we bit the bullet and turned a 2 hour journey into an 8 or 9 hour one; heading south and over Crowsnest Pass. |
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It turned out to be the best idea. For Al's last day we got some pretty good snow up at Lake Louise - luckily we weren't as affected by the rain on the Eastern side of the Rockies. The sign says it all. |
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Paradise indeed. We had the cameras out all through the day - I really had to restrict myself editing - otherwise you'd have another 20 to go! |
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Little and Large... |
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This was just before our last run of the day, and Al's last of the trip. Nicely, it turned out to be one of the best - we were beaming all the way down. |
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Still had to stop lots on the way down though - every time I looked up there was yet another great shot to be had. |
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We finished the day with a drive across the valley and up to the Chateau. Not too sure what Al is doing to the bird. Melting it probably. Again, the rain had been busy - quite a few of the ice sculptures were a little worse for wear. |
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Two Chateaux for the price of one. |
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The Lake looking a little different to when I was up there in October. A moment of reflection perhaps? Or anticipation of more Tim-Bits? |
