My Impressions

Photos by Annikki Santala, Peter Dorfinger and Martin

After stopping for dinner in Revelstoke on the way west from Rogers Pass, we spent Friday night in Sicamous. Accommodation in Revelstoke was fully booked. The goal was to pick up Annikki from Kelowna airport at 4pm on Saturday, which would leave time for a small ski tour in the morning. We checked into Paradise Motel and were welcomed by a lovely Indian couple. For a bargain 100$ a night, Paradise did justice to its name. It had in all likelihood not been renovated in the last three, perhaps four, decades but certainly hat its charms and rooms with fully equipped kitchenettes and 1970s appliances. No photo would do justice to the atmosphere.

The Saturday skiing plans were soon abandoned. As temperatures rose, we noticed that there was no more snow around us and that the Monashee mountain range we had crossed the evening before had turned to hills. Paradise Motel was probably the most charming part of Sicamous. We drove several loops through town in search for coffee and stopped at a diner by the main roundabout, which seemed to be the only place that was open. This gem of a restaurant offered a surprisingly broad breakfast menu, given that all options consisted of a combination of eggs, hash browns and bacon or sausage. We went for the breakfast special of the day, which featured, wait for it, eggs, hash browns and bacon. The kitchen had run out of sausages. We had copious amounts of coffee and drove on to Kelowna. Having arrived early, a few hours’ wait was shortened with visits to an outdoor equipment store, a lovely Chinese foot massage parlor and a Vietnamese restaurant. We added to our collection of skiing and mountaineering gear a small bell, a piece of equipment to protect us from bears, lest Brian’s advice was too optimistic and they would not only attack hunters and mountain bikers. The second-best was considerably more expensive and we feared that we might do more harm to ourselves than the bear when handling it.

The second- and third-best defense options against bears (read fine print above for the first)

While Peter was waiting in the arrivals hall of Kelowna airport, Martin emptied and repacked the car. All the while, a friendly Canadian gentleman, who had parked next to us and was waiting for a friend who would arrive on the same flight as Annikki, was sharing unsolicited advice about packing, motorbikes, life, as well as his wife’s opinions about the right size of a car. He drove a pickup truck and could not hide his amusement with the ridiculous size of our Tiguan. We had indeed wrestled for some days now with the question of how to fit in a 3rd person, her bags and a sixth pair of skis (for good measure, Peter carried three pairs and Martin two). A trailer was not an option and Thule roof boxes seemed outrageously overpriced in Canada, although our car seemed to be one of the only ones not to have one. As kids of the 1980s, we trusted our Tetris (and packing) skills. To everyone’s surprise and after several attempts to optimize space, it all fit inside. The friendly Canadian took a photo for his wife.

Revelstoke: logistical challenges in the rain

Despite its charms, we did not spend another night in the paradise that is Sicamous on the way back from Kelowna and headed to Revelstoke. Accommodation in Revy, as it is also referred to, was nearly fully booked on a Saturday evening. We spent the first night in an outrageously overpriced rental apartment with a shared hot tub. But we did find a privately owned and exceptionally cozy cabin in the woods south of town for a more reasonably price from Sunday. The latter had a fireplace and a hot tub on the terrace facing Arrow Lake.

Revy is a former mining town that has more recently become world renowned for powder skiing and attracts quite a crowd in winter. It is without a doubt one of the livelier places along the Powder Highway. Nonetheless, most bars and restaurants were closed by 9pm. But as we walked the surprisingly empty streets on Saturday evening, we were welcomed by fresh snowfall and the mood was optimistic. We chatted with the bar tenders and a few seasoners at Monashee Distillery and soon moved on to the Last Drop, which had a questionable reputation but was, we were assured, the only place that stayed open past midnight. It drew an eclectic crowd of all ages, makes and models, between teenage partygoer to village drunkard. We enjoyed the atmosphere, hit the dancefloor briefly and mingled. It was striking that nobody really seemed to be local. Most people who lived and worked in Revy hailed from Québec or other provinces further east, some had obvious non-Canadian accents. We wondered where the locals might be hiding but called it a night soon to be in shape for skiing the next day.

Revelstoke on a Saturday evening

Temperatures rose again over night and the snow had gotten heavy by Sunday morning so the higher grounds of Rogers Pass were the obvious destination. But worried that we might skid with our Californian tires and be cleared clean off the road by oncoming trucks, a decision was made not to drive up the pass and ski Revelstoke mountain resort instead. The snowfall had been less abundant than we thought and we mainly skied hardpack, ice, wood and rocks covered by a thin layer of dust. We also met a genuine local in the gondola, a 4-year old boy born and in the process of being raised in Revelstoke, who claimed to have started skiing 5 years ago. It was now clear to us why this region produced so many world class skiers.

As we struggled to exit the virtually flat parking lot of the resort, Peter made the executive decision behind the wheel that our tires had become untenable and that the time had come to replace them so that we could return to Rogers Pass. We hit Trail Tires first thing next morning. The George Clooney lookalike at the counter, who was clearly too cool for his job and was constantly chewing crackers while talking to us, didn’t trust his computerized inventory. After a triple check, he was adamant that winter tires were fully booked. Sorry sold out, that is. Nothing second-hand was in stock either. He also claimed that all car dealers in town were supplied by Trail so that looking elsewhere would be pointless. A brand new set of more winter-friendly all season tires were offered to us for 900$. That seemed expensive but we were in no position to negotiate. While we waited for the mechanic to mount and balance our new purchase, Martin noticed a set of used wheels outside the workshop that were, unlikely though as that seemed, not only exactly our size but already had mean-looking winter tires with metal spikes mounted. George C. was puzzled as to why they hadn’t shown up in his inventory or his extra checks but they were for sale, lock, stock, tires and rims, and soon ours for 560$. We felt like we had made the deal of the century and were on the way up Rogers Pass before noon. Only halfway up the pass did we notice that all areas were closed for avalanche control. Following a u-turn, as temperatures rose further at low altitudes, our new tires would only roll on wet roads and some slush for the rest of the week, and indeed in dry conditions for the better part of the rest of the trip.

Not an easy task, but with a little help from George C., the Tiguan was turned into an 8-wheeler

Our optimism about skiing had waned. But the day was saved by a half-hearted afternoon tour up a an increasingly steep eastern aspect of Mount MacPherson, referred to as the Fingers. The wet snow at the bottom quickly got lighter as we climbed and we skied 1000m of vertical in excellent, knee-deep powder. Annikki, an east coast skier, felt her skis float in deep powder for the first time in her active skiing career. Martin broke the binding on his other ski and hit up another Dynafit dealer in town. The exceptionally helpful crew at the workshop had them fixed in a matter of hours and gave us advice on where to ski the next day: the Gorge, a little-known place of steep and epic tree skiing, on the way to Sicamous and high enough to avoid the rain.

Skiing the Fingers at Mount MacPherson

The catch with the Gorge was that it was only accessible via an 18km stretch of an active logging road. The guys at the ski shop said that carrying a radio was a good idea, to monitor truck traffic and report position along the road. Our winter tires would do nothing to help oncoming logging trucks slow down and avoid running us over. A bit of online research confirmed that piece of advice and revealed a detailed access map of the Gorge. Unfortunately, the 120 or so channels of the walkie talkies we carried to stay in touch with each other on the mountain operated in a narrow frequency band of around 460MHz. The truckers used channels around 150MHz. Our efforts to procure a suitable radio came to nothing and prudence made us abandon plans to ski the Gorge. Peter and Annikki went back for another day at the resort while Martin focused on the hot tub and the fire place at the Cabin, which was a great place to spend some rainy days.

Despite this masterpiece in cartography, we never made it to the Gorge

Our cozy hideout in the woods

Our extraordinary wheel purchase left us with another logistical challenge, however. We now had a car packed to the roof and eight wheels, only four of which could be mounted at the time. Trail Tires stored four of our eight wheels for a few days, to give us time for finding a solution. Despite the fact that nearly every car in town had bars, racks or boxes mounted on top, it turned out to be next to impossible to find a pair of roof bars for ours. They were obviously fully booked and those that weren’t came at prohibitive prices or with weeks in lead time. Although those words were never spoken, George C.’s boss at Trail pronounced us southern imbeciles when we asked whether he would buy back the wheels we had bought a few days earlier. He was probably right. While Martin raised more eyebrows at the home improvement store when enquiring about blanks of wood and the strongest cable ties in stock to construct a roof rack of our own, Peter found our saving Grace in the shape of Mark, an expat Australian who had just gotten an new car and put his old pair of super-aerodynamic Thule bars up for sale. We paid the asking price without questions, got some expert advice on how to secure the wheels from George C., who had also been a trucker in a previous life, and left Revelstoke with eight wheels.

Respite in Nelson

We drove south along Arrow Lake bound for Nelson. It was not an obvious choice: the Kootenay mountains were lower than those around Revelstoke and Rogers Pass and had been less favored by the latest low pressure systems. But we had heard many good things about Nelson and Whitewater ski resort. Most importantly and against all odds, we had found a cat skiing operator in the area that wasn’t fully booked. So we reserved a day for three people and looked forward to discovering yet a new town and area to ski.

On the way to Nelson

The continuing foul weather and the fact that St Leon’s hot springs lay conveniently in between Revelstoke and Nelson was no minor factor in the choice of destination and itinerary. After a short ferry ride across Arrow Lake, we got to the trailhead a little late but keyed coordinates into our GPS, got into skiing gear and started skinning up a trail through an enchanted forest in the rain. St Leon’s did not disappoint. Several pools of various sizes and temperatures were perched on a slope in the thick forest. Perhaps the only surprise was the number of people who had made the trek. We enjoyed the soak, chatted with three skiers from New Jersey and skied back through the forest in the dark before stopping at Mama Sita’s Café for dinner. The waitress, assumed to be Mama Sita in person, gave useful advice about life and kept the kitchen open late just for us.

St Leon’s hot springs

We loved Nelson. A little further off the beaten track than Revy, this quaint town draws a very special crowd – skiers, brewers, bakers, hippies, philosophers, etc. etc., and characters who elegantly combine all of these vocations into one individual. Whitewater, the community-owned and –managed ski area, is as friendly as Nelson and, despite the mellow terrain, seems to produce an astonishing number of teenage prodigies. Effortlessly, we rented an apartment downtown from Alex, the most welcoming and helpful landlady west of the Rockies. We met many friendly people, enjoyed good food and relaxed after a few more challenging days in Revelstoke. Chris, originally from Ontario and the proud organizer of the Kootenay Split Fest, was making hot dogs at the parking lot of Kootenay Pass for a group of split boarders who would soon return from a day of touring. Sam Kuch, currently one of the world’s leading freeskiers, was nursing a broken leg with a strict rehab regimen at a local bar while we were drinking whiskey and playing darts.

Nelson

On the downside, our cat skiing booking was cancelled at 10pm the evening before due to “exceptionally unfavorable conditions”. It had rained up to altitudes of 1800 to 2000 meters. But as temperatures dropped again and our mood improved, we skied Whitewater and its slack country, the local term for skin-accessible terrain adjacent to the ski area, as well as Kootenay Pass. The snow looked heavenly and to the uniformed onlooker, it may not have been obvious that only a thin layer of powder covered an undeniably hard layer of crust underneath. The importance of this minor detail, however, should not be overstated. These were happy days.

Skiing Whitewater and Kootenay Pass