2006

I decided to remove the Canada trip page, since it has no use anymore and I’m too lazy to update it. However, I wanted to save the links collected there, so those are now here:

Useful links (thanks to El?ɬ§mysmatkat for good hints)

• Ski Big 3 – 3 ski areas of Banff in one site
• Ski Banff – Sunshine Village ski area (in Banff)
• Whitewater
• Ski-Red
• Ski Fernie
• Kicking horse resort
• Ski Louise
• Cat powder- Cat skiing company
• Valhallapow – Cat&Heli-skiing in Nelson
• Canadan Bed&Breakfast
• Fernie Bed&Breakfast association
• Banff Bed&Breakfast
• Canada ski resort map
• Very nice map of North American Ski resorts

I should have posted this earlier, but work keeps you busy every now and then Anyhow, here is short summary of the costs of our tour in Canada. All the costs are per person, car and accomodation costs were split between two of us.

1) in every place they had good deals on combined accomodation and tickets
2) includes all the food and drinks in pubs, bars, etc.

Continuation of the report (Part I, Part II, Part III) from Canada

Tue, 31 Jan 2006: The snow was spoiled in Whitewater and the avalanche risk had increased dramatically in backcountry areas due to heavy snow on top of the thick layer of light snow. Hence, we decided to go to check Castle Mountain. So we packet the vehicle again and headed to the ferry over Kootenay lake. After the ferry, we had again scenic route to Fernie, where we called to Aspen Grove BB to reserve accommodation (we tried to call another place earlier, but they did not answer. Luckily, we called from Fernie, since we learned that there is no restaurants near the accommodation. Thus, we did some grocery shopping (first time during this trip) and eat dinner in Fernie. The Aspen Grove proved to be an excellent accommodation for us. Good rooms, nice lobby, full kitchen with all the bells and whistles, spacious drying room for ski gear, excellent breakfast, and outdoor hot tub with pleasant temperature. If you go to ski in Castle Mountain, stay in Aspen Grove

Wed, 01 Feb 2006: Back to the skis again. We drove up to the Castle Mountain in 20 minutes and were ready for serious powder skiing. The first thing we noted was that it was really windy even at the base and even more windy on the top (we heard from the locals that it is always windy here) – the hood of jacket was very useful during the lift rides. However, the snow was really good in the forest and what a forest there was: plenty of fully skiable forest with a lot of fresh lines. In some parts the trees were a bit too close to each others, but that provided good exercise on how to ski powder in faster tempo. The resort proved to have a lot of skiing terrain and the best snow we found without climbing during the trip. Also the backside looked promising, but there we no need to venture there when snow was good also from the lifts. In the end we skied 8 runs and 5800 meters of vertical.

Thu, 02 Feb 2006: Another day in Castle Mountain, but this time the weather was even more windy. There was no new snow and the forests were quite tracked. Thus, we decided after 3 runs (2630 meters of vertical) to call it a day (the last skiing day of the journey ). Just to note, the groomed slopes were also in excellent condition at Castle Mountain, which was not the case in other resorts we visited.

Fri, 03 Feb 2006: Final day, just driving back to Calgary along very boring roads in completely flat surrounding. We had plenty of time to look around in a mall and take few gin tonics at Air Canada business lounge The flight (AC844) to Frankfurt left 45 min late…

Sat, 04 Feb 2006: The flight was in time at Frankfurt and couple of hours wait before flight to Helsinki (AC9171). Finally back home and all the luggage also arrived with the same flight.

The bottom line:: 12 Days of skiing, 39 460 meters of vertical, 84 runs, 1 759 kilometers of driving, 137.5 liters of gasoline (7.8 l/100km), 2 882 EUR spent. Our main driving route drawn in Yahoo maps is available here (might be slow to load, be patient) – later examination showed that Yahoo maps don’t know how to route using ferries, hence, the map is not excatly correct

Time to start planning the next adventures…

Continuation of the report (Part I, Part II) from Canada

Fri, 27 Jan 2006: Whole day of perfect powder with Valhalla Powercats, which I boasted already earlier. We woke up at 6 am. exited of anticipation for great skiing. After quick breakfast we drove ca. 25 minutes to the meeting point. Getting the group organized took quite a long time, when everyone had to sign waivers, most of the folks selected rental skis, and the growd had to be divided into two groups. When all this was done, we jumped to the bus and drove to the cats. Finally, on 9:30 everyone was in the cat and we were on our way upwards. On the way up, we stopped for 1 hour to go through basic avalance awareness training and practice usage of the tranceivers. Finally, around 10:45 we were up there and ready to make our marks to the fresh snow. From there on the day was pure enjoyment: run after run excellent lines in forests or across nice little open bowls. And the snow – it was just perfect: deep, light, and there was enough of it. Unfortunately, after 6 runs and 2600 meters of vertical it was time to go back Overall the cat skiing was very positive experience, even though there could have been more skiing. Decent value for the money (299 CAD per person), especially recommended if you have short holiday and don’t want to use for looking for the snow.

Sat, 28 Jan 2006: Back to the Whitewater. We again skied few runs the spot we found earlier, which was quite nice, but nothing compared to snow on Friday. Thus, we decided to explore the backcountry options after lunch. So, we attached the skins to the skis and started climbing following the trail up from the top station of the silver king chair lift. Based on the hints we got from JP, we believed that there would be some good runs for us. On our way up we met two local fellows, who offered to show us good line down to the road. We did not hesitate to accept the offer! It took us 1.5 hours (earlier I was a bit more optimistic about the time used for climbing, but this time I checked the Suunto logs) before we were on the peak of mountain (nobody seems to know what is the name of the peek, but the coordinates are 49° 27.450′N; 117° 09.057′W). However, we used a lot of time for looking around. From there we skied down an excellent line with even more snow than we saw in Valhalla on friday, just perfect turns in perfect snow for over 500 meters of vertical (check the video). The run ends on the road maybe 1 km away from the resort, but it took only 5 min to get lift back to the parking lot. Later we learned the run is called White Queen. The total for the day was 2100 meters of vertical in 7 runs.

Sun, 29 Jan 2006: The well tested receipe from saturday was in use again; first couple of runs in the resort and then back to the White Queen. This time we met with JP and few local fellows (group photo). The run was again awesome and JP found untouched line for us. The best skiing I have ever tried out! This time total 2330 meters of vertical and 6 runs.

Mon, 30 Jan 2006: The expectations were high: the snow report said that it had been snowing 20 cm over night in the resort and all the locals had closed their shops for morning in anticipation of good runs (in Nelson everyone gets morning free, if there is over 20 cm of fresh snow). At 9 am. there were more cars in the parking lot and longer lift lines than at anytime during the weekend. Thus, the dissapointment was huge during the first run – the snow was heavy and wet After 1 hour (and 3 runs, 910 meters of vertical) we were in the lodge with all the others and no one looked happy. We met JP and the growd again in the logde and decided to go to aquatic center, which proved to be excellent place to relax with steam room, hot tub, water slide, and naturally swimming pool. It was quite surprising that first person, we met in the stream room was a finn, who had run Outer Glove restaurant (which server very good food) in Nelson for over 10 years. She told us that there are 3 finns living in Nelson permanently.

Continued in Part IV

When we were in Canada, they claimed that we can get the GST back from all the goods exported with us and from short term accommodation. Now I filled the form and sent the recipes to the authorities in Canada. Let’s see how long it takes to get something back – and if the refund exceeds the cost of cashing Canadian check in Finland.