Canada 1999 Week 4 Part 1

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Week 4 Part 1

Revelstoke to Nelson
Monday March 22

Now I was driving south, towards some kind of lake/river crossing at Galena Bay. It looked odd on the map. It was! The bridge was a car ferry! It was free...I gather that it was cheaper to run a ferry than to build a bridge. The scenery was great both sides of the boat:

Looking south down Lake Revelstoke

Looking north up Lake Revelstoke

Heading down into Nelson, the scenery got gentler, and prettier. The town itself is also very pretty, and the HI hostel (The Dancing Bear Inn) is a quaint skinny place in the main street, with old wooden floors and works of art everywhere. The shopping in the main street wasn't bad! The weather was really warm, and the two days I spent skiing Whitewater (very close by, with shuttles from town) were not conducive to seeing the hill at its best. The snow was frozen into mounds and lumps in the morning, and melted into sticky glug in the afternoon. Going off the groom was to loosen the kneecaps and fillings in the morning, and to wish for snowshoes in the afternoon. Signage was a little eccentric also: I ended up going down a horrible steep bump run with no way out, but down. Not good! The road in sorted the cars out from the 4WDs. The cars were parked on the road, quite a hike from the base area...it was muddy, and the road was forming little mountains.

Fortunately, I was in a hire car...The off-piste areas looked interesting, and it was obvious why the place would be popular for touring. There was an excellent looking cornice, threatening all below. As there was only about 10 punters skiing that day, it probably decided it wasn't worth it.
Then it was time to head for Rossland, and the fabled Red Mountain. The car was chirping about its lack of petrol, but when we got to Salmo, their one and only petrol station was out of gas!

Dog out the back of Rossland hostel

Salmo's ski hill was a line of highway lights, apparently it only operated at nights, and weekends. And luckily there was a petrol station up the road. Rossland was up in some hills, and I arrived far too early, the Mountain Shadow hostel didn't open for hours. Wow, what a grotty place! Tumble-down, old, stuff everywhere. A real contrast to the house-proud Nelson. Snow-boarderish people with Aussie accents clumped in and out, but still the office didn't open. I became quite grumpy, when finally, someone arrived and opened up. My mood really wasn't fitting in with the laid-back atmosphere at all! Whereupon one of the owners handed me some half-price vouchers for tickets, and someone else stuck a beer in my other hand...Oh! Ok..An amazing place, no doors were ever locked, beds were chosen at whim, and everyone got on pretty well.

Thursday 25 March
It rained all night. Rotten! The hill is right on the town, but you have to drive up and around to get to it. It was raining pretty hard, and as usual I seemed to be pretty-well the only person skiing. I took the main (Granite) chair up and up, and visibility disappeared completely. I had a map, but which way was which?! Felt my way around to Paradise lodge to thaw out, and found the mountain guide service, holed up with the patrol. They were all earnestly trying to convince each other (and the token customer) not to go back out, but it was still a bit cold in there, and the rain was sort-of turning to snow, so I headed down and skiied Paradise for the day (that's the easier area of Red). Visited the base area and tried Red Mountain itself, but visibility was terrible, so back up Granite again. The snow was falling thicker up top now, promising a good day tomorrow, but the rain down the bottom was depressing.
That evening in the hostel, some Japanese guys who'd been there for a while were preparing a good-bye curry for everyone, and a party ensued.

Looking up at Red, and the run from which the photo below was taken.
No fresh snow yet!

Looking down from Red into the town

Friday 26 March
Fresh snow! Wet, but fresh. A few more people were skiing today, but it was challenging. Floury snow over rattly frozen ICE! You couldn't see it, and it might be large death cookies, ice-mounds, anything. Some of the fresh was lovely, but then you'd hit a few large ice balls, where heavier skis would have been handy. Two guys were trucking over it on a pair of Morrisons and some Kneissl M1s. Big skis were definitely the order of the day. I did Paradise again, where the ungroomed was much better skiing, and even their gladed treee runs were OK. Did some of the easier blue/black runs on the front of Granite, but avoided the gnarly cliff stuff. It was a very cold day, and when the snow started up again in earnest at 3pm, I said goodbye to Red Mtn and returned to the hostel. That night, we (the hostellers) consumed much beer and watched the Oklahoma Bullnarama, some kind of professional bull ("bool") riding. One of the Aussies had done the rodeo circuit, and explained the rules and the risks. It was a pretty entertaining night!

Next morning, I packed up the car, but the hostel owners rang to say they wouldn't be in to open the office that morning, they were going skiing. How was I to pay them?! Ended up having to shove the money under the office door.

Then off towards the Okanagan again, via Lake Christina, where I found views like that to the right, and a very good net cafe.

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