If you wish to first read the text associated with this day click here.
 

I had been experiencing some delamination in my midfats on the previous day, so I figured it was a great opportunity to demo some fat skis.  I chose a pair of Atomic Powder 8 fat skis, in a 163 cm size.  Since the demo booth is located right at the base of the Silverlode chair, it makes it quite convenient to demo whatever you wanted.  I believe the price was around $20 to $30 CDN to demo the skis for an entire day which seemed quite reasonable.  In the picture, we're comparing the powder 8 skis to Erica's midfat Volant Powercarve L at the base area.  As you can see, the fat boards are bigger than the midfats even at the tip, but especially at the waist.  I found that they weren't all that great at carving on groomed snow (as would be expected) but the extra flotation made them amenable to powder, chowder, and the heavy wet stuff at lower elevations.  I certainly wouldn't want them as my main ski, but I'd love a pair of fat boards in my quiver.
 
 

Here we are again on the Motherlode chair.  Unlike our first day, you can see the peak and get a much better idea of the layout below the lift.  Our last day was certainly the best for checking out the scenery.  We had a mix of clouds and sun, giving us views that we had not seen for our entire trip.
 
 

Now we're located at the summit of Granite mountain, the image on the left is the peak area of Mt. Roberts.  On the map, I've indicated the area of Mt. Roberts in the picture (brightened box - upper left) as well as the location from which the picture was taken (brightened box - upper right; summit area of Granite mountain).  You can see the way Mt. Roberts starts out with some very steep terrain at its summit area, and then gradually eases as you get lower.  I'm not sure what degree the slope is up top, but it was in the 30-35 degree range where we started about 3/4 of the way down.
 

Once again we headed out along the traverse to get to the powder on the lower flanks of Mt. Roberts.  On the left is an image of the traverse we got to know so well.  It gives you an idea of the tree spacing in the area.  On the right, the brightened box on the map denotes the location.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here's the view looking across from the lower slopes of Mt. Roberts (small brightened box, left side of map) towards Granite Peak and the Paradise area (large brightened box, upper right of map).  You can see the tower on the summit of Granite mountain, and the trails that you see are the upper slopes of the Paradise area.  The Paradise lift line stretches from the right side of the photo (approximately the center of the right side), towards the upper middle of the photo.  If you look directly below the tower on the summit of Granite, you may be able to see one of the lift towers of the Paradise lift.  This picture also gives a good idea of what the Paradise trails look like: some open areas with a WHOLE LOT of trees.
 
 

At the end of our final day, Chris, E and J.Spin went somewhere that none of our group had gone during the entire trip... Red Mountain itself.  Since the actual Red Mountain is at a relatively low elevation, (summit elevation 5208 ft.) the snow was generally heavier than up on Granite mountain (summit elevation 6688 ft.).  We therefore spent most of our time up high enjoying the light powder.  For the final day however, we decided to check out Red Mountain before it was too late.  As you can see on the map, Red doesn't have as many trails as Granite, but there are plenty of nice steep areas for skiing.  This picture is of J.Spin blasting through some heavy powder in the region of trail #14, called Stilhang.  As you can see from the way the snow is being thrown, it's somewhat heavy and chunky, but it was fun to plow through it on the fat skis.  It wasn't quite as much fun as the lighter snow up on Granite, but it served as excellent training to remind you to stay on top of you skis.

With our visit to Red Mountain proper, we concluded our skiing for the trip.  Our adventures were not quite over yet, as we would find that weather would play a role in complicating our return flight out of Castlegar Airport.  For details, move on to B.C. Trip 2000 - The long route to home.