Travel Day One ? Burlington - Montreal ? Vancouver ? Castlegar ? Red Mountain ? Monday 28FEB00

Red Mountain Conditions
Sky ? light snow
Snow Line ? Approx. 3400 feet
Temp ? near freezing

 Red Mountain is located in the Kootenay region of southern British Columbia, about 120 or so miles north of Spokane Washington, and about 6 miles north of the Canada / U.S. border.  The ski area is just outside the city of Rossland, which lies at an elevation of 3398 feet above sea level.  It’s quite a small city, with a population of 3802 determined from the 1996 census (although it seems to be larger now).  We (J.Spin, E, Chris and James) flew from Vancouver to the city of Castlegar (airport elevation 1624 feet), which is about 20 miles from Rossland.  The flight was in a very small turboprop Beechcraft 1900D 18 seater, which still flew at about 300 MPH and at an altitude of 25,000 feet.  This was by far the smallest plane most of us had ever been in.  I’ve ridden in turboprops before, with approximately 36 seats, but boy was this small.  The cabin is about four feet wide, the seats are fairly narrow, and everybody gets a window seat in these planes J.  There wasn’t any flight service, basically the pilots were our flight attendants, and they were close enough that you could chat with them if you liked.  We could see everything they did, and they asked us to speak up if we had any questions.  We were very lucky to be able to land at the Castlegar airport.  It is often termed "Cancelgar" due to the fact that it is a small airport in the mountains, and is frequently fogged in.  They require a ceiling of 2700 feet for airline traffic.  Another group of people that were supposed to arrive the day before us, were fogged out of Castlegar and their flight was cancelled.  They eventually had to rent cars and drive to Rossland from Vancouver.  The landing in Castlegar was fabulous.  The ceiling was around 3000 feet, and once we broke out of the clouds, we found ourselves surrounded by mountains as the pilot negotiated his route to the airstrip.  The mountains immediately reminded me of Vermont.  They were similar in vertical rise above the valley floor (2000-3000 feet) and were forested all the way to the top.  This is in contrast to the mountains I saw when staying in Banff, they had greater vertical rise from the valley floor, and were often craggy and above treeline.
 Once at the airport, the unloading procedure was swift.  The pilots and ground crew popped open the back of the plane and started handing stuff out.  We soon met our friend Dave, and our transfer driver Phil.  Dave had arrived a couple hours earlier, and was already talkin’ it up with Phil.  The five of us got our own 40-seater bus to transport us to Red Mountain and there were apparently no other clients that day, so space wasn’t a problem.  The temperature at the airport was about 40 degrees, so we were a bit worried about the snow situation.  Our fears we assuaged once we approached Red Mountain.  Somewhere around 3400 feet, Phil pointed up to the trees and said, "There’s your snow line".  We looked up and could see a light coating of snow covering the trees on the next ridge.  It also started to snow, and of course this raised our spirits.  It would NOT be the last snow we’d see during our trip.  In another minute or two, we arrived at the mountain and Phil dropped us off at the front desk of the Red Mountain Motel where we would be staying for the week.  The Canadian hospitality continued, as the proprietor of the Red Mountain Motel, Val, drove our equipment and us right up to our room.  The Red Mountain Motel is slopeside on the mountain, you have to walk a few hundred yards to get to the lifts, but you can ski right back down to your room.

On to the pictures!