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.
 

Ski Day One - Red Mountain  Tuesday 29FEB00

New Snow Reported by Resort - 1cm
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? 1-2 cm
Surface Conditions ? Powder / Chowder
Sky ? light snow
Temp ? near freezing at base, upper 20s F at summit
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, Chris, James, Greg
Runs / Vertical Skied - 11 / 20,310’

 Red Mountain is currently composed of two main peaks, Red Mountain and Granite Mountain.  Red Mountain is the smaller of the two: base elevation 3788 ft, summit elevation 5208 ft, vertical drop 1420 feet.  Next to Red is Granite, which is substantially bigger: base elevation 3788 ft, summit elevation 6688 feet, vertical drop 2900 feet.  The mountain is great for non-stop consistent steep skiing.  If I had to peg Red Mountain’s strengths, I’d put them as trees and steeps.  It is not famous for its snowfall; in fact it is only about 300 inches annually.  I’ve also heard that due to its low elevation, it can also receive rain at times.  The mountain only has five lifts, and none are high speed.  None of them are even quads.  Breaking these lifts down, it basically comes down to three regions served, two on Granite and one on Red.
 Our first day on the mountain started off with a good omen, new snow and still snowing.  The light snow from the evening had accumulated to 1-2 cm as mentioned in the morning snow report, but it was still coming down.  This was on top of the foot of snow that they had received the day before we arrived.  We (E, James, Dave, J.Spin, and Chris) met up with Greg at the base lodge, and while he grabbed a bite to eat, we took our first run.  We took the Silverlode triple chair up.  It services the first 500 vertical feet of Granite, elevations of 3788 to 4288 feet.  The snow wasn’t all that great actually.  It was fairly wet and heavy, and there was a bit of light crust around in the ungroomed runs.  The groomed surface was not too bad, but venturing off onto the sides, even with our midfats meant working hard to make turns.  We were disappointed, but Greg (who had skied the day before) warned us that the bottom third of the mountain was not representative of the great snow that existed up top.  We loaded on the Silverlode chair again, then connected up to the Motherlode triple chair that served the rest of the vertical on Granite (4288 to 6688 feet; 2400 vertical).  The terrain here was, to put it simply, steep.  The lift just kept going, and going, and banks of clouds and light snow hid the summit from our view.  Finally we got off, and headed out into the much drier snow.  We basically headed down the lift line area (Link’s Run) and found great chopped up powder.  Greg had mentioned that there was a bunch of snow the night before last, so even though there was only about an inch of new on this day, much of the surface was deep and soft.  Even this light stuff was about 10% H2O, but it was light enough to make the powder skiing fun.  The 2400 vertical foot ride below the lift offers some fun steep terrain, with a groomed route down the center and ungroomed all around.  Each turn reveals new obstacles, and in our case great snow.  There’s really nothing like those first turns at a ski area when you have no idea what to expect of the terrain.
We then met up with Greg and headed out to some steep woods near one of the "slide" trails.  He pointed out a trail called "Short Squaw" that he said we should save until we were really warmed up.  We eventually headed over to an area called Paradise, which has its own lift.  There’s not a lot of steep terrain in the Paradise area, but this area is like a huge tree-filled playground.  We ventured outside the ski area boundary a bit to get some fresh tracks, making sure to stay close to the rope since we didn’t want to end up lost somewhere in the Kootenay wilderness.  The Paradise area offered up the lightest snow since it serviced just the top (5300-6600 feet) of the mountain (1300 vertical). Another high point was when we hit the trail called Short Squaw.  This was quite steep, much like a lift serviced Tuckerman Ravine.  It started out with steep trees then opened into a STEEP snowfield, before finishing with a mellow tree-filled terrain park.  I guessed that the steep sections had to be close to 40 degrees at some points.  To confirm this, I did the pole trick that I learned from skiVT-L where you put one pole perfectly vertical, and one pole horizontal to get an idea of the slope.  When I lined up my two poles in this manner (48 inches) there was about 6 inches extra space in the horizontal pole.  So this would suggest a rise of 48 inches over a run of 54 inches for a percent grade of approximately 88.9% and a slope angle of approximately 41 degrees.  That’s not too bad for lift-serviced steeps.  After the steeps, Short Squaw mellowed to a blue / green pitch with lots of trees.  Finally, it dropped onto the Long Squaw trail, the main traverse that brought you back to the bottom of the Motherlode Lift.
 
 
 
 

Ski Day Two  Whitewater, B.C.  Wednesday 01MAR00

New Snow Reported by Resort - 7cm (2-3 inches)
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? approx. 8-10 cm (3-4 inches)
Surface Conditions ? Powder / Chowder
Sky ? light snow
Temp ? 20s F
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, Chris, James, Greg
Runs / Vertical Skied - 12 / 12,480’
 

 For our second day of the trip, we visited another ski are in the Kootenay region known as Whitewater.  Whitewater came highly recommended by everyone we spoke to; they said if we liked Red, we’d like Whitewater as well.  Since it was also covered by our lift tickets, and Greg was visiting with his car, it was a no-brainer to make a visit.  Whitewater is about an hour north of Red, near the town of Nelson.  It is a bit smaller than Red, servicing only 1300 vertical (5400 ? 6700 feet).  However, Whitewater averages about 100 inches more snow per year than Red (obtained from the sources I had available), putting it close to 400 inches in an average year.  They also tend to have less rain than Red due to their location and the elevation of their base.  The small vertical was not really an issue for us, since it was basically equivalent to the top half of Red, an elevation that we found to have the lightest snow and stayed in whenever possible.  There were two main lifts, servicing two sides of the bowl that made up the ski area.  Off to our left was the Silver King Double Chair.  It serviced some blue and black terrain with a couple groomed runs and a bunch of trees.  Off to the right was the Summit Chair, which offered some really steep terrain approaching 40 degrees (estimated).  Overall, the skiing was very similar to Red: steeps and trees.  It was also possible to access a large treeless area by traversing to the end of the bowl.
 We found about 3-4 new inches of snow over an already soft and fluffy base.  The snow was again not fabulously light, about 9-10% H2O.  It was great powder skiing nonetheless.  We found some great steep chutes in the woods, more stuff in the 35-40 degree range that made for fun jump turns.  Right under the skier’s right of the Summit Chair, Chris shot some fabulous video of everyone running a steep tight chute.  There was so much snow that Chris was nearly buried by the time the last person came down the chute.  The base was amazingly deep.  Even on the steeps, after six of us went down that chute, there was just more soft snow below.  I’d recommend the trip to anyone that is visiting Red Mountain, it’s a nice bit of variety.  We were fortunate to have Greg’s car, but it seemed as though a one day car rental was also an option and there was a shuttle from Red Mountain to Whitewater on Tuesdays.
As an addition to our Whitewater trip, we visited the Ainsworth Hot Springs.  These are natural hot springs about 30-45 min north of Whitewater that also came highly recommended.  You can choose from heading into caves that have the spring water pumped in at 112 degrees F, a heated pool at 96 degrees F, and a cold plunge at 4 degrees F.  We also got fabulous views of the Purcell mountains surrounding Kootenay Lake (not quite the tops ? a cloud ceiling was still present) while hanging out in the pools.  The Ainsworth Hot Springs Web site provides some interesting information about how the water is heated and arrives where it does:

The Ainsworth Hot Springs feature a unique horseshoe shaped cave, where the darkness, mineral deposits and humidity combine for a most interesting hot springs experience.  A hot steamy odorless shower of mineralized water falls from the cave's roof and forms into a pool about waist deep, providing a natural steam bath.
Where Does The Water Come From?  The springs originate in the Cody Caves area, which is directly above and to the west of Ainsworth Hot Springs. The water works its way down through porous rock to a depth of 1-1/2 to 2 km. The water picks up temperature at a rate of 40C per km down until it strikes what is known as the Lakeshore Fault.  This fault is an impervious layer of rock lying at an angle of 45 to 50 degrees from Ainsworth Hot Springs to a point directly below the Cody Caves. Hydraulic pressure forces the water up along the fault where it emerges at Ainsworth Hot Springs - Voila - Hot Water.

This information was obtained from the Ainsworth Hot Springs web site http://www.hotnaturally.com.  They also have some interesting history of the hot springs there, so check it out for more information.
 
 
 
 

Ski Day Three  Red Mountain, B.C.  Thursday 02MAR00

New Snow Reported by Resort ? 0 cm
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? approx. 1-2 cm (1 inch)
Surface Conditions ? Some Powder /  Mostly Chowder
Sky ? light / moderate snow
Temp ? near freezing at the base (30-35 F), upper 20s F at summit
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, James
Runs / Vertical Skied - 5 / 10,550’

 After two days of fairly hard skiing, we took it a bit easier on Thursday.  Chris decided to hang in the motel room, Greg had to head back to Seattle, and the rest of us went out for a light day at Red Mountain.  It’s simple when all you have to do is walk a few hundred yards to the lift, and get to ski back to the room once you feel tired.  I’m convinced that staying slopeside and getting a good night’s sleep allowed us to go skiing each day, with minimal aches and pains.  Well, OK, having many ski days under our belts before the trip helped in that area.  Still, we may have sat out a day or two if we had to drive an hour or so each way to get to the slopes.  We started out with a warm-up run in the mellow trees of Paradise.  Paradise was rapidly becoming Dave’s favorite area, due to the mellow trees and the consistently light snow.
 The February 2000 issue of Skiing magazine has a list of 100 skiing things to do before you die.  In this list, the third category mentioned skiing some lesser known runs that were really awesome.  One of these runs was called "Cambodia" at Red Mountain.  We had decided even before the trip that we needed to hit Cambodia since it was on the list, and hell, we had six days at the resort to do it.  When you get off the top of the Motherlode lift (the big summit lift), you can head to the right and follow a traverse that heads you out onto a shoulder of the mountain.  This is the way we went to hit the steep 40 degree section I mentioned from day one know as Short Squaw.  Looking at the map, we saw that Cambodia was farther out on the traverse, but with no signs and the map just indicating a bunch of squiggles where the trails started, it wasn’t going to be straightforward.  We tried our best to situate ourselves above the clearing where we though the trail was, and then dove in.  The snow was as beautiful as the other day, mostly tracked up of course, but oh so soft.  The pitch was probably 30-35 degrees, and we were on a trail about 30-40 feet wide.  Before long, the trail just seemed to disappear and we were back in the trees again.  Now it was just steep trees about 5-10 feet apart; we had no idea where the trail had gone.  Then we came into a section of trees where it seemed that all the low branches had been removed.  They were fairly tight, about 4-6 feet apart, and about 6-8 inches in diameter.  Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking all the trees are big huge conifers out at Red.  They follow the laws of light / water availability just like everywhere else.  If the trees are tight, they grow more slowly and end up thinner.  If they are by themselves they tend to be larger.  This is at least what my observations revealed during my trip.  We headed generally down and to the left, and it remained at the same steep angle.  Finally we broke out of the woods onto a trail, and ran into a friend from the Burlington Vermont area named Chad.  He commended us on skiing the tight trees just like Vermonters (although it seems that the skiers here ski any trees no matter how tight they are).  We mentioned that we were trying to ski Cambodia, and Chad and his friends said that we were pretty much around there in the trees.  So we’d found the general area, even if it wasn’t all that well defined.  We chalked Cambodia up as skied, and figured we’d be back anyway within the next few days.
 We had another piece of exploration on this day.  We knew that Granite Mountain was touted as 360 degree skiing, so "theoretically" we couldn’t get lost on the mountain right?  Well, we weren’t quite so sure about that, so we had been playing it safe… until today that is.  When one gets off either the Motherlode lift or the Paradise lift (the two lifts that service the top areas of the mountain) and heads left, a green traverse takes you around the mountain.  This traverse trail, known as Ridge Road, eventually stops traversing and heads down the mountain towards the base of the Paradise lift.  It actually remains at a gentle grade the whole way, so that even a novice could follow the route.  The left side of this traverse offers a continuous drop into pleasantly pitched blue / black trails and woods.  The right side however, was a mystery to us.  At the very top, the right side featured the peak of the mountain with some microwave towers.  This peak gradually dropped away as the traverse continued, until it was possible to head into the woods through a series of singletrack cuts.  We weren’t really sure where these went, and although we saw a lot of tracks, we’d never seen people going that way.  On this occasion however, we did see a couple fellows slide off in that direction and decided, what the heck, we’ll follow.  In general, the ski area boundary was sufficiently marked, and we saw no such markings here.  We jumped in with the single tracks, and after about 50 feet or so, the pitch dropped right out on us and we were atop small (10-20 foot) cliffs with steep chutes allowing access to the region below.  The chutes were fairly tight, but we all jumped in and found nice routes.  This steep section was short lived, and the terrain soon dropped out into low pitch woods, then finally brought us to the Short Squaw trail and back to the base of Motherlode.
 We finished off the day with a run right down below the Motherlode lift line.  For some reason, it didn’t seem to get very tracked up, and we rarely saw skiers there.  The top was roped, but not hard.  It had just enough rope to let you know it was steep, but room was left to skirt around.  It started out with a nice steep pitch for about 50 feet.  I dropped in with a couple of quick jump turns, and near the bottom, I encountered one rock that I warned the others to avoid.  When I yelled up that there was a rock down below, a guy from the lift shouted
"The whole thing’s a rock!"
As it turns out, the area was a bit of a cliff, but it was fairly well covered so to us it came across as a short steep face.  There was plenty of snow for everyone to get down without heavy rock encounters.  The snow was excellent, and off to the skier’s right, we were below the steep treed slopes that formed one side of the broad gully of the Motherlode lift.  By traversing across, we could catch small sections of these steeps, but we still didn’t know how to approach those steeps from above, that would require more exploration.  The snow held out for quite a while, but by the time we got below 5000 feet, it started to get a bit mushy.  Even with the midfats, it was a piece of work.  We decided to hit the groomers and run it out back to the motel.  It continued to snow lightly as we hung out at the motel, waiting for our friend Scott to arrive from Seattle.  He would be joining us for the next two days at Red Mountain.
 
 
 

Ski Day Four  Red Mountain, B.C.  Friday 03MAR00

New Snow Reported by Resort ? 5 cm
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? approx. 5-7 cm (2-3 inches)
Surface Conditions ? Powder / Chowder
Sky ? light / moderate snow
Temp ? near freezing at the base, upper 20s F at summit
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, James, Chris, Scott
Runs / Vertical Skied - 8 / 14,910’

 Our friend Scott had arrived from Seattle the previous night, and was raring to go on the slopes of Red.  He is currently shopping around for new skis, and planned to try out some midfats during his stay.  His first choice was to try some Volant Ti Powers, but unfortunately they didn’t have the size he needed.  Therefore he went with some Elan Spitfires in about a 176 cm length.  There had been a couple more inches of snow overnight, which was par for the course and would keep things fresh.
 MY idea was to give Scott a nice warm-up run in the Paradise area on a groomed run or something close to that.  Of course, not long after we began traversing left on Ridge Road, everybody got exited and dove into the trees and fresh snow.  Fortunately, Scott was ready and able to hit the trees, so things went well.  We hung out at Paradise for a bit and scored a few runs in the nice snow.
We returned to the motel for lunch and a bit of drying out.  It’s nice to be able to crash for a bit during lunch and dry things out if needed, but it can be difficult to get rolling again.  We somehow managed to get ourselves moving and headed back up to the summit of granite.  Chris had stayed on the mountain during lunch and visited some of the trails to the skier’s right of the Motherlode.  We took Scott down the steeps off the backside of Ridge Road and the snow was great.  We also took another shot at Cambodia, this time taking a slightly different route, but once again ending up in the trees.  Maybe that’s just the way things go with Cambodia.  Whatever happened, it was a lot of fun and we figured we’d skied enough of the area to chalk up the Cambodia on the "trails to ski before we die" list.  Erica and Chris went in a little early in the afternoon, and Dave James, Scott and I traversed our way into mayhem.  In order to return to the base are from Paradise, it was best to traverse far to the skier’s left.  We did this, and attempted to ski some of the terrain that we had missed to the skier’s right of Motherlode.  None of us are exactly sure where the heck we were, but it was some phat terrain.  As we traversed, James blasted us through some great powder around trees and down steep faces that came out of nowhere.  The obstacles came up so quickly sometimes that I just remember picking the best crash site and that’s it.  Oh the joys of a strange big mountain.  By the end of the day, the wind was really starting to pick up on Granite.  This was something we hadn’t seen much of in our entire trip, and we were hoping it meant something special was brewing J.  The snow just kept pouring down, and we knew that tomorrow had the chance to be the biggest dump of our trip.
 

Ski Day Five  Red Mountain, B.C.  Saturday 04MAR00

New Snow Reported by Resort - 20cm
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? approx. 20 cm (8 inches)
Surface Conditions ? Powder
Sky ? moderate / heavy snow
Temp ? near freezing at the base, upper 20s F at summit
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, James, Chris, Scott, Ben
Runs / Vertical Skied - 10 / 18,430’

 This was the big one.  One local told Erica that it was their biggest dump of the year.  Somehow that sounds sad when you’re talking about only eight inches, and I’m not sure I believe it.  In any case, it was certainly a day to be at the mountain.  Our friend Ben from Seattle had joined us by this time, and our group had grown to seven.  Crowds and lines had been a non-issue, but we were warned that a Saturday and a powder day would be a bit of a different story.  The lifts supposedly open at 9:00 A.M., but we went down early to get in the lineup in case there was one.  We arrived at the Silverlode lift at about 8:20 A.M. and the line was already up to around 150 people.  The locals were out in droves, and they had their big fat skis with them.  I had never felt that my midfats were skinny until that Saturday.  The tips of my skis at well over 100 mm were nothing compared to the hogs that these folks were sporting.  I saw one little fellow with a pair of Atomics that simply said "DEEP POWDER".  These little sticks, which couldn’t have been much more than 160 cm, looked like a couple of carving snowboards with ski bindings.  The Silverlode lift started loading and a cheer went up from the crowd.
After a long ride up the Silverlode / Motherlode combo, we stood atop Granite Peak with almost 3000 verts of fresh powder below us.  We immediately headed for the Paradise area and dove into the trees that were loaded with fresh powder.  Although it had snowed somewhat on each day of our trip, it was never really enough to fully convert the chowder back to powder.  This storm finally erased all the marks and covered everything with a fresh even blanket of white.  The turns were as expected.  Bottomless powder with nary a track to be found.  This lightness of the snow was still nothing to crow about (probably 8% H2O or so even at the summit), but let’s just say that’s splitting hairs anyway.  We charged down the Paradise area between trails and woods, barely stopping to regroup before diving into the next pitch.  It was tough to get folks to stop for some good video, but we knew the untracked wouldn’t last long with all the local powderhounds around.  After two runs, the place was pretty well tracked up, and the group had calmed down enough that we could get some nice video.  Video was tough though because it was still dumping like stink and light was low.  The best shots were close distance, but the new snow made it all worth it.
For our third run on Paradise we were lucky to meet up with a local fellow named Norm.  We had been eyeing the big snowfield behind the base of the Paradise lift.  This snowfield was on the lower portion of nearby Mt. Roberts, and provided about 300-400 vertical earned by a relatively easy 10 minute traverse into the woods beyond the ski area boundary.  The top of the snowfield started out at about 30-35 degrees for about the first 100 vertical, then gradually mellowed out.  There were about 10-15 tracks in the snowfield already, but plenty of untracked remained.  Those first turns on that snowfield were probably my favorites of the trip.  I got waist deep shots for about the first five turns as gravity tugged me downward toward the lift.  Oh weightlessness.  Visibility was still low, but Chris managed to get some shots of us with the camcorder as we approached the bottom.  The great thing was that there were still plenty of untracked lines all the way along the traverse, and they weren’t going anywhere.  We decided to save them for a later date and get some great shots of untracked runs in the wooded areas.
After three runs on Paradise, we headed over the backside of Ridge Run and dropped into the steeps that we were getting to know pretty well by this point.  Everything was all tracked up here but the snow was still great.  Dropping to the back side of the mountain from this angle gave a fairly long run with good pitch before hitting the Long Squaw traverse.  There was enough pitch to give some great runs in the woods off to the skier’s left.
This had to be one of the wettest ski days I’ve experienced that didn’t involve rain.  It snowed and snowed and snowed, and with temperatures in the upper 20s, even Gore-Tex was struggling to keep us dry.  Between sweat and the humidity in the air, we were walking sponges.  Constantly removing my gloves for camera work only helped to compound the problem as my wet hands were returned to my gloves.  I have to say that camcorder really earned its keep and held up under harsh conditions.  It has a moisture sensor that prevents use when things get too humid, but it never even got activated.  Keeping the lens free of moisture was a chore as well, but things came out nicely in the end.  We really had to hit the motel for lunch this time; everybody was just so wet.  I’m not sure what happened the rest of the day, but I recall that we did our best to clean up the remaining areas of untracked powder lines that we could find.

Ski Day Six  Red Mountain, B.C.  Sunday 05MAR00

New Snow Reported by Resort ? 9 cm
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? approx. 9 cm (3-4 inches)
Surface Conditions ? Some Powder /  Mostly Chowder
Sky ?  sunny breaks / a few flurries
Temp ? near freezing at the base, upper 20s F at summit
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, James, Chris, Ben
Runs / Vertical Skied - 8 / 14,000?

 This was our final day of skiing, and it was also the day that provided the nicest views since the skies were only "partly" cloudy.  It was also a good chance to catch up on areas of the mountain that we wanted to hit again, or explore for the first time.  Since I had experienced some delamination in my regular skis during the previous ski day, I took the opportunity to try out some fat skis.  They were available for demo right at the base of the lift, so I got to try out some Atomic Powder Eights.  They were short, wide, and had very little if any sidecut.  It would be an interesting experience.
 We arrived at the top of the Granite chair and immediately took some much needed pictures with a bit of blue sky and mountains in the background.  We got great views of Mt. Roberts, and could really see the steep terrain that existed near the top of the peak.  After a run in the Paradise area, we headed out again along our favorite traverse to Mt. Roberts.  Along the way on our traverse, we ran into some telemark & alpine trekker skiers getting their skins set up for a hike higher up on Mt. Roberts.  They headed up into the higher forest as we continued on the normal traverse.  We enjoyed some fun turns in the powder after our traverse, although the snow was not quite as fresh and light as the previous day.  At lunchtime, Ben, James, Dave and Chris got huge cheeseburgers that were being cooked outdoors at the mid-mountain Paradise lodge.  All I recall is that they were big, had lots of extras, and were pretty inexpensive.  On a subsequent run off the Paradise chair, we were able to look across from near the top of Granite, and see skiers descending the upper steep slopes of Mt. Roberts.  Now seeing actual skiers up there, you could really get a feel for just how steep it was.  It certainly looks like some awesome terrain in very close proximity to the lifts.
 Near the end of the day, Chris, E and I headed down to ski Red Mountain proper.  It seemed like a shame to visit the Red Mountain ski area and never get a chance to ski the peak that gave it its name.  After skiing all the way to the base of Granite, we hopped on the old erector set-style double that would take us to the top of Red.  Even though Red is lower than Granite (summit 5208’) and offers less vertical (1420’) it contains some nice steep terrain.  I spoke with a local snowboarder earlier in the trip that had just come over from Red to Granite.  He commented that due to the low elevation, a lot of people stayed away from Red itself, and that meant lots of untracked.  The heavier snow wasn’t as much of a problem on his board, and there were lots of steep shots and big drops for snowboarders to hit.  He informed me that Red also offers 360 degree skiing like Granite, but you had to be a bit more careful about straying too far off the back.  Chris, E and I came down the front side of Red and found nice steep groomed trails, as well as fun ungroomed areas.  The snow was certainly heavy, but I had a great time even on the ungroomed with the fat skis.  After that run, we headed over to the T-bar for our final run.  I headed to the skier’s right off the T-bar to get some of the untracked that was still available with a short traverse.  James reported that the other members of our group that stayed up on Granite had a blast in the Ledges area, but unfortunately I don’t have the details of their exploits.
 

Travel Day Two - Red Mountain - Castlegar - Kelowna - Vancouver - Toronto - Montreal - Burlington - Monday 06MAR00

New Snow Observed at Red Mountain Motel ? approx. 2 inches
Sky ?  light / moderate snow
Temp ? slightly below freezing

Well, it continued to snow.  Although it had cleared up a little on Sunday, the snow had returned for our travel day.  We had a couple of inches down at the motel (3800 feet), and it was still snowing moderately.  The shuttle picked us up promptly at 7:00 A.M. and we headed off to Castlegar to catch our 9:00 flight to Calgary.  We knew there could be trouble at Castlegar with a ceiling requirement of 2700 feet, but we hoped for the best.  As we passed through Rossland and Trail and dropped below 3000 feet, the snow continued.  Even as we dropped down to Castlegar and the airport (1624 feet), the snow persisted.  It was a bit lighter, but visibility still wasn’t great.  Our flight was cancelled, and we were rescheduled for a new 1:30 P.M. flight to Calgary.  Things cleared a bit, but nowhere near enough for us to leave.  After sorting out the options, we next went for a 7:30 P.M. flight out of Kelowna, a town about four hours west of Castlegar.  We rented an all-wheel drive minivan, and headed out on our drive.
 Although things had changed over to rain at Castlegar through the warming of the day, the first part of our trip brought us up over a pass that peaked out at 5160 feet where it was spitting snow.  We were thankful for the all-wheel drive as the road got fairly slick.  Eventually we came back down to a valley level of about 1500 feet and things turned back to rain.  We had chosen to head West to Kelowna due to the fact that that storm was heading east, and a drive in that direction would have put us right back into it.  Our drive continued through some slightly drier country along the Washington / B.C. border, with some great views.  The land became grassy and allowed us to get good views of wildlife.  Our views were enhanced by the fact that we began to see areas of blue sky, and eventually even direct sun.  The sun was a change after a week of snow and clouds.  We saw a variety of deer, many that hung out along the road as we traveled along the border between Washington state and British Columbia.  The area was generally unpopulated, with a few small towns and random houses to break the monotony.  The terrain soon became forested again as we continued west.  As we neared Kelowna, we passed yet another B.C. ski area known as Big White.  It appears as though this is a popular local resort for the folks of Kelowna, but it’s certainly a full size resort with over 2000 vertical.
 We departed the Kelowna airport in the evening, and made the short flight to Vancouver.  From Vancouver, our next flight was in the wee hours of the morning to Toronto, where we stopped in quickly, and continued on to Montreal.  Since our return trip was delayed, James, who was leaving for Las Vegas the next day (which was now actually THIS day), was cutting it really close.  Chris did a very impressive job of getting us back from Montreal to Burlington in record time, and getting James on his way.  James basically dropped his stuff off at the house, and grabbed his bag for his next trip.  We’re very thankful that all of our luggage followed us at every step, despite our travel complications.  It was a fun trip, but it was great to be back in Vermont.  I immediately wanted to find out how the skiing had been over the past week, and what we could expect for our next ski day back at home ;).

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