Little White and Big White

Brenda and I were both in eastern Canada over the holidays visiting family (And I'll take this opportunity to mention that Air Canada sucks. The sooner those bozos go out of business the better). I was able to see everyone except for my brother Ian who lives in Whitehorse. As luck would have it Ian was at Big White this week. He is an organizer for this year's Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse and he was at Big White as a technical observer of the snowboard competition that took place over the weekend. It was great to catch up with him.

Lately we've been on a quest to find good backcountry skiing that is closer to Kelowna than our usual weekend haunts. It's been an unsuccessful quest thus far. Anyway to this end Saturday morning found us driving towards a mountain east of Kelowna called Little White...

Again.



For the third time actually.

And...um...we have yet to actually set foot on the peak.

By way of an explanation, or perhaps a defense, it should be noted that as usual access is via logging roads which may or may not be plowed during the winter.

On the first attempt last February we only managed to drive within 10km of the peak and then spent the better part of an entire day slogging up logging roads before chucking it in. The second time we again found the key road unplowed but this time we didn't even put our skis on and simply turned around and went home (we can be taught!).

Alas, this, our third try, was the most lame attempt yet. A storm the previous night had blown heavy wet snow drifts across the main access road. Although a Honda CRV is a great little vehicle it's not a real 4x4 by any means, so we bailed before getting ourselves stranded a very long way from home.

Ah well. We did have a fleeting view of a bobcat from the car.

To rescue something from the day we drove up to the Big White ski resort. The Gem Lake lift which serves one side of the mountain was closed so we parked in the empty lot and skinned up to the top of the Sun Rype bowl and had a couple of runs.

Resort skiing is boring. I can't believe the price of a lift ticket these days. $70? That - is - un - believable.

Brenda said I shouldn't post this photo because she looks bald, so here it is...