Our decision to spend nearly three weeks of our trip at the
Big White Ski Resort was one that we second-guessed many times over prior to
arriving. Would there be enough
terrain to keep Alick interested over that length of time? What if Tess absolutely hated learning
how to ski or snowboard? After
moving around so much over the last few months, would we find ourselves
completely bored being in one place for so long?
Luckily, our doubts didn’t result in us changing our plans
as Big White was a great experience in all aspects.
The Big White resort is set on a truly picturesque mountain,
famous for the ‘snow ghosts’ (trees completely covered in snow). Unbeknownst to us when we arrived the
resort was originally owned by an Australian family and I think we heard more
Australian accents than any others while we were on the mountain. Being a seasonal resort, the majority
of staff and visitors were doing one-off trips to Big White, though through
Dawn and Keith, we also discovered a lovely local community who had grown up spending winters at Big White.
To our delight, a major contributor to the homely, community feel of Big
White was how dog-friendly the resort was – with nearly every local we met
being accompanied by a dog wearing a season pass!
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Big White 'snow ghosts' |
In terms of the skiing and boarding…well, suffice to say
that it was amazing.
Tess’ confusion over whether to attempt to ski or snowboard
was very quickly resolved, after witnessing some very painful snowboard falls
in the first few days while in her beginner skiing lessons. It became pretty clear that skiing it
was! While making good use of the
skiing lessons on the mountain and enjoying many mornings skiing with Deb
(thanks for your patience Deb!), Tess’ skiing progress was slow but steady,
with only a few hiccups along the way
- including accidentally knocking over a little kid, getting somewhat
stranded when the mountain experienced a complete white-out and one unfortunate
case of getting wrapped around a tree.
Thankfully all injury-free for all parties involved! In between all of
that though, the enjoyment of skiing certainly kicked in, particularly when
Tess found herself finally being able to generate enough speed to not feel like
she was holding Alick back... For
Tess, this newfound enjoyment of skiing was definitely an unexpected bonus
given that the experience of learning how to ski was taken on as a personal
challenge rather than an expectant future hobby – and Alick is certainly very happy
that Tess seems to be about as addicted to the mountains as he is now!
Tess skiing at Big White's 'Gem Lake' |
Alick also took a couple of lessons, which really helped to
tweak his technique – as well as meet other people on the mountain (including
having the opportunity to go riding for a morning on a powder day with his
instructor from the day before – the best way to find all of the chutes through
the trees!! Thanks Duncan!!). We
both really enjoyed being on the mountain, and particularly toward the end of
our time when we were able to ski together a little more. Alick in particular
was thrilled to wake on our final morning to a fresh dump of ~10cm across the
resort, and clear skies to boot.
Having trialled some demo snowboards the day before, and had his stance
professionally aligned, Alick was happy to be back on his board and able to cut
a little loose for our final morning at Big White – including a run in the
Cliff area, which he had been eyeing off for the previous three weeks, but had
not ventured in as the conditions or snow hadn’t been ideal.
Alick at Big White's 'Black Forest' |
We hired an apartment on the mountain for the duration of
our stay and the luxury of having a place where we could completely unpack and
cook for ourselves didn’t wear off…so much so that we very quickly developed an
evening routine of coming in from the mountain, jumping in the hot tub, cooking
dinner, usually being in bed by 8.30 – 9pm so that we could be awake for an
early start on the mountain. While
it may sound very boring and unsociable, we can’t quite describe how blissful
this ‘home life’ was! Of course,
as mentioned in our previous post, this was also aided and abetted by us
developing a continued obsession with the TV series Homeland, which also kept us indoors on a number of nights!! Now that we have finished Season 2,
we’re not sure how we’re going to survive the wait until September for S3!!
We were however lured out of our cosy abode on a few evenings,
joining Dawn and Keith or Deb and Nig in their cabins for dinner, spending an
evening ‘tubing’ and going night-skiing (with Alick strapping some skis back on
for the first time in 15 years).
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Our lovely skiing companions - Christine, Deb and Dawn |
We were totally blown away by the hospitality and generosity of people
at Big White; and in particular our friends Dawn and Keith who went above and
beyond anything we ever imagined, and we are so so grateful to them for all of
their support and hospitality. We also had a great dinner at the Gunbarrel
Grill, complete with the famous ‘Gunbarrel Coffee’ (a coffee laced with cognac
and Grand Marnier, set alight during the serving) constructed and served by the
maestro Keith himself!
Keith whipping up his 'Gunbarrel Coffees' |
After a slightly eventful journey down from the mountain to
Kelowna, we had a lovely night with Dawn and Keith before boarding a bus to Vancouver,
to stay in the Victorian Hotel – where we had stayed six years before with Tess
came to visit while Alick was living in Canada. We had a great couple of nights in Vancouver, characterised
by good food (the amazing sushi and a brilliant sandwich shop called Meat and
Bread being a couple of notable highlights) and great catch-ups with friends
from both near and far…
Once again, our experiences in Canada really tied in with
the overall themes of our journey – to provide us with personal and physical
challenges, to enable us to reconnect with friends and loved ones, and to
provide opportunities to meet new people and have new experiences… We write this post from a plane en
route to Las Vegas, where we commence the final leg of our journey. For the next month we will be driving
around the southern states of the USA, hoping to journey from Las Vegas to New
Orleans, and then back to California in order to catch our flight back to
Australia at the end of March. It
is a bitter-sweet feeling to be embarking on this final component of our trip;
we have had the most amazing and unforgettable experiences, met wonderful
people and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. As we embark on our road trip, however, we are also now
enjoying being able to start thinking and planning in earnest for the next
chapter of our lives in Australia, and are very much looking forward to seeing
friends, family and loved ones when we return in just over a month’s time!
For now, however, Viva Las Vegas!!!