Last year we hit 49º N and Whitewater during this week, and this year was another Indy Pass-ish trip up north... with Big White and Apex (and possibly 49 N again).
The wife and I did a trip to the Okaogan last week. The region saw roughly a foot of new snow the previous week, but that was about it since early January. We stayed our first night in Chewelah considering skiing 49º N on Sunday (did it last year, fun resort), but the road report/route to Big White looked a little sketchy, so we opted to take off. I'm glad we did, because the most direct route was completely snowpacked, fairly windy, and was just above forest road use (we saw 4 cars in 25 miles) so speeds were way down. Thankfully, they sand pretty well in those parts, so it wasn't particularly icy. The second road that took us to the CAN border wasn't much better, as it winded along a river the whole way, and the road was also in the shade, so it was also snowpacked. The border crossing was almost happy to see a person.
We got to Big White, and stayed in the Chateau Big White, which is right in the village, and pretty much ski in/out. Over the 3 nights here, we ate all our meals at various restaurants in the village. All we ate at were decent, but the Globe was the best, and we actually ate there 2 nights.
Big White on Monday was beautiful. Lots of blue skies, light winds, but very cold (single digits). For the first time in my 32 yrs of riding, I suggested we do a mountain tour with a host. So glad we did, as Big White is a little confusing at first, with lots of criss-crossing trails. We hit 4 lifts, all on the front side... skiing the best groomers off Ridge Rocket, Powder, Bullet and Black Forest. Two hours non-stop (My wife was a good sport, and held up good, even though she's a very fair-weather, low intermediate 5-10 day yr skier).
Pretty much all the groomers were a firm, but completely edge-able with some sugar on top. Only a few spots we scraped off, and those were areas where that were generally wind exposed. Crowds were more than I expected, but lift lines were at the most, 2-4 minutes. After lunch, we did several more runs off all of those chairs, and a few clouds popped up (but nothing serious). I looked over at Cliff chair, and briefly considered it, but with no one riding it, and relative lack of snow the past month, I passed. I also thought about the T-bar, but I hadn't done a T-bar in about 5 yrs, and his one looked pretty long and steep, (not terribly comfortable on a snowboard) so I also passed. I considered heading over to Gem Lake area, but decided I'd do it tomorrow, as today was mainly ski-with-wife day.
Tuesday woke with more sunshine and bitter cold, but now we had wind as a reinforcing Arctic Front passed through. Joy. I knew some breezes were expected, but I didn't take into account the two (wind and cold) together. Anyway, we bundled up and headed out. With temps around 0º F, winds were gusting to 30+ mph on the top half of the mountain, so they had Gem Lake, Cliff, T-bar, Powder and Bullet closed... for wind, but especially the wind chill down to -25 or lower. The "crowds" headed to a more sheltered Black Forest lift, as did we, but coming up to a 10 min long lift-line, we decided to head back toward Ridge Rocket. Thankfully, 2/3 of that lift was sheltered from wind, but the frozen blast kicked in the last 1/4. We did a couple runs, and they were mixed conditions... the wind has scoured the exposed areas, which made them hard packed/icy. A bit lower down, they were still mostly PP with a little bit of wind blown tossed in.
The wife quit after lunch, and I did a a few more runs, even though I was freezing, as the heated gloves and socks had a tough time keeping up. Unfortunately, all upper mountain lifts were still closed, and word was they would likely not open the rest of the day. With fewer lifts, they did have both Ridge Rocket and Snow Ghost Chair (the 2 High speed lifts right next to each other) going to reduce any lines, which were minimal/none in the PM. Groomed blues were slightly better to the S/W of Snow Ghost chair, but still had to watch out for scoured spots. I never got to get over to Gem Lake, unfortunately. I had heard good things about the couple long bomber runs over there, and was looking forward to that.
Day 3 we headed to Kelowna, and spent the day piddling around town and going to Costco, the Mall, old town and the lakefront. It's always interesting going to stores in a different country, because even though it's "only" Canada, many of the stores/products are different than the US. Overall, Kelowna is a very scenic city, however traffic was heavy around town, and it was a little too "big city" for me. In fact, the Costco midday on a Wednesday was the most crowded I've seen a Costco since I lived in Socal. An employee said it was right up there with many other big city stores in CAN, due it it's isolated location and such a large area for rural customers.
Thursday, we got up early and headed to Apex Mtn... It was sunny, but still bitterly cold, and winds were breezy, but slightly less than Tuesday. The relatively long, windy drive (that gained about 4,000') from Penticton to Apex mountain was snow packed, but sanded and not really a problem, especially with such little traffic. Once at the Apex Village, we wandered around for 30 minutes before finally calling our condo/ property Managment Co. They had a general check in list for their 32 properties, but most of them were not applicable for our unit... not to mention, our unit was not listed in the check in, as I assumed the address given was for the condo. Doh!
We quickly got dressed and onto the mountain before noon and spent the next several hours riding. Apex, like Big White has seen roughly a foot of new snow the previous week, so conditions were better than when Tony was here a few weeks earlier. Not many bare spots/rocks peeking up, but the top 1/4 of the mountain still had some scoured spots where the wind got it. The wind was pretty gusty, but only at the very top of the Hight speed Quickdraw chair. We took several runs off the top, and then headed over to the Stock's triple chair. This area of the mountain was mostly wind protected, and also one of the few areas that see's a decent amount of sun... a rarity for this fairly steep north facing mountain in winter. Over here, we saw the best snow conditions of the trip, with all groomed runs were near perfect PP. While the triple chair is pretty slow, it does gain some respectable vertical, so the runs are fairly long. Crowds were very light, with zero lift lines. I went back over to the Quick Draw Express and did a few more runs to end the day.
Friday, we woke up to 3" of new snow, which was a bit of a surprise (forecast was for 1").... again, saw sunny skies with continued bitter cold. Winds were still there on the upper part of the mountain, and seemed to get worse as the day wore on. Everything off the top was now pretty much scoured, even with the new snow... and stayed that way for at least half of the way down. While the wife was already over at Stock's Chair, I made my way back there, too and spent most of the afternoon in that area again. Again, little wind, sun on the lift ride and excellent groomers, especially with the new snow, made it an easy decision to stay on this side of the mountain. Crowds were noticeably increased from the day before, likely due to it being the beginning of Family Day Weekend (aka Presidents Day weekend in the US). Even so, there was at the most a 1 minute wait on Stock's chair.
Apex has 2 main restaurants. With it being Valentines day and then holiday weekend, the more upscale steakhouse Longshot's was long booked up, so we ate both nights at the Gunbarrel Saloon. Definitely old school ski bar vibe, and that was fun. The food was just OK, however. The cozy Edge Bistro was good for lunch and coffee breaks, and we stopped in there both days. Tony mentioned the fun ski paraphernalia in his reports, and it was fun.
I can totally see why Tony considers this one of the best low density ski areas. It is pretty isolated, and has some excellent terrain. Unfortunately/fortunately since it faces almost entirely north, snow conditions are preserved. On the flip side, the sun doesn't make it above the top of the mountain until probably March, so you're skiing riding in shadows all winter (On a cloudy day, which is probably the norm here, I guess it wouldn't matter much). Lastly, snowfall is low here, so if you do score a powder day with a decent base, it could be outstanding. Unfortunately, 236" annual snowfall means probably very few of those, until later in the winter. I would think March would be the best month to ski here.
We had plans to drive to Spokane and spend the night, as we enjoy downtown and a couple restaurants there. However, a pretty decent snowstorm was spreading into the region that evening/Sunday, so we decided to drive the 9 hrs back home, only hitting snow the last hour or so of the drive as it got dark. However, this was familiar country, so it wasn't a huge deal (even though I rarely drive at night anymore).
Here are the few pix I took, both of Big White/Apex. With it being cold, and the fact I don't take a lot of pictures anymore... these aren't very exciting.
Got lazy and didn't feel like separating them, however there are a few I labeled.
Big White:
Top of Ridge Rocket looking toward the Summit/T-bar
Cliff Chair
Kelowna Lakefront
APEX MTN:
Apex Mtn from the parking lot entrance. We stayed in the building right in front there.
A bit of a surprise 3" of snow on Thursday Night.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Canadianisms:
While I go to Canada a lot, I never paid attention to a couple things that drove me crazy on this trip.
1. EVERYONE puts the safety/rest bar down. The only time on the entire trip that didn't happen was on a ride with 2 other snowboarders on the Ghost chair at Big White. It wasn't an issue at Apex, but at Big White... many lifts were 3-4 people a chair.. which with a snowboard and skis mixed, can make it challenging for the snowboarder to say the least. This was discussed in a previous thread recently, and I hadn't really paid attention to it here. Part of that is probably due to me doing places that were rarely busy enough to have more than me and my wife on a chair. I asked some Canadians about this on a lift ride up, and they immediately said "you're American, aren't you?". They basically told me it was just the culture there. However, they did mention they get the willies when they ride in the US, and many don't put the bar down.
2. Do you ever notice that in many business' that have 2 doors (side by side) to get in/out, the right side one (exit) is almost always locked? Drove me absolutely nuts. I asked a couple people about it, and no one seemed bothered/noticed. It's especially annoying when there's lots of people going in and out of the same door.
The wife and I did a trip to the Okaogan last week. The region saw roughly a foot of new snow the previous week, but that was about it since early January. We stayed our first night in Chewelah considering skiing 49º N on Sunday (did it last year, fun resort), but the road report/route to Big White looked a little sketchy, so we opted to take off. I'm glad we did, because the most direct route was completely snowpacked, fairly windy, and was just above forest road use (we saw 4 cars in 25 miles) so speeds were way down. Thankfully, they sand pretty well in those parts, so it wasn't particularly icy. The second road that took us to the CAN border wasn't much better, as it winded along a river the whole way, and the road was also in the shade, so it was also snowpacked. The border crossing was almost happy to see a person.
We got to Big White, and stayed in the Chateau Big White, which is right in the village, and pretty much ski in/out. Over the 3 nights here, we ate all our meals at various restaurants in the village. All we ate at were decent, but the Globe was the best, and we actually ate there 2 nights.
Big White on Monday was beautiful. Lots of blue skies, light winds, but very cold (single digits). For the first time in my 32 yrs of riding, I suggested we do a mountain tour with a host. So glad we did, as Big White is a little confusing at first, with lots of criss-crossing trails. We hit 4 lifts, all on the front side... skiing the best groomers off Ridge Rocket, Powder, Bullet and Black Forest. Two hours non-stop (My wife was a good sport, and held up good, even though she's a very fair-weather, low intermediate 5-10 day yr skier).
Pretty much all the groomers were a firm, but completely edge-able with some sugar on top. Only a few spots we scraped off, and those were areas where that were generally wind exposed. Crowds were more than I expected, but lift lines were at the most, 2-4 minutes. After lunch, we did several more runs off all of those chairs, and a few clouds popped up (but nothing serious). I looked over at Cliff chair, and briefly considered it, but with no one riding it, and relative lack of snow the past month, I passed. I also thought about the T-bar, but I hadn't done a T-bar in about 5 yrs, and his one looked pretty long and steep, (not terribly comfortable on a snowboard) so I also passed. I considered heading over to Gem Lake area, but decided I'd do it tomorrow, as today was mainly ski-with-wife day.
Tuesday woke with more sunshine and bitter cold, but now we had wind as a reinforcing Arctic Front passed through. Joy. I knew some breezes were expected, but I didn't take into account the two (wind and cold) together. Anyway, we bundled up and headed out. With temps around 0º F, winds were gusting to 30+ mph on the top half of the mountain, so they had Gem Lake, Cliff, T-bar, Powder and Bullet closed... for wind, but especially the wind chill down to -25 or lower. The "crowds" headed to a more sheltered Black Forest lift, as did we, but coming up to a 10 min long lift-line, we decided to head back toward Ridge Rocket. Thankfully, 2/3 of that lift was sheltered from wind, but the frozen blast kicked in the last 1/4. We did a couple runs, and they were mixed conditions... the wind has scoured the exposed areas, which made them hard packed/icy. A bit lower down, they were still mostly PP with a little bit of wind blown tossed in.
The wife quit after lunch, and I did a a few more runs, even though I was freezing, as the heated gloves and socks had a tough time keeping up. Unfortunately, all upper mountain lifts were still closed, and word was they would likely not open the rest of the day. With fewer lifts, they did have both Ridge Rocket and Snow Ghost Chair (the 2 High speed lifts right next to each other) going to reduce any lines, which were minimal/none in the PM. Groomed blues were slightly better to the S/W of Snow Ghost chair, but still had to watch out for scoured spots. I never got to get over to Gem Lake, unfortunately. I had heard good things about the couple long bomber runs over there, and was looking forward to that.
Day 3 we headed to Kelowna, and spent the day piddling around town and going to Costco, the Mall, old town and the lakefront. It's always interesting going to stores in a different country, because even though it's "only" Canada, many of the stores/products are different than the US. Overall, Kelowna is a very scenic city, however traffic was heavy around town, and it was a little too "big city" for me. In fact, the Costco midday on a Wednesday was the most crowded I've seen a Costco since I lived in Socal. An employee said it was right up there with many other big city stores in CAN, due it it's isolated location and such a large area for rural customers.
Thursday, we got up early and headed to Apex Mtn... It was sunny, but still bitterly cold, and winds were breezy, but slightly less than Tuesday. The relatively long, windy drive (that gained about 4,000') from Penticton to Apex mountain was snow packed, but sanded and not really a problem, especially with such little traffic. Once at the Apex Village, we wandered around for 30 minutes before finally calling our condo/ property Managment Co. They had a general check in list for their 32 properties, but most of them were not applicable for our unit... not to mention, our unit was not listed in the check in, as I assumed the address given was for the condo. Doh!
We quickly got dressed and onto the mountain before noon and spent the next several hours riding. Apex, like Big White has seen roughly a foot of new snow the previous week, so conditions were better than when Tony was here a few weeks earlier. Not many bare spots/rocks peeking up, but the top 1/4 of the mountain still had some scoured spots where the wind got it. The wind was pretty gusty, but only at the very top of the Hight speed Quickdraw chair. We took several runs off the top, and then headed over to the Stock's triple chair. This area of the mountain was mostly wind protected, and also one of the few areas that see's a decent amount of sun... a rarity for this fairly steep north facing mountain in winter. Over here, we saw the best snow conditions of the trip, with all groomed runs were near perfect PP. While the triple chair is pretty slow, it does gain some respectable vertical, so the runs are fairly long. Crowds were very light, with zero lift lines. I went back over to the Quick Draw Express and did a few more runs to end the day.
Friday, we woke up to 3" of new snow, which was a bit of a surprise (forecast was for 1").... again, saw sunny skies with continued bitter cold. Winds were still there on the upper part of the mountain, and seemed to get worse as the day wore on. Everything off the top was now pretty much scoured, even with the new snow... and stayed that way for at least half of the way down. While the wife was already over at Stock's Chair, I made my way back there, too and spent most of the afternoon in that area again. Again, little wind, sun on the lift ride and excellent groomers, especially with the new snow, made it an easy decision to stay on this side of the mountain. Crowds were noticeably increased from the day before, likely due to it being the beginning of Family Day Weekend (aka Presidents Day weekend in the US). Even so, there was at the most a 1 minute wait on Stock's chair.
Apex has 2 main restaurants. With it being Valentines day and then holiday weekend, the more upscale steakhouse Longshot's was long booked up, so we ate both nights at the Gunbarrel Saloon. Definitely old school ski bar vibe, and that was fun. The food was just OK, however. The cozy Edge Bistro was good for lunch and coffee breaks, and we stopped in there both days. Tony mentioned the fun ski paraphernalia in his reports, and it was fun.
I can totally see why Tony considers this one of the best low density ski areas. It is pretty isolated, and has some excellent terrain. Unfortunately/fortunately since it faces almost entirely north, snow conditions are preserved. On the flip side, the sun doesn't make it above the top of the mountain until probably March, so you're skiing riding in shadows all winter (On a cloudy day, which is probably the norm here, I guess it wouldn't matter much). Lastly, snowfall is low here, so if you do score a powder day with a decent base, it could be outstanding. Unfortunately, 236" annual snowfall means probably very few of those, until later in the winter. I would think March would be the best month to ski here.
We had plans to drive to Spokane and spend the night, as we enjoy downtown and a couple restaurants there. However, a pretty decent snowstorm was spreading into the region that evening/Sunday, so we decided to drive the 9 hrs back home, only hitting snow the last hour or so of the drive as it got dark. However, this was familiar country, so it wasn't a huge deal (even though I rarely drive at night anymore).
Here are the few pix I took, both of Big White/Apex. With it being cold, and the fact I don't take a lot of pictures anymore... these aren't very exciting.
Got lazy and didn't feel like separating them, however there are a few I labeled.
Big White:
Top of Ridge Rocket looking toward the Summit/T-bar
Cliff Chair
Kelowna Lakefront
APEX MTN:
Apex Mtn from the parking lot entrance. We stayed in the building right in front there.
A bit of a surprise 3" of snow on Thursday Night.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Canadianisms:
While I go to Canada a lot, I never paid attention to a couple things that drove me crazy on this trip.
1. EVERYONE puts the safety/rest bar down. The only time on the entire trip that didn't happen was on a ride with 2 other snowboarders on the Ghost chair at Big White. It wasn't an issue at Apex, but at Big White... many lifts were 3-4 people a chair.. which with a snowboard and skis mixed, can make it challenging for the snowboarder to say the least. This was discussed in a previous thread recently, and I hadn't really paid attention to it here. Part of that is probably due to me doing places that were rarely busy enough to have more than me and my wife on a chair. I asked some Canadians about this on a lift ride up, and they immediately said "you're American, aren't you?". They basically told me it was just the culture there. However, they did mention they get the willies when they ride in the US, and many don't put the bar down.
2. Do you ever notice that in many business' that have 2 doors (side by side) to get in/out, the right side one (exit) is almost always locked? Drove me absolutely nuts. I asked a couple people about it, and no one seemed bothered/noticed. It's especially annoying when there's lots of people going in and out of the same door.
