Big White

We met with Sue's sisters, Ann and Judy, Ann's husband, Dave, and friends Chris and Wayne and all went to the Big White ski resort near Kelowna, 4-5 hrs drive inland.

Anne, Dave, Chris, Steve and Judy. The sign behind shows you the marked trails and degree of difficulty.

There are 118 marked runs through the forest with a wide range of difficulty. Most slopes are groomed but some are left for the purists. There is always the option of making your own trail through the trees - as long as you can turn quickly and don't mind hugging the odd tree that gets in the way (just remember they are effectively frozen solid!).

The slopes were never crowded and the lift queues were never long. Dave, a registered ski instructor, can be seen giving Ann a skiing lesson. One of those tracks through the snow are mine!

Libby and Katie had daily lessons from their Uncle Dave. We were very lucky because Dave was not so lucky. He had injured himself a few days earlier roller blading so he wasn't keen on hard fast downhill skiing so he was more than happy to ski slowly and carefully with the girls!

The weather wasn't always blue skys and usually -5 to -9 C but that didn't stop us skiing each day. We were well dressed for all conditions (they even had small heating pads to put inside their gloves for warmth!). The girls skied on virtually all the green and blue runs.

This was the view from our apartment. Each morning we would walk across the road, put on our skis and ski down to the bottom of the lift shown and then ride up to the resort village and all the other 15 lifts. We could easily ski back to our home for the 5 days.

At 3:30pm the lifts close for a couple of hours before the floodlit night skiing starts. So we would all squash into the hot tub for muscle therapy and cold ales! Wayne always seemed to be in the tub first! The overflow from the tub would freeze on the balcony and front entrance below making entry and exit rather precarious.

We had turns at cooking dinner so we lived a good life of skiing, eating, drinking and partying.

Apart from night skiing we also went mega snow coaster tube riding - sliding down iced slopes on inner tubes. A lift hooks onto your tube and tows you up the hill.

Sue and Libby are preparing themselves for their descent. We went down individually, in pairs, all 5(incl Judy) holding each other and/or spun on departure by the ski patrol guys. A real buzz!