Big White

The end of February to mid-March. This is the time of year that will almost guarantee that you will have dump after dump of that dry, white, champagne powder snow up at Big White, Kelowna's ski resort. It has been several years now that a group of family and friends have been going up to Big White for one week of snowboarding. We rent the same log house, in the heart of the village, right on the slope

This year, we were lucky yet again. After almost three weeks of no new snow, 12 cm fell the night we arrived. It snowed a few more cm each night with blue skies during the day. The last couple of days, another 15cm then, unfortunately, the morning we left, another 35cm! My niece, Nathalie, brought with her a posse from Winnipeg coming by plane, train and automobiles.

Those that had not been here before were indeed impressed. It's difficult not to be with the size of the mountain and especially the awesome powder in the glades. I boarded a lot with my nephew Dali, my brother-in-law David and his friend Lloyd. We spent a lot of time flying in and out of the trees off the runs of the Gem lake chair.

Evenings were spent in the living room, near the wood stove, playing crib, the dice game of 10,000 or other board games. We had great food that everyone shared in cooking. There was a lot of moaning too with soar muscles and bruised butts. A few of the friends took a beating riding the rails in the terrain park. I got knocked about quite a bit too from branches scratching my face to a few bails from taking jumps. Before long, it was over, everyone psyched to do it again, next year.