Finally.....Blog no. 1 of the season!

We have been here 6 weeks now, and many parties, hockey games and get togethers later - the Hill is at last officially OPEN!!

Tomorrow will bring the first day's skiing for me (Luke), though poor Clare will have to wait another day due to that untimely thing called work. We haven't done a day's work for 6 weeks and just as the hill opens, the work comes thick and fast! Sod's Law! Below is a photo taken of the hill before the first snowflake fell. Rest assured it is now covered in the beautiful white stuff!



What have we been doing with ourselves for 6 weeks, I hear you cry?? We wont bore you with all the details, but here are a few of the highlights, and our favorite pics!

We were greeted with some fantastic weather, which in the mountains always means fantastic photos! Here is the view from the lodge at sunset on a clear day.

Once we'd settled, we headed for the job fair where we found jobs! Boo. But I suppose the 'free season pass' was just too good to turn down.

Soon after the fair came Halloween, and our first chance to experience a Fernie Party! Having shopped in Wal Mart for our fabulous costumes (designed for 8-12 year olds!), we were ready to go! Some of you may have seen the outcome on the svl website - if not, you are one of the lucky few.

Straight after Halloween, we treated ourselves to a week in Vancouver, as we felt we didn't do this great city justice on our way through the first time. Highly recommended, and here is a couple of photos taken from Stanley Park to help tempt you...

Just a shame the weather wasn't on our side, with 7 days of rain!

We also found, would you believe, a ROUNDABOUT!! Fernie is laced with ridiculous 4 way stop signs! So a roundabout was a welcome sight.

Back in Fernie, it was made clear to us that you can get spectacular photos even when the weather isn't great....

Next, us boys were politely asked to vacate SVL for a Girls night and hot tub, and we were told no webcams or hidden microphones! One brave male neighbour approached a hot tub full of 10 tipsy girls asking if he could join! Needless to say he walked home seconds later with his tail between his legs - Good work girls.

The first Fernie Birthday fell to our good friend Brad from Aus. We thought we'd help him leave the teenage years in style with a surprise party in the basement!

Where Jenga was a hit! Now nicknamed "JENGA MOTHERF***ER" courtesy of Tim after too many bottles of Kokanee!

Another feature of the party was the hot tub, which has been a big asset to many an evening. The most we have had in it so far is around 10 at the girls night, and I'm sure we can top that by the end of the season! Photographic evidence will be posted here!

Here we must end the story so far, we're pleased to say we are confident the next blog will include some skiing pics! Yey! Can't wait to check out the hill and start carving it up!

Season highlights

OK, ok... so what happened to March and April? Well, they just flew by for us. So much so, that we seemed to neglect this little bit of cyberspace for which we apologise... profusely.

I've had a little rummage through the four hundred or so pictures we seem to have taken this season and tried to find a selection of images to highlight what has been a wonderful season here in Fernie. Now that the hill has closed and the snow is beginning to melt (I say beginning to melt as it snowed at the top of the mountain last night - crazy) it's time for us to move on and hand the noble role of being a Snow Valley Lodge host to the next lucky so and so's.

Fernie, we salute you.

Leaving the UK for our new jobs (which we are now dubbing Best Job In The World TM) as the hosts at Snow Valley Lodge. Seems like such a long time ago now *sob*


Arriving at a very autumnal and not very snowy Fernie. This is the corner of 6th and 10th Aves - what would be our new address for the next six months.


Our first visit to the mountain, sans snow, and hiking one of the many cat-tracks in November.


First major dump in town - the street outside the Lodge suddenly got really white in a matter of hours. When it snows here, it hoons it down!


One of the many visits to Sparwood, and the big green truck known as Titian.


Our first trip to the Ice Hockey - the Fernie Ghostriders had a pretty awesome season, and what with the ice rink being a mere hop, skip and jump from Snow Valley Lodge, you can even avoid the queue for the toilets and go home for a pee between periods!


We hiked the hill a few times before the mountain officially opened... yes, we were that desperate to go snowboarding! It's worth doing - it gets you super fit before the season starts and gets those legs back in shape.


Yet another hike, this time up to the Whitepass chair. Look at all that lovely, untouched powder. It doesn't stay untracked for long once the mountain is up and running every morning.


Trying to keep up with writing the blog - and failing miserably!


Christmas Day and the epic Jamie Oliver extravaganza of a lunch that the hosts cooked (even if we do say so ourselves!)


It's all very well getting large dumps of snow, but we had to do a LOT of shovelling... (kidding! Just kidding!) We had a nice wall of snow around the hot-tub by the end of December - good for privacy, y'know!


And here is the wonderful hot-tub, in all it's glory. This is an absolute godsend, I tell you - Best Invention Ever!


The infamous Face Lift - a real rite of passage for anyone, particularly those on one plank, instead of two! It gets easier, we promise.


The Dummy Downhill 2006 was a great event - completely crazy nutters made cars, planes and all manner of wierd vehicular stuff and then rode them headfirst down the Deer run.


We managed to fulfil one of our ambitions whilst here and saw some Moose - a mother and a calf pottering around by the Elk river. That was pretty special.


Jethro shows off his new skillz, innit. Springtime slushy snow and the inevitable end of the season meant that everyone started to go much bigger and ride much harder.


The last day on the hill, where everyone gathered for a drink or three and reminisced about a wonderful season.


Another beautiful spring day in Fernie. The river is getting higher as more and more of the snow melts.


Time to swap the skis and boards for bikes.

Polar Peak

Fernie Alpine Resort is made up of 5 bowls; Siberia, Timber, Currie , Lizard and Cedar. These bowls are located beneath 4 mountain peaks; Mammoth Head (6807 ft), Elephant Head (6709 ft), Polar Peak (7000 ft) and Grizzly Peak (6900 ft).

Over the last 4 days we've experienced some lovely blue-sky days which has meant that the Face Lift, the highest lift in the resort, has been opened. The opening of the Face Lift has allowed access to the peaks of each mountain top.

On Sunday, Hamish and myself decided that a hike to the highest peak was in order. To get there we had to get 2 chairlifts which took us to a height of 6316 ft. From the top of the White Pass chairlift we had to then traverse across the top of the Currie Bowl to the point where we had to start hiking. The climb was between 600 - 700 feet and took us around 35 minutes.



Mammoth Peak, on the left of the map, is outside of the resort boundary. Elephant Head is next, followed by Polar Peak in the middle with Grizzly Peak on the right.

The views made the climb worth while.


Once we had got to the other side of the Currie Bowl, Polar Peak rises above you.
All we had to do then was climb...straight up! There where already footprints there from when someone had already hiked to the summit. The path is the lighter snow, just to the left of center.


Making my way up the ridge to the summit.


Hamish's legs are a lot younger than my own.


It was a full adrenaline rush when I got to the top.


Hamish was also quite happy!


Standing high above Fernie Alpine Resort, with the City of Fernie in the background.














Hamish begins his descent.


The descent was very steep indeed, but a lot of fun!

New snow for Fernie!

We've had some great snowfalls in the last two weeks, and guess what? It hasn't rained! Although the temperatures are still quite mild for this time of year, Friday brought us a foot of snow in just one day - pretty fantastic! The Griz is obviously a happy chappy right now, so I hope his good mood continues...

Fernie is looking very pretty, as the pictures below will prove:

Top of the mountain on Saturday morning


A rather scenic (if I do say so myself) picture of a tree in the garden. (Jethro has been digging pathways to the hot-tub and the front door and there's so much snow we are contemplating building an igloo! The trenches alone would make a WW2 veteran happy!)


The best place to live in Fernie - Snow Valley Lodge!


An average sight on Fernie's high street - no pampered pooches here, no siree!

Jingle Bells!

Christmas Day at SVL was a little less snowy than we had all anticipated, but we had a great day all the same.

For some reason, the temperatures decided to take a trip up the thermometer for a good few days and it rained, a LOT. Most of the snow in town was washed away, but the upper part of the mountain had a great deal of snow, so lots of fresh powder. The lower slopes didn't fare so well, and with all the holiday crowds arriving, a few brown patches started to appear and you had to do a bit of rock hopping here and there.

At least with all the rain, it felt a bit more like home! Jethro and I were determined to go snowboarding on Christmas Day so we set the alarm for 6.45am, woke up, opened our stockings, sorted out the turkey, bunged it in the oven, and got up to the hill for first lifts at 8.30am. Phew! By 11am, we had to come down again to sort out lunch but we got a good few runs in all the same with the other SVL guests.

I decided on a Jamie Oliver extravaganza of a christmas lunch - I'd never cooked a turkey and the full works before, but it was surprisingly simple. I did a lot of prep work on Christmas Eve which helped enourmously. God Bless Mr Oliver. Couldn't have done it without the cockney geezer! We had turkey, pigs in blankets, roast spuds, roast butternut squash, stuffing, brussell sprouts, carrots, parsnips, gravy... I could go on, but it will bore you!

Needless to say, everyone was highly complimentary and I didn't poison anyone so I think it went rather well!

With full tummies, we spent the rest of the day opening parcels from the UK, watching The Simpsons, and eating more. No Queen's Speech in Canada, which is a crying shame I feel!

So that was our christmas here. Fernie is suddenly very busy with lots of tourists visiting from other parts of Canada, but the good news is that the snow is here again. It's been snowing on and off for the last day or two at the base of the mountain, and it's been snowing in town since 3pm this afternoon and as I peek through the curtains at 9pm, it's still falling steadily. We have a full lodge for New Years Eve so will report back soon!

Happy Christmas and here's to a snowy New Year!

6.45am - it's turkey time!


Opening presents by the tree (which we cut down ourselves, might I add!)


The Jamie Oliver Christmas lunch extravaganza!


Extreeeeeeeeeeme close up!

And so it begins...

Fernie mountain opened yesterday, and boy, what a change from our usually empty mountain! Three of the car parks were full by 8.30am and the lifts didn't open until 9am! Regrettably, we were dumb enough to forget our camera in the rush to fill the van with bodies and zoom up there for first lifts so you'll have to take our word for it!

There were queues of people at the Timber Bowl Express chair - about 100 or so gathered. By the time we'd sorted out passes and meandered over to the Elk Quad chair they had started to run it, and we queued for about...um.... three minutes in all. It's a travesty, I tells ya! ;-) And within about 9.10am, everyone had dispersed to different areas of the mountain and it was hardly busy at all. If this is what they call "Fernie Busy" then I will be a very happy bunny for the rest of the season:

Nobody cut me up
Nobody elbowed me in the lift line
Everyone grinned, smiled, waved and whooped
People actually said the words "No, I insist! Afer you!" in the queue
And the sun shone all day

So, all in all, a pretty good opening day for us!

We could still do with a bit more snow, particularly as the mountain has been scarred up this weekend and there probably isn't a stingle stash of white fluffy stuff left anywhere. It's pretty hard in the mornings - a tad icy - but when the sun shines and it softens up, it's still pretty good. We're due for a dump (of snow - stop sniggering at the back) this coming week, so fingers crossed.

We do have a few pictures to post up from last week. Jethro and some of the other keener hikers among us decided to do one last hike on Thursday - before the hoards descended - and went all the way up to Whitepass, which took them two and a half hours... (pretty good going by anyones standards).

And SVL is now the proud owner of two new Christmas trees, which we chopped down ourselves (shhh! Don't tell anyone!) I'm jesting. Apparently it's OK to cut down a tree if it's underneath a power line so that's what we did.

Our first guests for the season arrived today, so we're going to show them around town tonight and play a few games of pool, have some dinner, introduce them to the local wildlife, that sort of thing. And tomorrow brings another day of snowboarding... it's a hard life.

Taken from the top of Whitepass


Another stunning Fernie view


The intrepid hikers trudge up another cat track


The SVL basement christmas tree - pretty huh?


The SVL lounge christmas tree, with presents underneath - yay!


The sunset was so lovely tonight that I had to include a picture of it

Making full use of an empty mountain

Apologies for the lack of recent postings, but we've been taking advantage of the mountain before opening day and Alex has been learning the ropes at Fernie Sports - her new workplace when she's not looking after the guests at SVL.

We've been out for a few hikes lately which has been great - firstly to get our fitness levels up, and secondly to get to know the mountain. It's a real priviledge to have the place to yourselves, as we generally do. You might meet up with some other lone hikers or a few boarders/skiers, and in typical Fernie tradition, everyone stops for a chat and wishes you a good day. All very civilised and a world away from the European attitudes that we are more used to!

Firstly, a bit of resort information...

Fernie Alpine Resort covers a series of five different bowls spread over four different mountain peaks. The Mammoth Head peak reaches 6807 feet above sea level, Elephant Head is 6709, Grizzly Peak to the right of the resort climbs to 6900 feet while Polar Peak is the highest reaching 7000 feet into the sky. The five different bowls in the resort all have their own individual attributes and terrain.

From left to right, there is Siberia Bowl which contains one big chute running from the top of the mountain to the bottom. The next over is the Timber Bowl, now believe it or not this bowl contains many, many trees and is excellent fun if you like a good tree run down. Next is the Currie Bowl, and Jethro says this is quite possibly the best ever terrain he has ever had the pleasure to ride. For some reason the Currie Bowl accumulates the most amount of fresh snow of all of the five bowls, in fact, the first run you come to in the Currie Bowl is called 'Currie Powder'!

The next bowl along is called the Lizard Bowl... More to follow on this Bowl.

The final bowl in the resort is called the Cedar Bowl. This one is really a huge open face without too many trees (apart from at the very top when you drop into it), it’s mostly open piste with the odd rock here and there. I haven't really explored to two outer bowls as the ski boundary area cuts through these bowls. In other words, certain areas are not covered by the ski patrol!

The other week Jethro and some others were fortunate enough to catch a piste-basher/snowcat ride all the way to the top of the chair lift. This is at the very top of the ridge that separates the Timber Bowl and the Currie Bowl. On that particular day they rode back down through the Timber Bowl.

On Thursday (24th) we set off in a different direction, we'd trekked up the left side so this time we went up towards the right. Our initial plan was to get to the 'Bears Den', a restaurant half way up the Lizard Bowl, a popular stopping point for hikers on the mountain. We got to the Den in good time and decided to push on further as the usual burning sensation hadn't quite reached our lungs. We continued up the Bear piste where the hiking became quite intense, we had to take it in turns to lead the group as because as it was an untracked piste the leader had to kick foot holds for the rest of the group to use. The piste got steadily steeper as we climbed into the cloud layer.

As we climbed higher we broke through the cloud and everything became a lot clearer, we could see the top of the Great Bear Express chair that we were following so everyone’s pace seemed to quicken. When we got to the top we stopped to refuel on water and 'Gritz', a combination of dried banana, peanuts, wasabi peas, oat-bran and sunflower seeds. Excellent for refuelling and boosting your bodies’ energy supplies. We rested for about 10 minutes, pausing to absorb the amazing views from above the clouds, before we strapped on our boards for the ride back down. After hiking all that way, up the steep piste you work up a bit of a sweat, it doesn't take very long for your body temperature to drop when it's minus 10!

The ride down was pretty sweeet! Plenty of untracked powder with wide open unpopulated runs. It's like the mountain is all ours to play on... well, for now anyway!

I love my new snowboard!

Climbing High on the Bear piste; (L-R) Hammo, Mike, Tony, Bree and Matt off in the distance.


We got to the top of the Great Bear Express chair lift, the second highest access point in the Lizard Bowl.


The view was well worth the climb, once we'd broken through the clouds.
The picture really doesn't do it justice.


Jethro and a cold looking tree!


The hikers; (L-R) Mike, Bree, Jethro, Tony (kneeling), Matt and Hammo.


The ride back down through the clouds was alright I suppose ;)


On Sunday we went for a slightly more leisurely hike with some of Alex's girlfriends and made it just past the Bear's Den. Some recent snowfalls have made the mid-level of the mountain just perfect to board/ski on - light, fluffy powder on top of a decent base. The anticipation for opening day on December 10th is almost palpable in the air. With more snowfall due this week, things are looking good.

The girlie group - with Jethro and Simon tagging along!


Steadily climbing the cat-track


The sun makes a valiant attempt to break through the clouds