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