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SKI SUN PEAKS - OR MAYBE NOT |
So what happens to your long awaited ski trip if suddenly you can’t ski? I had reservations at Sun Peaks Resort in British Columbia, Canada. I had a ski buddy lined up. I had winterized my car. And then I broke my ankle, putting a premature screeching halt to my ski season. “Ah, why don’t you go anyway. Try all those non-ski things you never have time for,” a friend suggested. Well, why not. And so, we headed up the Coquihalla Highway, which bisects interior British Columbia in Canada. And luck shined on us. The notoriously fickle highway (there’s even a TV show on the Weather Channel that focuses on teams rescuing 18 wheel trucks from ditches every winter) was just fine. In fact for us, the road was actually bare and dry. DRY! We made it from the Seattle area to the resort in a record seven hours. I decided to focus on four things...dog sledding, ice fishing, a program called Snow Limo and a cat groomer ride. There’s much more, but I had limited time. A link to all the choices is at the end of this story. DOG SLEDDING First, the puppies. Ok, nobody says mush. Nobody, outside of, maybe movies, has EVER said mush, though the folks who drive sleds are often called mushers. Mostly, people who run dogsleds just say, “Go!”
And the dogs aren’t Siberian Huskies. Your average sled dog is something mushers call Alaskan huskies. They are lean and small with long legs and bred to run. In the case of Chris Schwanke’s pups at Mountain Man Adventures, they’re a combo of greyhound or German short hair pointer and...well, who knows what. Chris had, at the time, 50 working dogs and three puppies and all were really friendly. That’s on purpose, so guests can interact with the dogs. My friend and I arrived and first got to pet the dogs and say hello. Then we loaded into sleds, normally two people in a sled with a guide on back. The ride is 10 km (a bit over six miles) and lasts about 90 minutes. And we were off...through the woods, along a lake, across a snow covered golf course, then back into the woods. It can be a semi wild ride, as snow-caked trees whiz by from doggie level, hardly two feet off the ground. But what made this trip different from those I’ve done in the past was the chance to run the sled ourselves. Yow! You stand on the runners behind the sled, which are wider set than you expect if you are a skier. And, said guide Destiny, you just say “go” to start, “easy” to slow and “whoa” to stop.
“Bend your knees a bit and stay flexible,” she added. Kind of like skiing. Or riding a snowmobile. Or a dirt bike. It’s go with the flow. And, before we knew it, we were back at the start, among the dog kennels and other pups. Now came more fun. As a treat after a run, the dogs get chunks of fat to fuel them and keep them warm. You toss the chunk in the air and the dog jumps, mouth wide-open, teeth flashing in the sunlight. It makes for a killer photograph. Finally, to wrap up, we went into the puppy pen, where five-month-old Pirate, Sailor and Captain were waiting to have their ears scratched. It’s not only fun, it helps socialize the dogs from an early age. ICE FISHING Some folks fish for sport. Some for relaxation. Some to “just get away.” I fish to eat. If I can’t eventually put it in a fry pan, I’m not really interested. So enter Elevated Fishing Adventures, where you get all three. Especially the eating part. “Probably half the people who come out with us cook their fish that night,” said owner/guide Campbell Bryk. Campbell picked my friend, Nancy, and me up at 7am and we drove out to nearby Heffley Lake, which at this point in the year, was covered with 20 inch-thick ice.
A few hundred yards out, Campbell set up his fishing tent, got a portable heater going and re-drilled three of his fishing holes. Then he baited our hooks with natural looking lures that not only wriggle, they glow in the dark water below the ice. This is really popular with families that have kids. “As soon as you see fish down there, you can get kids to sit for hours,” Campbell said. And anybody ... ANYbody ... can catch a fish, he insisted, describing one morning where a mom was breast feeding her infant with one hand, and hooking fish with the other. “Her three-year-old caught a 24 inch fish,” he added. The BC government each year stocks Heffley with 5,000 rainbow trout, a fish that Campbell claims, “Anybody can cook and virtually everybody likes because it’s so mild tasting.” The best fishing, he explained, is just before Christmas. The most any group has caught in a day is 36, though folks are limited to keeping only five per person. And the largest fish anyone’s ever caught was 30 inches...big enough to feed six people.
The lake has both wild and stocked fish. The wild ones are dark red and green, the stocked ones are shiny but they both taste the same, so we were told. As for us, we were pushing the end of the season. And the fish were nowhere to be found. Have any groups ever come up completely dry? Only two out of 50 trips. Campbell invited them to come back the next day, free of charge. Okay, we were running out of time. And then, with maybe 15 minutes before we had to pack up, something nibbled Nancy’s line. She set the hook and reeled it in. It was cute. It was tiny. It was too small to keep. So we went back to fishing and now, with merely five minutes to go, Nancy got another one (I was busy taking pictures). Again she hooked it. Again she reeled. Again it came up. And this time it was over a foot long, one of the stocked fish, holding a good pound of edible meat. A keeper. Campbell filleted the fish and delivered it to us later that day. As for the cooking part, we removed what tiny bones remained, cut the fish so it lay flat, tossed it into a frying pan with lots of butter, garlic, a bit of salt and a splash of lime juice. Even I, someone who joyfully eats but doesn’t necessarily cook fish, did a yummy job. Next year, Campbell said, he will have a permit to fish on Paul Lake, which is stocked with landlocked sockeye salmon, called Kokanee in these parts. He’ll be making salmon sashimi for those who want it and cooking lunch. Nancy and I WILL be back. SNOW LIMO There IS a way to experience skiing, even if you don’t ski. Or close to it, since you will be coming down an actual ski slope, keeping up with skiers. Only thing is you will be sitting down. The device is called a Snow Limo. It looks kind of like a dogsled basket, complete with guide behind. The guide, who is on skis, controls the sled’s speed and direction. You just sit there and enjoy the ride.
It’s really popular with parents (think non-skiing moms) who want to watch their kids actually ski, not just skid to a stop at the village. So what is it like? The whole contraption loads on a ski lift, not unlike a sit-ski for a para-athlete. Company owner Mike Pfeil guided me to the lift and as the chair came around, he lifted the back end of the sled and we slid onto the chair. At the other end, we simply glided down the ramp. And then we were off, wind in my face.
CAT GROOMER RIDE Whether you ski or not, learning how the runs are manicured for the next day’s horde of skiers makes for a fascinating 45 minute tour. It’s astonishing how much damage skiers can do to a run in a single day. If the snow is soft, bumps form and the middle gets dug out because that’s where folks prefer to ski. Enter the snow cat groomers. These are powerful cabs—Piston Bully 400s with 320 hp diesel engines—atop tank treads with a blade on front and a tiller on the back. The blade knocks down bumps and that nasty looking tiller, which rotates at over 1,000 rpm, can turn even ice into something resembling powder, which is then smoothed flat into the hero corduroy folks find in the morning. Of Sun Peaks’ 24 operators, two are women. “Honestly, the women do a better job. They are more detail oriented,” admitted my guide for the night, Leo. It takes three years for a groomer to really learn how to do this well, he added. It was one of the women running the winch cat that night. Picture eight tons of growling machine attached by a line to a tree to keep from sliding uncontrollably downslope. This is how the really steep runs get groomed. Back in the day, they just got so bumped and carved out, they were barely skiable.
For me, as dusk fell, the whole scene took on a surreal feel... our headlights shining on the ridges of snow, leaving them glowing with weird shadows, along with the blinding headlights of an oncoming behemoth. I got to thinking about folks who don’t ski...who come with the family and spend their vacation reading or maybe on snow shoes or taking a sleigh ride but not really atop the mountain. What a great way for them to see the terrain their family enjoys. Perhaps it’s even an incentive to try it themselves. On an average night, more than a third of the resort’s ski runs will be groomed. But among those will be every green (beginner) run. And if you are lucky, your favorite black run will have been groomed early, then covered with ankle deep powder overnight, making for a run that feels, well, like skiing a glacier. INFO
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