Halle’s Smooooth Words o’ Wisdom

Michelle and I married in September 2005 and finally set off on our honeymooon February 11, 2006. Our itinerary consisted of a long dreamed of 2 week ski safari though British Columbia and a bit of Alberta, Canada. We spent 4 nights in Nelson, 1 in Fernie, 2 in Banff, 2 in Golden and 4 at Rodger’s Pass. We found the best snow in Nelson, Kootenay Pass and Rodger’s Pass and encountered friendly Canadians all along the way. In the picture above we’re seated in what’s known as a ‘backside Cadillac’ at the Whitewater Ski Resort near Nelson, B.C.
We were fortunate to have met Jim, aka the Jiminator, and his posse of friends who showed us many sweet lines through the infamous Whitewater backside. Here are a few pictures of our Whitewater friends starting with the Jiminator. And, by the way, do not be fooled by the gray hair, those of us who may be a decade or two their juniors can only hope to ski as much, as well and as strongly as these folks do:

And here’s a spot Joan and Mike showed us on the backside known as the rock garden:

These are some shots from our first day at Whitewater where we skied the 5-mile basin based on recommendations from our Portland friends Pat and Dan. The skiing was too good and I was too amped to shoot any pictures of Michelle actually skiing downhill:

Michelle peels hide elegantly while I’m more clumsy and do the take-the-skis-completely-off thing:

Our second night at the hostel Michelle styled my poles like she had hers in Portland prior to our departure. Hockey tape works great for making these grips on a ski pole. When traversing a steep slope it’s often awkward to hold your pole by the grip on top. Wrapping a bunch of tape on top of a twined & coiled piece lower down the pole shaft makes a nice grip and traversing a steep slope much more comfortable for your uphill shoulder:

For me these 2 pictures sum up the essence of Whitewater skiing:

We really loved the town of Nelson and it was everything friends who’d been there said it was. Nelson has a wonderful feel. A poster in the Dancing Bear Inn where we stayed quoted the following poem by William Henry Channing and Michelle says it pretty much summarizes her philosophy on life (two week ski vacations are a great way to clear one’s head away from working in a law firm and reassess one’s priorities of course!):

‘To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common–this is my symphony.‘

All good things must come to an end and sadly we had to leave Nelson. We headed for Fernie B.C. with a stop at Kootenay Pass for a 1/2 day ski tour along Ripple Ridge south of the pass:

The snow was fabulous on north facing tree slopes. There’s scads of terrain there and we will return someday!

Unfortunately Fernie hadn’t received much snow in a while and the temps were, to quote Michelle’s cousin Sam Detwiler who teaches snowboarding at Big Mountain in Whitefish, Montana, ‘colder than a witch’s tit in a steel bra.’ It was a one run and done kind of day. Fernie is an impressive place which we hope to visit again. Here are some pictures from our short ‘n frozen day outside:

-6F did not include wind chill according to our rental car manual. Sweet jeebus!

This last of 4 Fernie pictures was snapped from downtown. And snapped in a hurry I might add:

Our next stop was Banff for 2 days of r&r. These were some sights along the way:

And of course congrats to the Newfie men on their gold in curling. Every town in Canada must have a curling club!

Banff is a developed and touristy town in an utterly jaw dropping locale. Sometimes it’s hard for me to take pictures in such places. Sometimes things can’t be replicated or you’ve seen them so many times in postcards and/or picture books that yet another picture screams banality. Sometimes pictures cannot do a place justice and Banff, imho, is one of them.

The last 6 days of our trip were spent between Golden and Rodger’s Pass B.C. We met up with 2 friends along the way: Grania Devine the owner of the Selkirk Lodge and Sylvain Hebert a ski mountaineering guide based in Revelstoke B.C. We met Grania for coffee in Revelstoke one morning and ran into Sylvain at the Glacier Park Lodge at Rodger’s Pass. Sylvain was teaching a level one avalanche course.

Rodger’s Pass is ski touring nirvana. A steep and powdery heaven on earth. It’s a serious place that’s not to be taken lightly as stated in J.P. Kors’ and John Kelly’s consummate guide book Ski Touring In Rodger’s Pass: “Experience should also be used when picking a route from this book and the reader should be cautioned that this country is often a step up in terms of difficulty and physical strain from the mountainous terrain elsewhere. Braggadocio? Perhaps, you be the judge.”

Well, Rodger’s is certainly a step up from most of what we’re used to here in Oregon. That’s for sure. We intended on hiring a guide for 2 days but had no luck so we did a lot of route research and decided that we would stick to sub-alpine terrain and venture into the alpine only if the conditions were superb and the snowpack extremely stable. As our luck would have it we arrived in the midst of a modest snow storm and were treated to some of the best skiing during our entire 2 week trip!

Chris Fuoco, a Parks Canada employee at the Rodger’s Pass Discovery Center during winter, was a huge help directing us to safe and uncrowded slopes during our 4 day Rodger’s Pass visit:

I feel like the luckiest guy alive to have met Michelle, married her and shared such an adventure with the woman I love.