Justine and I finally managed to sneak a couple of days of skiing this year! We left it pretty much until the end of the season, but we had an super-fun weekend at Silver Star Mountain resort near Vernon in the interior. It was a long way to go for a couple of days, but it ended up being excellent and a great way to wrap up “winter”.
The long drive from Vancouver to Silver Star, near Vernon.
OUr plan was to drive out to the resort on Friday, ski all day Saturday and Sunday morning, then drive home SUnday afternoon/evening. As it was late March, we were sure what the weather and the snow was going to be like, but we figured it had to be better than Mount Washington!
To get to Vervon you have two routes that are pretty much exactly the same time and distance - about 6 hours. One goes south through Kelowna, the other north through Kamloops. We decide on the Kelowna route on the way there. We left about 1:00, looking to escape the city before the Friday traffic started to grow. It worked out pretty well, with some slow downs through construction in Abbotsford, then pretty smooth sailing through Chilliwack and Hope, before we hopped on the Coquihalla and over the pass. There was still a fair bit of snow at elevation, but the roads were very clear and the driving was easy. Well easy for me as Justine was driving.
As the trip progressed we did see a lot of evidence of the big fires that have ravaged this part of the province over the past few years. Huge swaths of the surrounding hills all burned, and often right down to the road. That must have been frightening.
Justine was a trooper and drove the whole way to the resort! We made a few stops along the way for some food (on the way out of Vancouver), gas in Kelowna, a liquor store in Kelowna and then all the way through Vernon and up to the resort. It was a beautiful, sunny day, so that helped. We eventually got to our slopeside lodging at the resort - just after 6 p.m.
Our lodge was perfectly situated, right in the “village”, slopeside (our room overlooked the gondola) and just above where we’d get on the gondola to head up the mountain. It was pretty great. The room was small and pretty sparse, but it was fine and all we really needed.
After getting settled in, we headed out to explore the village. That took about 10 minutes to walk from our end of the main strip to the other and back. All the shops had closed, but there were a few bars and restaurants still open. We decide to have dinner at the main bar in town. The food was good - sadly the best we would have all weekend - and they were playing the Jays game and the NCAA March Madness basketball, so we hung out for a while. After we finished up it was dark so we headed out to enjoy the lights in the village. It had been a long day and we called it a night a bit early.
After a good night’s sleep, we were up pretty early to have some breakfast, get ourselves organized and hit the slopes. It was projected to be slightly below zero and overcast all day. Which seemed fine. Not too cold and while there had not been any new snow, we had heard the snow cats all night out grooming the hills.
The view from our breakfast spot was pretty great.
After breakfast we grabbed out tickets and headed back to the room to get ourselves sorted out. The resort provided pretty good ski lockers with direct access out to the ski hill and a short ride down to the gondola. By 9:00 we had geared up, skied down to the gondola and were whisked to the top, ready to make a day of it!
Ready to go and enjoy a day of groomers!
While there wasn’t any new snow, there was lots of snow and lots of freshly groomed runs to be found. We started off on the “front” side of the mountain. making many runs down to the Comet Express lift of really nice, fast blue runs. We chatted with the locals on the lift back up, all of whom were embarrassed by the conditions and apologized for them - apparently it had been a bad year for the resort. We thought it was amazing compared to what we’d done earlier in the season.
We did about 13 runs before lunch, exploring mostly the front part of the mountain. Then we headed over to the Attridge Chair and explored some of the runs off to that side of the mountain. The conditions weren’t as good, and eventually we made our way back over. Around 11, we went over the top to see what the trails on the back side were like, and this was where we found our favorite part of the mountain!
Around lunch time we headed from the backside, over the top and all the way back down to the base. We were certainly feeling our legs but the conditions were good, it wasn’t too cold, and a hot lunch awaited us. We had some food, rested for a bit then headed right back up the mountain!
We spent the whole afternoon exploring the backside. There were two main areas that were open, given the lack of fresh snow over the past few weeks. The harder black diamond and double black diamonds were really not skiable. What was interesting about the back side was that there were these super long highways that took you out to some of the most fun blue terrain I’ve skied in a long time. Well groomed, steep (but not too steep), just fast, fun groomers. We skied it until almost 3:00 when our legs were done! We skied out, dropped our gear in the lockers and headed down to the room to crash for a little bit!
After relaxing and resting up for a short while, we headed back out to keep exploring. They have a really great looking pond that they clear for skating and hockey, but sadly it was too late in the season, so it was closed. The tubing was open, so we watched it for a little bit. It looked really fun and fast. Next time.
After checking out the pond and the tubing, we headed back to the village. Literally a 5 minute walk. We stopped in one of the bars for a drink and to check out their menu. It wasn’t very inspiring, so we had our drink, enjoyed the vibe but then headed across the street to another bar that had been recommended to us.
The menu looked OK, so we decided to stay at this one and have some food. Sadly, the food was average at best, something that repeated throughout the weekend. And the beer selection wasn’t great either - pretty much the same beer at every place! So disappointed with our dinner spot, we headed back over to the place we had dinner the night before. We had noticed that they had dart boards and were hoping that they might have darts we could borrow.
They did - sort of. The darts were a mess - taped together (barely) and a bit of a mess to throw. But we grabbed some drink and played as the bar filled up. It looked like mostly the younger crowd, the people working the lifts and the resort. It was Saturday night, one of the last weekend's of the season and it seemed like they were going to be partying pretty hard!
We played for a while then headed back to the room. The building we were staying in had agames room with a pool table, so Justine and I went down and played a few games of pool before calling it a night! It was a really fun day and evening, but we were going to feel it in the morning!
Pool shark - I think I was getting hustled!
Sunday
We woke up Sunday to a beautiful blue sky day! It was a bit colder and we had once again heard the snow cats grooming all night. So we started early again, but tried a different spot for breakfast. Again, the food was average but hit the spot. We grabbed new lift tickets, and went to gear up. As we were checking out before we headed out to ski, we had to pack up the truck and get ourselves all organized. It worked out pretty well, and we were once again at the top of the gondola by about 9 am.
Hummingbird break! I got these image off the BirdBuddy while we were skiing. I thought they were hilarious!
As we only had half a day, we had to make the most of it. We started on the back side and did a few of our new favorite runs to warm up. We were getting into a groove and discovered that one of the black diamond runs had been groomed, so we thought we’d try it out. It was so steep - but amazing. So much fun. Eventually we headed back over to the front side and got a few more runs in, before wrapping things up around lunch time.
We had a good couple of days!
After getting changed and getting the truck all packed up, it was time to hit the road. But first we did a last walk around the village. We popped into a couple of shops, as they had all been closed on the other days, and then we grabbed a slice of pizza to tide us over for a bit.
We decided to go home through Kamloops, and I was driving for the return trip. The drive was mostly fine. Not as clear and sunny as Justine had it, and as we got into the mountains, we got a bit of snow that made the drive a little less fun. Overall it was fine. We had left early to make sure we had the drive home in daylight, which worked out and left us time to stop at Costco in Abbotsford to do a long overdue shop.
The drive home - very similar to the drive out.
We had a really fun couple of days and got some good skiing in. The weather was nice, and while there wasn’t any fresh snow, the conditions were good for being so late in the season. I’d definitely like to go back!