This was going to be a long day. I only had 3.5 hours’ sleep after coming back from dinner at my new Canadian friends’ condo. I could have passed out immediately, but I wanted to start posting some of these posts. Then I’ll have the long drive to Revelstoke.

When I woke up, the day looked promising, with some snow falling. By the time I packed the car and got out on the snow, it turned dreary… and rainy. But the snow remained remarkably skiable on my last day at Sun Peaks. Unfortunately I had to leave the home I wanted to adopt.

Nancy Greene

Have you heard of Nancy Greene (if you’re American) I thought not. But, as you may know, all Canadians know of all famous Canadians, so I was made aware of Nancy Greene, former winter Olympic champion (1960, ’64, and ’68!)—she is the Jean Claude Killy of Canada (if you live in Canada). She is currently a Canadian senator and the “ski director” of Sun Peaks. She likes to ski with guests when she is in town, so I did that. I learned from her that the snow at Snow Peaks is usually like that of the Rockies, dry and powdery. Just my luck, today was wet and mushy. Anyway, I kept up with her just fine, though I’m sure she wasn’t pushing herself.

I was skiing my fat skis. Nancy was on Rossy slalom skis. I asked whether she ever skis fat skis and she said that it was too much trouble to think about what kind of skis to grab, so she sticks with here narrow skis. Which reminds me… really good athletes are really good, no matter what kind of equipment they use. If I were a better skier, I could go back to a single pair of skis.

On to Revelstoke

The drive to Revelstoke was to be long (Google Maps said 3.5 hours, Waze said over 4… I didn’t try to figure out why the disparity); I decided to use Google’s directions rather than Waze. Waze may have been correct, however, because the last hour and a half was pretty treacherous; dark, snowing, and slushy. I left a lot of room between me and the car in front.

Since it was the weekend, all the cheap places were booked. Thanks to my friend Jeremy’s suggestion, I was able to book a room at the Mustang B&B, a 118 year old house run by a young Aussie, Josh, for the past 4 years. The owners operate a cat-skiing service, Mustang Powder, that I’ll have to try some day.