Hiking up a mountain...in ski boots...is fun. Apparently!

....whirly time machine effects end....and we are back in March (ski season 2011 is nearly here so it topical again!)

Given that Valentine's Day was spent with Shaun dog legging it back from the UK via Amsterdam, $250 extra flight fees, and our wedding anniversary was the Fish & Game Club Supper with 250 other people (yep the bobcat curry was back), we 'decided' (read what you may into those quote marks!) to take a long weekend in March up at Big White.

So we rented a townhouse with a hot tub, dropped the dog off at the gulag (aka Spotted Spa) and headed up the mountain - into the middle of the biggest snowstorm we have been in yet! There was zero visibility with the driving snow and if you turned the hi beam on the view out the windscreen turned solid white. Luckily we were the only ones heading UP the mountain, but there seemed to be a fair number of people heading down. Any temptation to speed was quickly stamped on by the unfeasibly large number of cars in the ditches!

We were crawling along at 30km and heading up a incline when the car coming towards us on the other side of the road stopped...not sure why...so Shaun inched forwarded and a good job too as the 2 cars behind the stopped one...umm..couldn't!..and came skidding down the hill on our side of the road...narrowly avoiding a collison by virtue of heading into the previously mentioned ditches!

Offers of help were made but apparently there is a tow truck which goes up and down in a big circle for most of the night pulling random cars out as needed. Yet another incentive (if one was needed after that) not to be too eager to get anywhere!

Needless to say VERY large G&Ts on arrival and possibly there was more than one!

Anyway, the Saturday morning dawning with crystal clear blue skies and 30+cm of fresh powder - life was good!!!!

In the morning we were skiing with Shaun's boss, Dave, his dad Gerald and son Alex - all top skiers so it was a morning of intense, super fast, no coffee breaks - by lunchtime we were knackered!

Dave had to leave at 1pm otherwise we would have been in bits! So time for a bit of R&R and back to the hot tub...but oh no - we meet my boss, James, on the mountain, again top skier, so not being one to turn down a challenge we spent the afternoon hurtling round the mountain at top speed - again!!!

Then straight into the apres ski with James and his wife Bianca, Thomas and Gill ...till gone midnight......oh well, Sunday will be recovery time....

...No!...Dave calls at 8am and offers to take Mr R and me back country skiing...too much of an opportunity to turn down as Dave is super experienced and we couldn't get a better guide for our first venture into the back country.

So tried limbs are ordered into position and we head up the hill. Backcountry skiing involves getting to the top of the lifts, or whereever you can get to via truck, snowmobile etc and then getting out/off and walking even further...uphill! Normally this is done in special boots which can switch between hiking and skiing (to a degree) and super light skis - we had neither so it was standard ski boots and regular skis for us!

I never realised quite how heavy those blasted things are until you are halfway up a vertical slope in a howling wind!

We got to the top of the lifts at Big White and then headed higher along this ridge (yes, ridge, correctly implying drops on either side!) and what was a mild breeze at the village had some how developed into something a bit on the stiff side!

But the views were great, honest!

I was about to give up when the slope turned from extreme incline to vertical but Dave was running up it like a mountain goat and amazing came back to get my skis and run them up to the top!

Your'e not my husband...but I love you!

Before the Hike of Pain...see the smile!

The reward for the Hike of Pain as I lovingly like to think of it was some of the best skiing we have ever done! Short but very sweet - deep powder, utter silence (except for my whooping!), and no one but us...and we managed to get some nice tracks! The ski back to the village was my favourite as we headed into the woods on these narrow trails which dodged trees, over logs, etc - there was a vague direction of 'always take the right hand fork' but soon we were coasting through the woods in perfect silence (too beautiful for the whooping) and it was quite a shock to suddenly emerge on the piste and see the crowds (crowds being a relative term at Big White, uisally implies more than 3 people in sight and an 30 sec wait for a lift!).

A very very very cool long weekend!!!