Three days into our Labatts adventure and it appears that the snowiest winter in recent canadian history has turned sunny and warm....Day 1 was a 40,000 + foot day at Kicking Horse above the town of Golden. You ski the gondola, top to bottom every run. Off the top, steep chutes with varying pucker factors followed by ripping nonstop groomers. How fast do you want to go???

We could have snuck in 2 more runs but thought the trip west to Revelstoke should be driven in daylight.. Apres ski happy hour on Can. Highway 1 would take us thru Glacier National Park. Stunning.

Days 2 and 3 were spent above the little ski area of Powder Springs, soon to be Revelstoke Mtn Resort, boasting a 6,000' vert. Snow cats would transport us to the top and it would be endless face shots, unlimited fresh tracks. The website's last "report" on snow conditions suggested bringing a snorkle. Unfortunetly, the sun came out and even at this latitude things warmed up. Southern exposures were completely unskiable with a frozen sun crust and as you worked around the mtn to the north, things only improved slightly. Old tracks were semi rigid walls of trouble.. Cats broke down, our group featured a few nimrods and the fabled ski out run was done on the cattrack to the top. Subtract that 5000 feet from our daily tally and we averaged about 6000' of so so skiing each day. Sure, there were a few turns on the steeps with the right exposure when it got pretty good but we didn't get lucky. Our guide did the best he could but his highlight was trying to set a dead fir tree on fire. Unfortunetly the tree he chose didn't cooperate.