If you’ve ever golfed at Bootleg Gap, you’ll be familiar with the natural beauty of Bootleg Gap’s golf course. Once a year in February, the golfers are replaced by dog sledders… and the crowds gather to watch as they race their way around the beautiful championship course at Bootleg Gap. February 5th and 6th 2011 saw the Third Annual Bootleg Sled Dog Races just down the road from Mountain Spirit Resort.

It’s quite a day out for the family. In addition to watching the races and meeting the dogs, there is a silent auction and food available, including a Dinner in Bootleg Gap’s club house on Saturday night. Races are started every hour, with the racers being set off one minute apart. Categories include: 6-Dog Purebred & Open Classes, 4-Dog Purebred & Open Classes, Skijoring and Junior Classes.

I joined the crowds at the finish line to cheer the sledders and their dogs over the finish line.

What’s different about the Bootleg Gap Sled Dog Races is the objective of raising funds and awareness for East Kootenay Friends of Children. Click here to visit the website for Bootleg Sled Dog Races.

Coming across the finish line…

A big part of the fun was seeing lots of beautiful dogs enjoying a rest in the sun.

The snow was GREAT yet again today after about 20cm of fresh snow over the past 48 hours… followed by sun!

Here’s a few photos I took around lunch time today (I was too busy having fun all morning to remember to take photos).

Click on this link to check out an amazing short skiing video from Kimberley…

Skiing Kimberley Alpine Resort on a Powder Day, January 13th, 2011.

Three words: freshies every run!

That was yesterday.

Apparently today was every bit as good, with another fresh dump (some of us have to work sometimes…)

Nevertheless and in all honesty, I really, very much enjoyed Wednesday boarding in Kimberley Alpine Resort. This enjoyment even though I didn’t get the first chair. Heck I didn’t even get up there till about 11:45am. I still enjoyed fresh tracks every run right to the last run at about 3:45pm.

It must have snowed 20cm between overnight and during the next morning - 20cm at least. I had a meeting at 7:30am and opened the back door to lots of snow. During the meeting I found myself distracted, staring out the window at the beautiful big fluffy fat flakes of snow coming down. It was definitely worth the anticipation.

The snow was that good I even descended the Anton’s run. Not just once, but twice!

Did I mention that some parts of the ski hill had waist deep pow!

Shredding the powder!

This chap was definitely out enjoying the conditions.

Gnarrrrrr!

Guess what, there’s even more snow in the forecast!

We thought it would be fun to invite Craig Ainsworth of Adrenaline Dog Tours to Mountain Spirit Resort on New Year’s Day. Not just because Craig’s a nice guy but he also happens to have teams of adorable pure bred huskies!

One of Craigs team of 16 huskies at Mountain Spirit Resort today.

At 4:30pm Craig started to unload the dogs to meet our visitors. It was fun for all the family – with groups of people lining up to see the 16 huskies – yes 16!

Here’s a sneak peak at the snow art afternoon at Mountain Spirit Resort today:

Tomorrow, Jan 1st 2011, we are welcoming the huskies from Adrenaline Dog Tours. If you like cute dogs or dog sledding, or hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies, come on over. Tours of the resort are also available so come and check out the top ski condos in Kimberley!

Click here to see the fun events you can be part of, commencing Dec 27th…

If there’s a job to be done the spirit does like to do it well. That includes keeping you posted on the conditions for skiing and boarding at Kimberley Alpine Resort. The official opening day for 2010/2011 was held two days ago, on Friday 17th December. I made sure to be there to snap some shots of the conditions. Knowing some folks who work in ski patrol and others in outdoor ops at Kimberley Alpine Resort, I had already heard that the Tamarack Chair was going to be opened on Friday. On preview weekend the Main quad chair and the Easter chair were both open, and not all the runs off the Easter were open. With all the lifts open… this would mean runs would be open that haven’t been skied on yet by the paying visitor (only by the patrol on their safety checks). As I realised this, I thought I should really have made it up the hill earlier. The pace I was on, I’d be getting to the lift line up at about 8:43am.

The clock at Kimberley Alpine Resort was not wrong.

We arrive at the ski hill and there are only two rows of cars in the main parking area…. interesting! I head up the steps past the new conference centre and towards the North Star Quad lift. There’s nobody there yet. Can this be true? Opening day for Kimberley Alpine Resort and I’m getting the first chair again? This should make for a good morning.  My ski-fanatic husband was working today and unfortunately a blog is not part of his work so I stood alone waiting.

Some people start arriving. First is Dan “the Tan Man”, well known in local ski circles. Dan is the reason why Cominco Gardens look so good all summer. Ryan Peterson is next, a local skier who is regularly at the head of the line up any day the conditions are good. Ryan had booked off opening day months ago to ensure he didn’t miss out! As more people trickle in, I see Liana, the latest addition to our team at Mountain Spirit Resort. We’re both working in the office from 12pm and clearly had the same intentions – to enjoy the best part of opening day first!

The "Main" looking pretty nice.

9am rolls around and there’s maybe 40 people waiting in line. Pretty different to opening day at Fernie, when apparently some chap actually slept overnight in a tent in order to bag “first chair” rights!

W’re off. The conditions look amazing. We’ve had 20-30cm of fresh snow in the past 5 days since preview weekend. Usually I feel in a rush to get first tracks on the first runs but today is a little different. It feels like the ski hill has been hired out for my friends and my exclusive pleasure. There is no question about which direction to head in after getting off the quad. We all head over to the Tamarack. “Wahoo!” it’s first tracks for everyone all the way down the “tammy”.

The Tamarack run from the Tamarack Chair.

Second run – let’s do the same one, it was so good. By this stage I’m in a group of half a dozen local skiers and boarders including my mate Dave who works at Kelsey’s. That’s him enjoying the view from the bench at the top of the Tamarack.

Third run, let’s take Upshot. It’s the run skiers left of the tammy and has been totally brush cut over the summer. Last year I rode it there were plenty of alders but this year it’s a different story. The bottom half was total dreamy floaty movie style skiing and boarding for all. Thankfully only Ruth, the British liftie at the Tamarack chair, saw me fall when I transitioned from the deep floaty stuff onto the groomed flat track to the lift (don’t tell anyone)!

At the top of the Tamarack chair, our path crosses with Dan and Ryan. “How’s the back side?” I ask them. “Awesome and there’s nobody there” they reply. Sounds familiar. I should point out at this stage that RCR had originally planned the official opening day for 18th December and then changed it, bringing the opening forward by one day to Friday 17th. This happened about a week or two ago so for people visiting from outside Kimberley, it might have been hard to change schedules and work plans in order to arrive on a Friday. For locals living in Kimberley who knew about the change and could get out and ski on Friday, it was much appreciated – thanks!

Anton's run, formerly called the Easter, from the Easter Chair.

After meeting Ryan and Dan I suggest we head over to the Easter chair and hit up the untouched runs past Vortex. I nip over onto Runt and take it down to the Easter. Our “posse” meets up and we ride together across the Ridgeway towards Geneva. We’ve been told the only run not open is Notre Dame so that means 5 untouched runs between it and Vortex.

The Ridgeway can sometimes be slow for snowboarders. I had made sure to have my board waxed with the correct was for the temperatures, down at ski repair in the Rental Shop. I made it the whole way along the Ridgeway without having to unstrap my board, which is nice. There’s still about 6 of us at the top of our chosen run – the Tramway. I drop over the edge and this snow is even better than the snow on the tammy! And it looks like only 6 people have been here before us. Fresh tracks for everyone AGAIN! Yeehaw!

I don’t even need to turn. It is effortless. I look behind part way down and I only see Liana. Our buddies took the right hand option one third of the way down and are now enjoying their fresh tracks on Tramway. Liana and I meet at the bottom of the Easter Chair where we see our buddies again and a couple of other people. We don’t even need to ask how everyone is as the answer is the same, “FANTASTIC!”.

Let’s head back to the front, it’s time to go to work!

I’d heard more snow was in the forecast but didn’t expect 15cm of fresh snow on our back step this morning. We rushed up to the hill by about 9:15am and thankfully the car park was only one third full. As usual, up the quad and over to the Easter chair was the priority. First thing we noticed was more runs were open. Anton’s was a must. As a snowboarder (aka slowboarder) I am not a fan of moguls. Being able to ride down Anton’s before the moguls are formed for the season was a pleasure… spotted with a few head-over-heels tumbles. All’s good – it’s fresh powder!

Anton's: people were laughing aloud, shouting "wahoo" between tumbles into the powder!

Rumours were rumbling in the small crowd of locals gathered at the top of the Easter – the Black Forest area might be opened. By the next circuit of the Easter, it was! Patroller Gord Towers had the pleasure of taking down the ropes by Dean Left and opening up all the runs across to Vortex. I’m thinking they’re saving more fun on the far runs for next weekend! We hit Magma first. It was powdertastic. Taking long sweeping turns floating above the snow I managed to stay on my board for most of the run. Next run, Twist. Awesome! It was rapidly becoming an epic powder day, the like of which I’ve never experienced this early in the season. It was so good, we did another loop round and hit it again. I say “we” today as I managed not to be ditched by my husband off the first chair, and he showed his true gentlemanly soul by both waiting for me AND pulling me along the couple of slow spots on the Ridgeway (he skis and I board, you see?).

Anton's Run, Sunday 12th December 2010 (Preview Weekend at Kimberley Alpine Resort)

I check my watch as I’m feeling exhausted. It’s 10:35am. Time to head around to the front via a secret new favourite run I’m not even going to mention. You have to come and discover the  best runs for yourselves. It had me hooting an a-hollering yet again – what an amazing season preview weekend. If this is the preview, this season is indeed going to be epic at Kimberley Alpine Resort!

What an amazing opening weekend at Kimberley Alpine Resort. The word on the street is, we’ve already had more snow fall this winter than we had all last year. Here’s how the spirit’s weekend panned out… Yesterday, the spirit nabbed bragging rights of being on the first “official” chair of the season.

Saturday 11th December: Opening day on “Preview Weekend” at Kimberley Alpine Resort. Having been to Fernie the previous Saturday and encountered about 300 people already in the line-up, we decided to get ourselves to the quad at Kimberley EARLY this season opener.

7:15am: Awoke up in our wee house on Wallinger, downtown Kimberley. It was 12 degrees inside. The furnace had packed in overnight. I wished I lived at Mountain Spirit. Not only would it be warm, and take about 1 minute to get to the quad chair from the ski lockers, but I’d be able to have a hot tub after season opening day… I know my muscles are going to ache. We can’t phone any heating engineers at 7am on a Saturday (although we know one personally) – they’re either in bed or getting ready to go skiing methinks!

8:00am: Coffee drank, oatmeal eaten, we left the house trying not to think about our broken furnace. It’s a short drive to big fun… The roads are fine.

8:05am: Arrive at the skier car park. There’s about a dozen cars there, mostly staff.

Kimberley Alpine Resort Opening Day 2010/2011

8:10am I’m at the quad chair. The only person there is the “liftie” brushing the snow off the seats of the chair lift. Is this real? Opening day… the base has 60cm of snow. Where is everyone? Oh wait a minute, we’re in Kimberley, not Fernie. I’m excited. Today Kimberley will offer both untouched powder runs and groomies, dressed in corduroy – something for everyone to enjoy.

Board holds my place so the crowds don't steal my "first chair of the season"

8:20am Two more people arrive (father and son, skier and boarder). We are now four “keeners”. That’s the first quad chair filled.

8:25am Three local kids arrive. They know the kid on our chair. It’s Kimberley…

8:55am The crowds are here for the first lift… there must be at least… 35 people here (about 1/10th what was at the Timberline chair in Fernie last Saturday). I know about half of them – the locals are here!

9:00am With hoots and hollers, we board the first chair of the season…

Riding the first chair of the season, checking out the Main run in Kimberley Alpine Resort - looks great!

9:05am: The new groomers RCR recently invested in seem to have done a great job.

Corduroy looks good on the Main run.

9:08am: Time to offload from the Quad Chair. Adrenaline starts. First run of the year. Where do I go? Caper or Rung, Caper or Rung? Being somewhat familiar with the runs on Kimberley Alpine Resort, I opted to skate across and take Rung down to the Easter chair. Oh my goodness… what a stash of snow. It was unreal! Epic first run… slow motion style snowboarding down the steep pitch of the Rung. Who needs to turn? It’s floaty magic. Of course by the time I made it to the Easter, even riding flat out, my skier husband was nowhere to be seen. Hence the good old saying “No friends on a powder day”. See ya later!

Easter is also looking great - check out the powder on the edge of the run.

9:20am: Time to check out the runs on the “Vimy Ridge” and “Black Forest” sections. Well it turns out Anton’s was shut, and everything past Dean’s Left was also not yet open. So I took Dean Left. Groomed and nice and powdery on the edge. Next run: Purl. Flapper isn’t open… yet.

Some of the first folks to enjoy the Easter (groomed) this year.

9:40am: Riding the Easter chair again. This time there are people skiing on the Easter (they must prefer the groomies). The word on the chair lift is Eureka is still hardly touched. So I ride the Ridgeway over, past Rung (the fun first run) and Runt (not open yet) and when we reach the Tamarack Chair, took a left down Eureka. I think I know why this run has that name now! It’s hardly been touched and the pitch is perfect for movie like powder skiing with gentle turns, floating above the snow.

10:30am: Now the word is, the patrollers have opened Flapper. Off I go, along with my chair lift new friend, a lone skier visiting from Vancouver.

11:00am: After a couple of hours of serious, season-opening fun, it’s time to head back to the front. I take twilight (the rollers are still there!). Ah… I need to find my husband who I lost after the first chair, see to the furnace issue and of course, shower, eat and head to work. Hmmm, the main car park still isn’t full, let alone the overflow. Good. I’m coming back tomorrow morning for more!