
Sharon above the clouds...
We didn’t go skiing/snowboarding in 2011 at all. Vancouver Island has a decent ski resort [Mt. Washington] and is near Whistler as well as Mt. Baker in the US so snow is at hand. We’ve been a bit lazy and distracted by surfing, but we decided to just bite the bullet and check out the local resort last weekend.

Snowboard camo...
This was a recon mission and on that level it was successful. We now have the 411 on Mount Washington! The snow was a tad firm until the afternoon sun softened it up for us. The mountain is reasonably large. Coming from Alberta I’d call it a small-medium sized resort. Enough options not to get boring, but just enough. The facilities were basic in terms of food/drink, but I like it that way. I don’t go snowboarding to eat gourmet cuisine or watch private Leer jets land.

Enough terrain to keep us interested...
To be perfectly honest unless there is 12″+ of fresh snow I’m not that keen on snowboarding at a resort any longer. I’ve been there and done it so many times the novelty has worn off. If I was wealthier and more motivated I would take up snowcat or heli-boarding in fresh powder, but living on Vancouver Island it’s cheaper and more convenient to go surfing. Surfing is free, there are very few people in the water to deal with and there are endless waves.

Yup - we got snow!
So now that we know what’s what about local ski/boarding we’ll bid our time until a decent dump of the white stuff coincides with a window of time off.

What pedaling?
Mt Washington also offers lift served mountain biking in the summer so if their trails aren’t too DH oriented we may give that a shot as well.
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