A ski weekend in Nelson

Nelson, a small town in the Kootenay region is home to the Whitewater Ski Resort which is part of the famous Powder Highway. Known knee deep powder, cat skiing and other outdoor activities my ski buddy Erna and I decided to check it out.

Since it's a long drive from Vancouver, we booked a flight to Castlegar Airport, which due to its location in a valley is more closed than open in the winter due to weather conditions. Apparently, the instrument approaches are considered amongst the most challenging of any in use at a commercial airport in North America. Lucky us, the weather gods were on our side and upon landing at Castlegar, the passengers, some of whom had been waiting for 2 days to fly out, cheered and clapped their hands, happy to have made it.

A group of guys from Vancouver whom we ran into on several occasions were on a mission to get confirmation from the locals that Nelson was indeed the weed capital of the Kootenays. The story goes that the weed is transported by backcountry skiers across the border into Washington state.
Whitewater is a small ski resort with only 3 chair lifts, however, there is some great terrain to be explored and despite the lack of fresh snow, we were still able to find stashes of powder on some of the glade runs.

It is really a local's resort, apparently, 70% of the locals have a season pass and the atmosphere on the mountain is very relaxed and casual. The ski shuttle from Nelson to Whitewater only runs once a day and is a great way to meet locals or run into our male friends each morning. The shuttle driver is a lucky guy, he drives skiers up to the mountain, spends his day in the backcountry before driving the shuttle back to Nelson at the end of the day! What a hard life being a ski bum!

The Fresh Tracks Cafe at the base of WH2O is known for it's superb food, in fact, the recipes have been published in several cookbooks that became national bestsellers.
We had 3 days to explore the mountain and enjoyed the varied terrain from great groomers to moguls to glades with stashes of powder. Tracking our progress on our ski apps and comparing maximum speeds, vertical drop, distance and number of runs was part of our day.

We didn't run into the bear though….

In the evenings, we explored downtown Nelson which is basically a few blocks along Baker Street.
After 3 great days, my ski buddy headed for Red Mountain while I made my way back to Castlegar to catch the afternoon flight back to Vancouver. The shuttle driver was a funny character, for some reason we got into talking about religion and politics and he was so convinced that if women ruled the world, it would be such a better place!!! He might have a point there. When I finally got to Castlegar airport, the Air Canada guy greeted me with 'You must be Ms. Risler', I was the last of about 15 passengers to check in. Gotta love small town airports.

Top of the World Highway and a town called Chicken

Leaving Kluane National Park we headed northwest towards Alaska again to the small and exciting (not) town of Tok, Alaska. As boring as Tok is, it's a good place to stock up on supplies and fill up the car before setting off for the Top of the World Highway.

Downtown chicken

A far more interesting stop is a town called Chicken that was settled by gold miners at the end of the 19th century. When a post office was established, the settlement required an official name. Since nobody could agree on the spelling of Ptarmigan, a name suggested based on the prevalence of ptarmigan in the area, they agreed upon Chicken to avoid embarrassment.

These days, Chicken is home to 17 inhabitants and downtown Chicken consists of a souvenir shop, a saloon and a cafe as well as Chicken Poop, the public bathroom. There are still some active gold mines in the area and some old dredges can be seen around Chicken.

Chicken Poop

The Top of the World Highway is one of the most northerly highways in the world and it winds its way along the crests of the hills. It's supposed to be one of the most scenic highways, but I was a bit disappointment. The scenery is beautiful and the views are spectacular but I expected snow capped mountains instead of rolling hills.

Poker Creek is the highest US road border and there is a one-hour difference in time zones at this border. The highway is mostly paved on the US side but once you cross into Canada, most of it is unpaved until you reach the vicinity of Dawson.

US-Canadian border along the Top of the World Highway