Mark & Eileen
The view from the Elkhorn Cabin
Kicking Horse Summit Lodge Bar – the best barstool on the powder highway!
Our week in Panorama was hosted by Mark & Eileen from Whitetail in Virginia and we were joined with this great group of ski instructors and group of friends from their area. SkiCan organized the trip and we stayed at the Pine Inn which was right at the bottom of the mountain – ski in – ski out. The 2 hosts from SkiCan were Shelley and Dave who welcomed us the first day after we took the 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Panorama. The views of the mountains that just shot up straight to the sky were beautiful – – of course after I woke up from my nap. 🙂
We went to a grocery store for supplies for the week and also stopped at the liquor store for some wine. It was nice to have our own stash of food to save a little money and not have to go out all the time. We bought some really good white BC wine that I need to find out where to get it – – that good!
Activities we enjoyed as part of the group were the wine & cheese at RK Heliski (I was hoping we would end up in the mountains on a trip, but the waiver had a line about not being responsible for its lack of maintenance on their copters – found by John, a veteran heli pilot).
As a treat we had dinner about midway up the front side of the mountain, just below the Champagne Chair Elk Horn cabin for a dinner “after hours” when the lifts closed. It was a nice private party with 3 other couples – where the views are just heavenly! The food was very good and the wine too (my favorite new white is Chardonnay from BC).
But my all time favorite was our trip to Kicking Horse. It was about 1 1/2 hours from Panorama and the bus took about 50 people to the resort. This resort is fairly new (about 5 years old) with a lot of bowls and character. They say there is a live bear off one of the trails. It is contained with an electric fence and not of danger to the skiers, but we didn’t stop to see it.
We skied the bowls and hiked one time to get up to one section. The snow was powder and we really loved the view from the bar.
Thursday night was IPOD night at the Crazy Horse saloon and we brought our playlists and stayed up till midnight drinking and listening to our music while watching others enjoy it too. Very fun.
The last night we also had a drink at the bar and danced to the DJ. It was really a great week that will be remembered! New friends, great skiing, great clinics to improve EVERYONE’s skiing (even in Steve!). Hopefully someday we will go back. Either Revelstoke or Kicking Horse next time!
A must visit area of the country – mark it in your “must do” list!
