Kicking Horse Jan 2011

I don't think I have ever posted these pictures. But Dave and I went to Kicking Horse (by Golden B.C.) for a weekend of snowboarding back in Jan of 2011. It was awesome and crazy times. The drive out was pretty crazy since there was a huge snow storm that was made driving out to Golden pretty scary and crazy. Traffic was single file, 2 sets of tire tracks on the road, doing only about 80 km/h and visibility was less than 50 metres (at some points visibility was only about a car length in front). The direct route of Highway 1 West was closed down just after Lake Louise due to avalanches so we had to take the 93 towards Invermere and then head up to Golden. The drive between Invermere and Golden was definitely the scariest drive Dave and I have ever encountered. It was white knuckle driving, trying to keep on the roads while passing semi trucks and barely being able to see if there was any on coming traffic! When we finally reached Golden we had to have a beer and celebrate that we made it there safely! Kicking horse was worth the drive though! Just check out these pictures. The mountain is absolutely gorgeous! It's elevation kept it above the clouds and made for breath taking scenery. I still remember turning a bend and seeing the morning sun hit the clouds that were floating below us...just amazing. Here are some pictures of the first day we were there:

The two days of snowboarding were amazing. The first day it didn't snow, but a huge dump had fallen over night (because of the storm) and so the day was a lot of fun (and where I really learned how to ride in powder). It got tracked out pretty badly on the first day and became pretty choppy as the day progressed...but we were so excited to be on a new mountain that we stayed till it closed. The second day that we went it was dumping continuously throughout the day. The snowflakes that were falling were larger than a twoonie. You could lay a track down a run and it would vanish by the time you got back up to do it again. I tried taking go pro video that day but the flakes were so big and they kept on landing on the lens that it made for lame ass videos. We ended up staying at Golden from Jan 13th-Jan 17 of 2011. Why? Well we headed out at night on the Thursday and then we were planning to snowboard on the Friday and Saturday and then heading back Sunday. However when Sunday rolled around it was still snowing hard (my car would have about a metre of snow by morning) and all the roads leading out were closed due to avalanche. The only road open to get back to Calgary was a very long detoured route that would have us go all the way down to Fernie before coming back up. So we opted to stay another night to see if the roads would open up. It's a really weird feeling being isolated and not being able to leave. It felt like being on a small little island. The feeling was a bit creepy. By Monday morning we decided that we didn't want to be stuck in Golden any longer so we took the route to Fernie and 6 to 7 hours later we made it home to Calgary...what a crazy trip!