Finney goes to Kelowna and escapes the Whistler bubble
Just a quick update with some photos from my trip to Kelowna to visit a buddy of mine who is living out here with his wife. Another mate from school is also here visiting aswell so has been a great catch up so far.
Flew out here on Friday and just chilled out for the day which was good. Went down to the lake for a look which was pretty cool and then just had some beers, pizza and played poker that night. Once again I discovered that the more I drink the better I play poker and ended up winning haha
Went up Big White on Saturday with Tom as they had 10cm of new snow which was fun. No pictures from then but was good to ride another resort again to mix it up.
Had a huge Saturday night out on the town for one of their friends birthdays which lead to all of us being pretty hungover today and sleep deprived with the hour lost to daylight savings but we managed to get back up the hill for another day of riding Big White. Mate took his camera up and grabbed these pictures.
Heading to Revelstoke tomorrow and another resort on Tuesday which is yet to be decided, will most likely be either Apex or Mt Baldy.
Some of you may have noticed that I’m riding another board in those shots. Went into a local boardshop in town here and they had some solid discounts on boards so I ended up grabbing a 154 Bataleon Evil Twin which I rode today for the first time. TBT took a little to get used to and I’m sure it’ll be a while before I’m completely used to it but initial impressions are that it’s a great board - pretty stiff compared to my YES but it has so much pop which made for a lot of fun off the rollers all over Big White.
Nice stuff finney!!!!!
Crackers was askin about the TBT on the Lobsters, so ya might wanna go give him some feedback?????
That’s sick man. Stoked you’re having a great time. Nice work at the poker table too.
I was riding interior pow today for the first time in years. Stoked I was able to get our to the local mountain (Hudson Bay Mountain).
Keep us posted! 
Jeremy - I think we’ll have to do a poker night when Dan is back in town.. would also be a good way to get through all that alcohol you mentioned 
Mizu - I’ve heard mixed things about the lobters compared to the Bataleons so I’m not sure what comparisons I can draw. Lobster boards are also significantly softer than what i’ve got.
nice man i am so jealous grrrr i wish i could be there now and not in this stupid Australia that was suppose to be summer but its bucketing down like you wouldn’t believe it ...
looks the goods mate
does the evil twin come in anything smaller? I think they might have a 151. Would love to ride one.
149 then 152, cords!!!!!
ooh 149 would be perfect!
What feels so different about TBT?
cords: I suppose the easiest way to explaon it is that it’s a little skatey at first due to the shape of the base but different to rocker. Honestly it’s something that you need to ride to experience. After 2 days on it now I’d say I’m pretty much used to it and loving it. Can’t wait to get back to Whistler and ride it on some more familiar terrain as I’ll really be able to take note of the smaller differences there as I’ll be able to pay more attention to them and take it all in. But overall I think it’s fantastic. I’ll lend it to Jeremy at some stage soon so that he can hopefully give his opinion on it.
Day 3: Revelstoke
Woke up nice and early today and we were on the Revelation gondola within 5mins of it opening. 1st run we shot Stoke chair which had really high winds up the top going across the line - felt like 50-60km/h. Spoke to a local who was on the chair with us and he gave us some great pointers, without which I’m pretty much certain that we wouldn’t have had such a good first run.
Did a small hike to start off and then hit a run called Sweet Spot which was a perfect name. The way the wind had been blowing meant that most of the tracks in there had been filled in and we got some great knee deep interior powder despite there being very little snowfall over the previous 24hrs.
Spotted this small hit and Dan grabbed the photo below for us whilst riding down to The Ripper chairlift, unfortunately it was the only riding/action photo for the day as we were ducking in and out of the trees all morning without really stopping to bother grabbing anymore. Pretty much just lapped around The Ripper chairlift as it was protected from the high winds that Stoke was getting and still offered plenty of good snow in the trees - whilst chopped up it was still soft and great fun with some good stashes to be found.
Stopped for lunch around 12:30 and then shot down to the bottom as Tom wanted to swap boards. My foot was giving me a few issues so called it a day early in order to rest it up for another day at Big White tomorrow. Within 5 minutes of having my boots off i found out that Stoke chair had been closed due to the high winds so the the others did another lap or two and then called it a day aswell as the lower half of the mountain was hardpacked ice. We discovered that whilst it’s great that they have the biggest elevation at Revelstoke it’s not so great when the freezing level isn’t always at the bottom.
Here are a few more random photos I took through the day with my phone.
fek i need to get off big white. cabin fever realy setting in.
I can imagine buddy, not taking away from it as it’s a great resort but not one that I could be at for longer than a week. Just a bit too small for me having been in Whistler for so long now.
Nice trip Finney, I’m jealous as hell!
Looks like that board is doing you well. Would you say it carves better or worse than your YES board?
looking good man , hope the passes worked for ya 
Andy - I’ll need to ride it a bit more before making that call, will let you know after I’ve ridden it a bit more once back in Whistler
Day 4: Big White - interior pow
Ended up heading back up to Big White on Tuesday as it was the most convenient option as Tom’s wife had to work up the hill so we all drove up there together.
I checked the forecast before heading up and it was looking like it was going to be a great day with 10cm of new snow falling overnight. The drive up the hill was slow to say the least as the roads were still covered in snow with the snow ploughs not getting out until later in the morning. Even before we were out of Kelowna we had passed 2 trucks stuck on hills as they couldn’t get enough traction in the snow even with chains fitted. As we got closer to the resort the snow was worse and our average speed dropped to around 40km/h. Once up the hill we found that none of the carparks were open as they entrances to all of them were just large snowbanks that had been created by the snow ploughs. Ended up getting a park in an underground carpark for one of the hotels and then shot off to grab some breakfast.
The winds were pretty high and the sky was filled with some pretty dark clouds with light snow still falling so were weren’t too optimistic on it being a great day as we’d been told that a lot of the lifts were on wind hold. By the time we’d finished breakfast though the skies were starting to clear with patches of blue showing through and the winds had subsided so we got our gear and shot up the hill.
Tom instantly took us to one of his favourite spots near Black Forest - a set of trees that run down to the left of the chairlift. Even though it was 10am and the lifts had been open for over an hour we were still greeted by untouched knee deep powder in the trees. Tom and I cut 2 laps through here both times only crossing a handful of lines the whole way down. We followed this up with exploring the tree’s to the right of the chair afterwards and after a small hike found a great line with even more knee/thigh deep snow. Did a few more laps off the ridge chair before stopping for lunch, snow was a little more chopped up here but was still super soft and wasn’t packing down like the coastal Whistler snow does.
After lunch we found that the T-Bars and Cliff chair were both open so decided to head in that direction. Up top was fairly windblown with some nice stashes but so we shot to Cliff afterwards and got a great line down with some nice faceshots. We were all pretty spent after this so did one more run down to the village via the halfpipe/boardercross track where there were some nice hits and some more stashes of fresh snow. We called it a day at this point and stopped for some drinks afterwards.
Here’s a bunch of photos from the day.
Nice!