Big White trip

Just did 3 days of riding at Big White with my girlfriend and a couple mates. We all had so much fun It was their first time boarding in the NH so naturally they had a blast. They’ve already said it’s going to be hard going back to Aus mountains hahaha. We had two blue bird days and one overcast. Logistics wise, it was about 8-9 hours trip with a bus from Whistler to Van airport, flight, and shuttle from Kelowna up to Big White.

It was hard not to make comparisons with Whistler, since I’ve been living in whis for a few months now. It’s probably not fair to compare the two, but for those that haven’t been I’ll give you a quick rundown on the most notable differences. Although there is less terrain and vertical than Whistler, and what’s there is maybe not as dramatic or varied, it’s still awesome nonetheless with so many fun and still long runs. Like Sewar’s, which is a really fast green run, with heaps of flowing mounds and some with unexpected steep drops. Plus, with some powder I reckon there would be endless great tree runs all over the mountain. The village has a nice vibe about it and while I was there I noticed it was so much quieter with so few people on the mountain and the village. While I didn’t get really any of the famous ‘champagne powder’ that I’d heard so much about, the snow was definitely drier than what I’ve been getting recently at Whistler, which was a welcome change. One of the coolest things is being able to ride though the village and having legit ski in and out!!! Oh and the Park is pretty awesome too. Not as big as all that Whis has but so many features crammed into one area. There was a run of about 7 beginner boxes for example.

Here’s a few photos…

The view from the our hotel room window

Cool snow ghosts

Sunset at the ice skating rink

Ice climbing structure

Thanks Mizu! We actually didn’t ever use that chair. We would always rider further down the village and get a chair that takes you higher up the mountain. Lots of beginners looked to be having fun on that chair though.

Oh and I forgot to mention, Big White also has night skiing!!!

No I didn’t try it. You’re right K2 would have gone all cliffhanger on it haha. Did see a guy go up it though.

Hope he likes the FV. Despite the problems I’ve had with it, it’s a great board to ride. Apparently you will likely get slight bumps under the channel, quite like the typical slight indents under boards with regular bindings. Chances are his should be fine.

Very cool, Dan. Those photos bring me back. I have really good memories of my two trips to Big White. The night riding was so sick! The Gem Lake area is probably my favourite area to ride, such good terrain and the trees are unreal!

When I first visited, the park was fairly non-existant. They had maybe two jumps and a rail. Since then they installed the new chairlift just for the park and invested in improving the park significantly, which I enjoyed the second time I went there.

When they get a good dump, the quality of the snow is almost comparable to Japan. Super light and it gets deep! Overall Big White is a great mountain to check out while visiting Canada. I could easily do a season there.

Yea I agree with Jez. The snow there is sooo goooood when I went there last weekend. Was a couple of cm of fresh, got lucky to experience champagne pow. The gem lake area is really good. They have a race/boarder cross track in the park but didn’t get to try that. Did you get to ride cliff chair Dan? I was going to try it but my friend didn’t want to. O well maybe next time. One thing I notice about the resort is that there TONS of rollers and lips everywhere you go and the trees are nicely spaced so none of those really tight trees.

Yeah Gemlake was pretty awesome! We explored that on our last day. Definitely so many options for tree runs everywhere Jeremy! And you’re right skip, lots of the trees are well spaced out, particularly the ghost trees in the alpine.

One tree run that I really liked was just above and parallel with the Ogo Slow cat track as you head back to Gemlake chair. It went for ages with lots of ducking and weaving.

Yeah I was a bit bummed to not get any pow there but the conditions were great anyway. Also, the real even and flat terrain was the best thing ever for my knee. We did actually get a little pow - we walked down from the ice skating rink and ice cliff to an untouched little slope which we rode down and then hiked back up. It was very little but the others hadn’t really had powder snow yet, and it was heaps of fun playing around in.

I didn’t try Cliff chair skip, it was one of the only ones I didn’t go on.