Skiing a snow season

With retirement now in my rear vision, I arrived to Silver Star Mountain Resort In BC Canada at new year, and I type this entry during my Vancouver layover heading back to Miami (AU) over 3 months later.

An active retirement and lots of travel lay ahead, and this snow trip allowed for a variety of experiences, primarily my bucket list desire to ski a season, but also the practicalities of living in a snow zone, and travelling to one place only for an extended stay, rather than more hectic travel.

I had intended to buy a place there and apply for permanent residency, giving me a more convenient, northern hemisphere base for future travel, but my intended Canadian PR visa has changed, so just putting a pin in that for now 🙁

I skied all but 2 days, amassing a personal record for distance, vertical, days and speed; all taken casually, given I had plenty of time 🙂 Most of my approach to skiing is cruising blues and enjoying the stunning vistas shown below.

Whilst I am a solo traveler, it’s not hard to make new friends at a Canadian ski resort. Conversation on the lift, community hot tubs, or various dinners lead to making some fabulous new contacts, and potential life long friends. A boutique resort like Silver Star truly is a community, everyone knows someone within a few degrees of separation. Steph & Diana introduced me to Hugh, who knew Giles, who knew Steph…. You get the picture 🙂

All this lead to many ski days, sharing a passion for skiing and this mountain, a few dinners, and even a misguided snow shoe dinner adventure, LOL

With help from Diana & Lindsay of Silver Star Stays, I tried living at 3 different, month long locations at Silver Star after arriving to a short stay in the Village at Snowbird. With an intention to live at this location, my previous visits had all been in-village, but I had never experienced the perimeter. Creekside, Grandview & and the Knoll.

Each locale have their own appeals. Such as the delightful Grandview mafia :-), a collective of youthful owners and regulars who were very embracing of a stranger and even had a carpark (down under) party that was a true knee slapper.

Then there was the most charming hosts at Joanne & Garth’s Harrington Suite on the Knoll. A great location, a short 4 minute walk to the village along the skiway at the back, and simply the most welcoming and engaging couple. A wonderful & comfortable place to thoroughly enjoy my final month.

I am normally one to have my own car for convenience, but, Diana from Silver Star Stays suggested a local driver service, that gave me little reason to bother hiring a car. Michael of VIP Mountain Drivers is a resident of Silver Star, with an equally dedicated group of other drivers, each excelling at service. I couldn’t recommend Michael, Joanne & Garth more highly.

So for the curious, here are the pictorial reasons to ski through a snow season.

First, the Sun Dogs (or Silver Fires as referred by some), a weather phenomenon that creates a shaft of glittering light, aura’s and rainbows at times.