Why Mt Baldy?

A few months ago I committed to my wife and daughter to take a vacation. Oliver, BC was a natural choice since we could stay for free and visit with my 100 year old grandfather living there. Also we had Mt Baldy at our back door for family skiing and Apex Mountain not far off. So after Christmas in Vancouver Grandpa Jack need a lift home so I packed my two pairs of Tele skis, the family gear, picked up Grandpa and off we went.

Really, it never is that easy to leave home. We acutally missed the 930 and 1030 ferries, stopped at Sport Chek for Wilde's new helmut since the old one shrunk and were 2.5 hrs late picking up Grandpa in Delta, BC. He was patiently waiting by the door with his coat on, probably for the last 2.5 hrs.

The drive was great, no snow. The next day we rose late, puttered and made Mt. Baldy for 215pm. They acutally sell last hour lift tickets for $12 so can say we skiied that day. We got up Sugar Lump and the Baldy lift once each. Skied the glades, assessed the packed powder. Life was good.

It's not a big mountain, but it's local and a laid way back family place.

Intro to Mount Baldy, BC

Champaign powder at mount baldy today. "the genuine thing" according to the sign painted on the two mountain ops trucks. No snow making here. Funny. No ice on the hill either. Never waited for a lift once although there are only two lifts.A bit freaky having chairs without bubbles around them and that are permenantly attached to the cable with a splice - can that kind of old technology be trusted? Metal girder towers that aren't even filled with concrete so "ice jacking" is only what you do to Johnny walker at the end of the day. Anyway Wilde has no idea what a great place it is so we drag her kicking to the hill. But once she's knee deep in powder under blue sky and above the clouds the magic spell is woven and we have lunch in the glades.