Ten of us met at the Casa Alpine in Rossland where we spent three evenings- the party room was 22.

On the 28th of Dec some of us went cross country skiing at the BlackJack ski area which is quite a popular area with about 40 km of well-maintained track. (Not all the trails were open). There was a section of the trail set apart for biathalon training and Dave, Chip and Cathy took some lessons. Shirley and John skied at Red Mountain and were very impressed by the size of the ski hill. They opened new trails on Grey Mountain so Shirley and John actually skied in powder.

Rossland is a beautiful little town with some lovely old buildings. Brian Potter, Clifton's son, owns an outdoor store here which is worth a visit.

The next day, Carmie and Shirley returned for more downhilling, while the rest of us went up Murphy Creek and skied the slopes of Mt Elgood. The motel was full of skiers and we met a young couple who had suggestions as to what was good skiing. Graham very kindly joined us and helped us break trail and show us where there was some powder. The third day we skied up to Nancy Green Provincial Park where we made our way up to Mt Crowe 2135 metres. This was partly on the Senior Citizens Ski Club Trails and here there were also huts but these were not heated. In fact, we could not stay too long as it was getting cold. We chose a different route down which required some route finding, but we were got back to the cars before dark and headed out to Salmo and the Sal Crest Motel where we were all staying.

We had a New Year's Eve party (more like a slumber party) since by 10 p.m. we were all asleep.

From here, we had three trips-all starting from the pass as there wasn't a great deal of snow anywhere else.

Preparing for first descent of 2015

We skied two trips on the south side and one trip on the north side. It was very windy on this day and we had to avoid the wind crusted slopes so we needed to stay low in the trees, where the powder was actually quite good.


Afternoon cloud

(more photos to follow).

Thanks to Chip, Yolande, Shirley John, Carmie, Philip, Rosanne, and two new members Cathy and David. Christine, C&S.