Part One of our journey to Kicking Horse Mountain and Golden, BC is posted up and now we’re onto Part Two of Three!

After a day of boarding at Kicking Horse, we headed down the mountain for a delicious dinner experience at Cedar House Restaurant.

The restaurant is tucked away in a residential area in Golden, BC just outside of downtown… and it’s one of those places that you would only really find if you heard about it from the locals. It really is a secret spot! I also noticed that they have chalets for rent beside the restaurant, so although I didn’t get to check them out, it seems like a neat place to stay as well.

We also got to meet our guide Mike, from Canadian Powder Adventures who was going to take us hiking/ski touring into the Kicking Horse back country the next day. That guy could really sing and play! On an interesting side note, I’ve noticed that a lot of people in Golden seem to be multi-talented. Everyone does a couple different jobs and helps each other out with different businesses. It really is a cool and diverse community. Allan is still trying to convince me to move there.

They bill themselves as “Fresh Grown Rocky Mountain Cuisine”, and they aren’t kidding! They actually grow most of the vegetables consumed in the restaurant in an organic garden they have planted outside. Everything is organic, and is locally sourced. This crab bisque was really good.

The free-range chicken looked pretty amazing…

I tried the halibut myself and it was awesome… tasted very fresh and rich.

Of course, the real highlight of the dinner for me was the freakin’ incredible toffee bread pudding! Now, to be honest I’ve never had bread pudding before, so I didn’t know what to expect… but it was soooooooooo good. I may have to try and find this somewhere in Vancouver now. Any recommendations?

Also, the cocktails were good. I ordered a cosmo. And is not at all the reason why we had a late start the next morning.

The next morning (well, I should say early afternoon… we slept in a little), we met our guide Mike at the top of the gondola on Kicking Horse mountain. We snowboarded a bit down one run, made it up a chair, snowboarded along the ridge and found ourselves riding down some fresh powder leftovers (I couldn’t believe it wasn’t all skied out) in the “Fuse bowl” just off the side of the resort.

The back country near the resort at Kicking Horse is AMAZING. It’s all so accessible and it all funnels down back onto the bottom of the resort so you can either take the gondola back up or easily get to where you parked your car. So many people ski tour around here it is crazy… and I can see why.

We rented our back country gear like our backpacks, shovels, probes, and beacons from Avalanche Safety Solutions in Golden, and we got our snowshoes and poles from 180 Mountain Sports in town. We even got to try out a Snowpulse Airbag backpack… which we will of course save for our awesome HD snowboard video coming up

Here I am with Mike, our fantastic guide from Canadian Powder Adventures. I honestly didn’t even know that you could hire someone to take you into the back country for a day trip… and when we met Mike in the restaurant it just seemed like a great idea. I am SO glad we did. He was so patient with us (even though I am totally out of shape and was super slow), and taught us a lot about avalanche safety as we went along on the tour. Allan and I are really new to the back country stuff… we did out AST-1 avalanche training course last year, but this is the first time we’ve really been out in the backcountry when it hasn’t been a course.

The snow was just perfect. Really stable, super soft but yet firm enough to hike on, and of course… we had a blue sky day… can’t ask for much more than that!

The views were just beautiful off the top of the ridge. I was amazed how much accessible backcountry there was… we didn’t come across anyone during our hike and we rarely saw other people’s lines.

Yeah, it took me a little longer than it should have to hike, plus we got a late start… so we did get to see the start of a beautiful sunset

Here is our trail from the gondola to where we rode down. Mike says it would take him 40 minutes to do it… it took us 2 and a half hours. Haha! I couldn’t believe how far we went though.. Mike really chose a great trail.

Here I am at the bottom of Kicking Horse, super tired and exhausted! Haha! It was a perfect day though, and I really can’t wait to show you guys all the video footage we got! Saving the best for last for sure……

Our trip this past weekend to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort and Golden, BC was so much fun! It was our first time to the area, and there was so much to see and do… so bear with me as I separate our trip into a series of blog posts over the next week or so. These are photo posts… I will of course have a big HD snowboard video at the end of all of this

We flew out Thursday night at YVR on WestJet thanks to some buddy passes our friend Emily had given us at the beginning of this year. I’m glad we finally got to use them. We packed everything into our board bags and crossed our fingers that we would pass on the weight scale!

Thanks Emily!

We landed in Calgary an hour later and managed to somehow score a Volvo all-wheel drive despite booking the cheapest possible car with Budget. It worked out well, because having the AWD was really nice (but not necessary) for driving through the mountain passes from Calgary to Golden.

It only took us 2.5 hours to drive from Calgary to Golden… just a little more than it would have taken us to drive from Vancouver to Whistler. I’m really amazed by how accessible Kicking Horse and Golden are. It really is a whole new snowboarding destination that feels like you’re traveling far away… but it’s just a short hop from Vancouver. We arrived at Canyon Ridge Lodge, the B&B/lodge we found which was luckily just off the highway and really easy to get to!

We really lucked out with our accommodations. Kat and Paul (and little Roxy, their daughter) are the nicest people you could meet. I really envy their lifestyle… and maybe one day I’ll set up a bed and breakfast of my own somewhere in a small snowboard or surf destination town.

Their home is AMAZING… Paul actually built it himself. It has vaulted ceilings, exposed timber, and yup… even a hot tub outside. This is the lounge they have… so you can meet other guests or if you book out the whole place you can hang out with your friends here.

This is our room! The bed was super comfortable.

Our own little bathroom… really liked the stone shower walls.

Next time I think we would probably stay in their self-contained suite. It would be nice to have a kitchen and share the suite with a group of friends next time we are in Golden.

In the morning we got our timezones mixed up (Golden is actually on Mountain Time like Calgary, not on Pacific Time like we thought), so we ended up getting a bit of a late start for opening day. YES, it was Kicking Horse Mountain Resort’s Opening Day and there was about 150cm base to play with, and 40 cm of fresh to find!

Seriously, what a cool resort. I honestly didn’t know what to expect going in (except that I had heard a lot about “The Horse”) and that it was a mountain with unique terrain. We pretty much rode blue and black diamonds in pow pretty much all day, and when it got a little tracked out we found the trees and the bowls. The mountain was split pretty much 50/50 skiers and boarders.

The best part though? NO CAT TRACKS! Oh man, for those of you who snowboard… you know how annoying it is to get looped on to those super flat runs made for skiers that you can never seem to get enough speed for? Well, it’s not that Kicking Horse doesn’t have cat tracks… but the mountain is set up so you pretty much never have to run into them. Here I am looking pretty exhausted. Haven’t really gotten my snowboard legs back yet

We had lunch at the Eagle’s Eye restaurant on the top of the gondola.

The layout inside was really nice for a on-mountain lunch stop!

The food was awesome too… after two months of being EXTREMELY strict with myself on an allergy elimination diet I’ve been on, this weekend I decided I was on “vacation” and going to eat whatever! I may be a little biased, but that white wine fettuccine alfredo really hit the spot.

Allan ordered the red curry Thai chicken, which was also delicious.

He also enjoyed his beer.

We spent the rest of the day riding until the gondola closed and our legs had no more in them. First day at Kicking Horse? Pretty darn impressive. You can follow me on Twitter, and also Tourism Golden, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, and Canyon Ridge Lodge.

A great start, to a great trip! More photos coming… and of course the HD video at the end Thanks for reading!

Every year one of our groups of friends organizes a Christmas Party… I’m sure some of you remember pics from last year. The party is technically called the “Erection Party”, to celebrate the erection/raising of the Christmas tree. The premise — everyone wears an ugly Christmas sweater or Christmas getup!

It’s always a lot of fun…

Amy and Kim did an amazing job of decorating their place…

I always enjoy the festive slippers and socks the most!

Christmas isn’t complete without a little tequila and a gift for the gift exchange game!

The gift exchange is always hilarious… as you can “steal” from each other a limited number of times and there is a definite strategy!

Allan wasn’t too happy since he always ends up with the most ridiculous gift every year… this year was no different… you can tell from the smile on his face that he loved his Jonas Brothers make-up gift pack.

I ended up pretty stoked about my red Olympic knit mittens! I actually wanted a pair. Yeah, I ended up wearing them the rest of the night.

The party wouldn’t be complete without several group photos, of course!

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In other news, I am flying out tonight to the Calgary airport where Allan and I will rent a car and drive to Golden, BC. We’ll be snowboarding and sightseeing two days at Kicking Horse Ski Resort for their opening weekend… and possibly even doing some backcountry hiking and boarding with Canadian Powder Adventures! We’ll be staying at the Canyon Ridge Lodge for two nights and the Copper Horse Lodge for a night. Then it’s a mad dash in the morning to drive back through Banff and snowboard at Sunshine Village, and then fly back to Vancouver!

Yeaaaaah… I ended up packing way too much stuff. All you really need is your board, boots, and jacket right?

Phew! It’s going to be a busy weekend. We’ll have lots of photo and videos. Wohooo! Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Thanks to everyone for entering the contest for the Westbeach Outerwear… we ended up having 142 entries!

Last night Allan and I drew a random winner from the contest on video… watch the video to find out if you won! Please excuse our silliness… it was late at night

Congratulations to the winner! This $420 value of Westbeach Lady Racer Jacket and Rendezvous Pants will be mailed to you. Please e-mail me at allie@vancityallie.com to claim your prize. If the prize is not claimed within 7 days, another winner will be drawn.

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In other news, every year we organize a group ski and snowboard trip through Canadian Outback Adventures… this year we are going to Big White. Leave Friday night on January 29th and come back Sunday night on January 31st so you don’t miss any work.You get 2 nights accommodations in luxury condos with full kitchens, vaulted ceilings, and private hot tubs on the deck… also included is round trip bus transportation from Vancouver, 2 days of lift tickets to Big White, and an apres ski party with free appies.

Last year we sold out our trip, and this year promises to as well. There are a few popular Vancouver bloggers going, not to mention tons of rad people in the Vancouver video game industry, tech industry, and cool guys and girls from all over the world who are flying in for this.

If you are interested, please e-mail allie@vancityallie.com and I’ll send you details.

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I’ve got a few posts to catch up on… coming up on the blog… some photos from our dinner party on the weekend with the parents meeting the parents (Eeek!), a Christmas party with our friends, and an outerwear round-up post with some reviews and recommendations for snowboard gear this winter. Not to mention our upcoming trip this weekend to Kicking Horse in Golden, BC and Sunshine Village in Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta!

I finally had a chance to edit the very mini HD snowboard video from our first day of the season at Whistler. It’s always embarrassing posting videos of yourself from the first day of the season, because… quite frankly… you look silly on video with shaky legs and not-quite-there-yet balance. Nevertheless, please do watch this video and feel free to have a chuckle

My legs are STILL sore from last Sunday. Song from Chixdiggit, filmed entirely hand-held on a Nikon D90 at Whistler Blackcomb. Click the video above!

In other news, I am very happy to say that this blog has come a long way since I started it just over a year ago! It’s been a fun ride, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting bloggers from Vancouver and around the world… exploring new places, sharing my photography and video, and frequently embarrassing myself on my blog.

Bear with me, I’m going to toot my own horn for a paragraph. I can’t help it! I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started the VancityAllie blog (although I’ve been blogging since I was 12 years old)…

In the past year, the blog has really surpassed my expectations and we’ve hit 1,632,517 unique visitors over the past year and 2,466,670 page views! 16 HD videos, over 1400 of my own photos uploaded, and a Twitter account with nearly 3,000 followers! We’ve got great rankings on Google and are averaging 100,000 to 300,000 unique visitors a month depending on content and time of year.

P.S. Did you enter the Westbeach contest below? We already have 114 entries!

Okay, now that that is out of the way…

I’m really excited about some of the trips we have coming up this December and next year. I’ll have lots more on the blog… more videos, more photos and more contests! But don’t worry, I’m still the same old me… clumsy, nerdy, and prone to ramble…

Hope everyone is excited for the Holiday season!

Update (November 30, 2009 10:30 AM PST): I will be doing the draw tonight for the Westbeach outerwear and post the results tomorrow. Stay tuned!