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……

This weekend we took the AST-1 Avalanche Training course from Canada West Mountain School. It was a humbling experience. There are times when I think I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. This weekend was not one of those times. I was cold, tired, exhausted, and definitely not in good enough shape for the course. Somehow, I managed to complete both days and get the piece of paper that said I did it… but I wasn’t proud of how I performed. Anyway, I had a great time, met some great people and learned a heck of a lot. And had some nice powder lines

Check out this HD video I put together of the full 2-day experience on Seymour and Whistler Blackcomb. I think it’ll give you a good idea of how fun the course was and all the different activities that we did… including snowboarding Again, above is a link to the HD Quality Video on Vimeo. If you’d like to download the full movie, you can find it here by right-clicking and save-as to download. Song is “The Adventure” by Angels & Airwaves.

The first day was up at Mount Seymour. We were given an assortment of equipment such as shovels, avalanche transceivers, probes, and snowshoes.

It was a gorgeous morning… freezing cold but we really lucked out with the early morning sun.

There were 8 of us in the group (only 5 pictured here)… a mix of snowboarders and skiers. A really nice group… everyone was really kind and patient.

My backpack was freaking heavy! I took all my camera equipment, plus the shovels/snowshoes/probe, plus a litre of water and with my board on it… wow! Too heavy for me. Allan took all the food and drinks so his was even heavier.

I was super stoked to get going, even though I didn’t really know what to expect!

My new friends on the mountain… also super stoked!

The snowshoes were easy enough to use but it was reaaaally tiring hiking with them for hours. I wasn’t in good enough shape and I was huffing and puffing up those hills.

We learned a lot about snow… from how terrain, wind, precipitation, and solar energy all affect the way the snow accumulates and behaves.

Lots of hiking. The skiers were much faster than us snowboarders! I loved Andrea and Michael’s boards!

We learned to interpret avalanche bulletins and signs, and find the optimal conditions for us to go out on backcountry trips.

We spent a lot of time working with transceivers… doing individual and group rescues with the beacons. We also spent time looking at different snow formations and terrain features, talking about avalanche safety and awareness.

The backcountry at Seymour was beautiful! Despite it being -19 degrees Celsius + wind it was incredible. Fresh snow, sun, and clear skies!

The Whiskey Jacks came out to join us, hopping on our heads, equipment, and various other things they could dig their claws into

One Whiskey Jack in flight while his friend looks on.

Whiskey Jack on the top of a ski. (The orange tab is part of the skins used for climbing)

Day 2 we went to Whistler Blackcomb. We ended up taking the Jersey Cream chair up to Blackcomb and snowshoeing the rest of the way.

Blackcomb backcountry was really neat. We spent an hour or so digging profile pits, analyzing the layers and doing various stability tests.

I was really thankful for our guide, Bruce, from Canada West Mountain school who was extremely patient with me. Despite slowing down the group, I had a really amazing time and learned a ton. I’m really excited to get my own gear and head out into the backcountry! I hope you enjoyed the photos and the video and it gave you a good idea about what it would be like to take your own AST-1 Avalanche Training course

Now, we just have to recover. Both of us got a bad chill and cold from the weekend but Allan is really, really sick. Sucks.. so much snow and no snowboarding in the near future That’s okay though… Christmas is approaching!