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……

Yesterday Allan and I were invited by the wonderful Shelley (Communications Director for Top Table Restaurants) to a sunset party at Vancouver’s Shangri-La Hotel. It was a fun-filled classy evening celebrating the launch of Chef James Walt’s cookbook for the Whistler restaurant Araxi. Yes, of Hell’s Kitchen fame.

Araxi has been one of my favourite restaurants for many, many years now… and we always try to visit a couple times a year. I’d been hearing about this cookbook for months now, and I was so excited to hear that all guests were receiving a signed copy of the cookbook! I absolutely cannot wait to make some recipes from the book. I’ll make sure to post photos when I do.

The party was on the 58th floor in a suite overlooking our beautiful city. Our ears were popping like crazy in the elevator. The Shangri-La is so tall that it really feels like you are looking down on the other high rises.

Not to mention we were treated to a stunning sunset throughout the event.

Guests were served a nice selection of wine, and some delicious canapes prepared by Chef James Walt and the team from Araxi. My favourite was definitely the braised short rib, but Allan sure thinks the tuna was the winner.

There were some beautiful desserts as well… I had my fair share of chocolates that evening.

There was lots of mingling, and it was great to meet some of the food critics, magazine editors, chefs, and other professionals in the food industry. Not to mention getting to finally meet Miss 604 in person, and the lovely Keira-Anne.

At the end of the event, Chef James Walt began signing books for everyone. It was great to talk to him again outside of Araxi and get a photo with him. Excuse my stupid look here, I’m pretty sure I was way too excited to get a picture with him.

He lives in Pemberton (near the farms, on a farm…) and is big on local produce and sustainability as I mentioned in my previous post on Araxi.

We worked up an appetite with all the food teasers, and so we stopped in for a quick bite at the Shangri-La’s Lobby Lounge. We had a couple cocktails, appetizers, and some yummy mains and desserts. Pretty good for bar food!

What a fun night! Thanks to Shelley, Chef James Walt, and Araxi for throwing a fabulous party.