March 11, 2009 | Tips from Travellers >
Fort St. James, Skiing & Snowboarding
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Inspired by a North America-wide Burton contest that encouraged growth and participation in women’s snowboarding, seven friends and I embarked on a six-mountain, seven-day snowboarding tour of northern BC in February 2009. The third mountain we hit was Murray Ridge near Fort St. James.
We arrived in 'the Fort' (Fort St. James) a little later than anticipated but were still given a warm welcome from Dan, Izzy, Amy, Jude and Skye at Murray Ridge - a FAST hill in northern BC that has perhaps the best groomed runs we've ever seen.
Dan, the hill’s general manager, hooked us up with lift tickets for the day and invited us into the lodge for lunch on them - sooo nice.
With no new snow in a couple of weeks, we tried some choppy tree runs in the morning but opted to stick to the ultra-speedy groomers for the rest of the day. (Thanks to Jude for taking our troop of estrogen-laden ladies through the bumps and trees.)
The Murray Ridge Lodge had great music playing all day long. The hill ambasadors that toured us around all day and showed us the best place on the hill to hang out were incredibly courteous. And the incredible views and sun on our faces all day looked and felt so good.
Who would have thought we'd have perfect sunny weather at every hill we hit in February in Northern BC?
Our day ended with some runs with the Murray Ridge staff, which was a blast. We got in the last T-bar run too. And YES, the Murray Ridge t-bar is longer than Troll Mountain's - by about 5 feet. Still, it's nearly 2 kilometres long!
Our day was capped off with some good times in the lodge with all the staff and again we felt really pampered and very fortunate to have such amazing hosts.
When we interviewed Dan for our little video project, we asked him if they are that friendly to everyone who comes to Murray Ridge from out of town. His answer? "I sure hope so. That's what we want to do."
We concluded the Ridge is one of the most fun hills we've hit on the tour and in no small part because of the amazing folks we met there. We left feeling awesome!