March 11, 2009 | Tips from Travellers >
Terrace, 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 sixth and last hill we hit was Shames Mountain, homebase for seven of eight of us on the tour.
When we rolled into the parking lot at Shames Mountain we immediately saw friends, partners and friendly local staff who were excited to welcome us home. Our new mountain manager Marty invited us up to the lounge where he and the food and bevvy manager Gerry had set up a fantastic breakfast to welcome us back to our favourite hill in the north. Pancakes, fruit and orange juice and champagne! Seriously, we felt like superstars. What a great welcome home. There was even a tablecloth on the table.
Super sweet Gerry also busted out some photo albums with Shames Mountain stickers on them because he knew we'd have photos from our trip we'd want to load them up with. How very thoughtful. Thanks for making us feel so special boys!??
Sam Lewis, our only PG rider, hadn't yet experienced the awesomeness of Shames so we all loaded up to the top of the T and went for a boot pack right off the bat. Walked up to the first knoll and rolled down some heavy, sort of crusty powder (still no fresh snow anywhere in the north on our trip) and back to the T.
We had lots of breaks in the sun as well as watched Stacey hit a jump that shot her like a rocket straight up in the air. She landed butt first in the snow but shook it off like a pro and kept on down the hill.
We hit up the terrain park with some of our mountain friends and made our way back to the chalet to enjoy the rest of our champagne and bask in the glorious Shames Mountain afternoon sun with our friends.
We had an incredible week-long journey that none of us will forget, and we adored every hill we visited, but there really is no place like home. We realized how very lucky we are to have chair and T-lift access to some of the most glorious snow in the province.?
Shames is owned by a small group of community shareholders who operate the hill because they know it is good for the community. It's not a huge money maker and we are truly grateful to the people that keep this hill operating every year. Without them we wouldn't have this terrific resource right in our own backyard.
Big thanks to those folks that keep Shames going!