 Poster: A snowHead
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Cathy Coins, Looks like you've picked a good year for Snow Ghosts too - so hopefully you'll see the resorts at their best. This is Sun Peaks yesterday and Big White usually has more spectacular Snow Ghosts than Sun Peaks does.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Fri 13-01-06 16:13; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Hi Okanagan! I would love to see that - I suppose they get them at Silver Star as well don't they? Is there any chance that we'll get conditions like that at the end of March at SS?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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geetee, yes - they do get them at the Star. Not quite to the same extent as at BW - they tend to form where it's quite exposed, and there's less of that at the Star. There will usually be some around the top of the summit chair, but the end of March isn't the best time to see them as it'll be warming up by then and they'll probably be starting to break up.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Cathy Coins, Have you seen the picture of the Snow Ghosts that was posted on the BW website (photo gallery) that was taken this month - looks fantastic. 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Shock horror - after new snow every day in 2006 the current Environment Canada forecast is that there might not be any on Saturday! 
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Okanagan, Looks as though there will be little new snow next week - presumeably the powers that be are holding it back for one great big dump in time for the Snowheads arrivals . I remember you saying that you are going to be in BW on the same dates as us, are you spending all of your trip at BW or are you heading over to Silver Star like Exciteableboy?
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MJH, I think we only overlap you at BW by a couple of days - we'll be heading up to the Star after skiing on Saturday.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Still looks like it's bucketing down at the moment at the Star looking at the webcam
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Forecast has changed - now anticipating more snow every day until at least Tuesday!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Okanagan, exciteableboy, Any interest in a quick meet-up on the 2nd/3rd - the time is almost upon us - hoorah!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Snow seems to be back - actually had 24 hours without any earlier this week! As to meetups we're a little restricted as to where we can go bars-wise by having our 4 year old with us. Which means we can only take him into places which are predominantly eating places rather than drinking establishments. So the little bar area at the top of the stairs upstairs at Sam's is best bet for us if it's post skiing and you want beer (and usually quiet enough up there then to actually find each other) - or down at Happy Valley, or the Bakery, or Beano's....
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Happy to meet up anywhere you suggest, as a first-timer at BW, I'm happy to follow your lead. Understand that your options are limited, and I'm not worried if its during the day,post skiing etc. Thought that it would be good to hook up with other Snowheads in resort.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Cathy Coins, Tomorrow morning! And I'm still at work and haven't finished packing yet There are several internet access points, so we should be able to get on sometime to update you.
MJH, we could try meeting up on the morning of the 2nd if you like and we could give you the tour! There are regular tours with the resorts "snow hosts" at 9.30 which start from opposite the village centre mall (which is where you go to buy tickets/book lessons, etc - you can't miss it, it's right next to the top of the gondola). Say we meet you there about then (then if you don't find us you can always join in on a tour anyway!). I'll be in black and yellow, and with RobW (another snowhead), who'll probably have a black and red Degre7 jacket.
Excitableboy, are you still around?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Okanagan, We have actually booked a lesson for the 2nd (to speed up the process of getting the ski legs back!) so won't be able to meet up until later, or could try the same plan for the 3rd? In case you do not have time to reply, but happen to see me around, I will be in a green Eider jacket and brown ski pants. Hopefully we will get the chance to hook-up. If you don't get the chance to reply, 'Bon Voyage'.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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MJH, 09:30 on the 3rd then?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Cathy Coins, No - only got home 15 mins ago. Still - I've got until 6.30 tomorrow morning and if I'm up late packing at least I'll sleep on the plane!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Okanagan, exactly! That's what the long journey's for
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Okanagan, See you then - have good flight and a cracking start to your holiday.
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Cathy Coins, You will love it - we got back yesterday lunchtime, and I'm still sulking! Didn't have a computer in the apartment and too lazy to go to an internet cafe, so apologies for not giving you an update whilst we were there.
What to say, or where to start? The skiing was tremendous, runs for all standards and of all varieties. You get to the top of the lift, and can literally pick any route down you like - the whole in-bounds area is a fantastic playground. The groomed runs were hard packed powder which softened a little in the sun, the ungroomed blacks were bumps of powder that simply disintegrated as you blasted through them. We were lucky enough to enjoy a couple of days of groomed runs covered in 6 inches of fresh snow, which was heaven. The first few days were had an accumulation of about 2 feet of new snow, and ended the holiday with three days of clear blue skies.
The top of the mountain can get foggy, we had a couple of days where the top was shrouded in fog, and visability limited, but we headed to the Black Forest area to the east of the mountain, and played among the deliberately thinned-out glade area (there are lots of naturally (and dense) glades areas on the mountain). Of course with the cloud came the snow, so I won't complain about that and the lower runs didn't really suffer from poor visability. The easier skiing is towards the east, and the more difficult towards the west of the mountain. The Cliff area was steep, steep, steep and took a considerable amount of courage to drop in to (although at least I can say that I did it!). Like everywhere, the top of the lifts can be a bit cold, so even if the temp. is mild, remember to wrap-up for the ride up the chairs.
The resort centre itself is small, not much to go and see, but there are enough restaurants to give a good variety. The food and drink plentiful, and when considering that we were in a ski resort, fantastic value (White Crystal Inn was probably our favourite overall). Our accomodation was of a great standard, and there was even a little too much piled-up snow to make our apartment ski-in, ski-out!!! not that the two minutes walk was too much hassle.
Perhaps the best thing was the lack of lift queues, the only time we encountered one was at the weekend, when at a couple of the popular lifts we were made ot wait for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes - midweek was unbeliveable and more often than not, we skied straight up to the gates.
If you are not looking for a rowdy nightlife, Big White is simply brilliant. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to try and help you out.
Had the pleasure of Mr and Mrs Okanagan 'guiding' us around the mountain on our second day, and just want to say thanks again to them. Hope you enjoyed Silver Star.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Cathy Coins, Flight, Connecting flight and transfer made for a long day, but all went smoothly. On arriving in Vancouver, once you have picked up your luggage, the check-in desks for the comnnecting flights are immediately outside baggage retrieval, so you don't have to drag your bags very far. There is a bit of a walk from international arrivals to domestic departures, but you will only have carry-on bags with you. Wide choice to eat either in the international arrivals area or the domestic depatures (although if you are hungry I would eat before going through the depature gates).
When you arrive at Kelowna, there wil be somebody standing near the information desk (you can't miss it,) and they will have your name and sort your transfer. We were a little unlucky, and had to wait 45 mins for our transfer, however a lucky few had a transfer waiting. The transfer was less than an hour. The central reservation guys seem to have everything down to a fine art, and we were in our apartment minutes after getting to Big White.
Don't hesitate if you have any other questions.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Thanks MJH, good to know you had a smooth time with the transfer & its all quite straight forward.
4 more sleeps now 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I've been to Big White twice, it is an absolutely excellent place. We did have a problem the second time we went that one of our bags and the skis didn't come with us on our transfer flight. Our plane was the first out of Calgary due to delays because of snow, so they put as many people they could on leaving luggage behind, but they were up in resort by 10 the next morning.
Transfers up to the resort is so smooth with a minibus waiting for us both times.
Another handy tip we found (if you are going self catering), we didn't arrive at resort till late so we asked central reservations to arrange for some groceries to be left in our room so we could make a snack and hot drink.
You will love it there, have fun - very jealous
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| MJH wrote: |
| Had the pleasure of Mr and Mrs Okanagan 'guiding' us around the mountain on our second day, and just want to say thanks again to them. Hope you enjoyed Silver Star. |
I think 'guiding' is stretching it a bit! It was good fun having someone to ski with in BW who didn't know the place better than we do. We were both impressed by the way you got around on your 'board - it certainly didn't look like you'd only been on it four days, and you only slowed us down a tiny amount.
Glad you got to ski the cliff: going over the edge is I agree the hardest part.
We had a great time up at Silver Star: the new Silver Woods area is more challenging than its mostly-blue grading would suggest. The excellent snow conditions meant that after 7 years of skiing Silver Star I finally did the walk-in and skied Alder Point : unlike the BW cliff, there is no drop-in, you just gently roll over the edge onto a very steep (I've seen 52deg quoted) but reasonably-wide sparsely treed slope:
http://saxons.fotopic.net/p25871572.html
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You know it makes sense.
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RobW, Alder Point looks pretty impressive - will have to make it over to Silver Star on our next trip to Big White (I can see us going again). You won't be surprised to read that I skied rather than boarded the cliff, and spent more time on the skis than the board - the conditions were too good to waste on being a newbie! Who knows, if timings work out in the future, we can have a proper blast around BW/SS - I presume you'll be off there again.
Cathy Coins, Anniegirl, We also met somebody who had their luggage delayed - this was apparantly due to his connecting flight being changed to a smaller plane; however their luggage was delivered early the next day, and he was on the slopes by 9.30am. I should say that nobody on our flight/connecting flight had any luggage problems so I don't think that you should be concerned Cathy.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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We twice had luggage delayed on BW/SS trips, but neither would I describe as unreasonable.
On our first trip to Bigwhite, work decided to send me to Washington DC the week before. I didn't wanted to cross the atlantic three times in a week, so arranged a flight from Washington DC to Vancouver to meet the wife there and fly up to Kelowna. However, the morning I was due to leave DC, there was a massive snowstorm, and most flights were cancelled. Ended up getting a flight to Chicago for a connection to Vancouver - but that was cancelled by the time I got to Chicago. Explained that really I wanted to get to Kelowna, and so they sent me via Calgary instead! Not surprisingly the luggage went to Vancouver, but caught up with me up the mountain in our room at Big White the following day - lost maybe half a days skiing.
Second time was when we took a group of 30 skiers there. On the way back we had a tiny (48-seater?) plane for the flight to Calgary, and all the luggage wouldn't fit on! They ended up sending all the skis via Vancouver instead, for the connection to Heathrow. We arrived at about 10am, and the skis turned up on the flight from Vancouver less than an hour later, in enough time for us to collect before the trip home.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Thanks all - not too worried about bags going astray - that can happen on any flight! (hopefully not though! )
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Hi there - how long in advance did you all book your Big White holiday? I am interested for next Jan .... Also, which TO would you recommend for it?
Many thanks.
Hannah
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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We've booked BW hols at both extremes: 8 months in advance, and 8 days in advance! Depends on how sure you want to be to get the flights/accomodation you want - although there were still seats available on the flights we used this year the day before (at the same price!), and central reservations will almost always find you somewhere to stay at short notice (but not at president week (mid feb) or new year).
We don't bother using a tour operator as it's so easy to book your flight on the 'net. Easiest flight is London Heathrow into Kelowna with Air Canada via either Calgary or Vancouver, but there are lots of alternatives, e.g. fly into Vancouver or Calgary (scheduled or psuedo-charter (Zoom, Canadian Affair - although not sure what CA will do with flights next winter, having apparently cancelled most of them this winter)) or even Seattle and then drive up (our choice - can be an adventure in itself: this was the state of the road this year), or get a separate flight on Air Canada, Horizon or Westjet.
You can view much of the accomodation on bigwhite.com and then ring up central reservations to book. There are numerous private accomodation agents as well: we've used ownerdirect.com in the past with good success.
If you want to use a tour operator for peace of mind, then I suggest Frontier Ski, and also Ski Independence - although it has been a long time since we travelled with either.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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We have used Ski Safari both times we went to Big White and both trips also included Silver Star and Sun Peaks. We had an excellent service from them, having said that we are thinking of going again next year and will see if we can do it cheaper ourselves.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Thanks Anniegirl and RobW, so if I wanted to go end Jan/beg Feb for 10 days would this be a good time to go? (From RobW's pictures it looks like it!)
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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We went around that time both times we went. First year the conditions were brilliant, the second year they were not so good, but still definitely skiable. We woke up to the sound of rain one day in BW, but as it wa Superbowl day we decided not to bother with the skiing. Conditions improved a couple of days later and were great (but not as good as the first year) for the rest of the holiday.
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Having a great time here at Big White - lots of fresh snow over the last couple of days, not cold, and great skiing. Really really enjoying it. Last day here tomorrow & then we're off to Sun Peaks. With no snow forecast tomorrow should be great conditions out on the slopes - we'll be making a full day of it. Dodging the trees over in the Black Forest has been good fun!
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FAQ
. Better make sure I've got my gloves with me 