December 6, 2021 Snow day

I awoke to a blanket of white coating the Okanagan valley. A deep blanket that embraced our world with a thick cover of snow. 

They didn’t call for this.

The experts that are supposed to warn us of environmental storms missed the mark as winter decided to pay our beautiful valley a visit. Ten centimetres of light fluffy Okanagan Champagne Powder filled every crevasse and covered my boats. I do prefer it would stay at the tops of the mountain. We have been pretty lucky, it wasn’t until the first week of December that winter elected to rear its ugly head. Last week we set temperature records for warmth. 

Today, warm weather – not so much.

The world is beautiful when it’s covered in fresh snow. I was sure the world at Big White would be even more beautiful. 5700 feet in elevation beckoned me. I pushed my daughter to get moving. Did she want to go skiing? I asked her. She thought about it but told me she needed to work at the school store and didn’t want to go. I hope my kid and I can get a powder day at the hill at least once this year. 

The storm turned out to be a surprise to more than just me. When we pulled out of the driveway and slid down the hill in front of my house I could see the plows had yet to clear any of the snow. The traffic was heavy and the snow was slippery. It was nice to see that the Norval flatbed truck was stopped at the bottom of the hill and waited for me. Even though he had the right of way, he waited to make sure I didn’t slide right through the intersection. I smiled and waved as I managed to come to a complete stop.

We were late for my daughter’s work at the school store and I was hoping to get the mountain asap. Traffic and road conditions weren’t in my favour.

Twenty minutes of crawling speed down the highway and we were at my daughter’s school. She was late for work at the school store and I was concerned, not about her being late, I didn’t like my odds of getting to Big White this morning. Highway 97 was barely moving. 

Traffic is becoming very heavy, and there was a report of an accident on the bridge. I let go of the idea of powder turns. I turned left instead of right,  traffic was sitting at a stand-still. Someone was telling me something, and skiing wasn’t it.

It would turn out to be a good thing I listened.

I made my way home and took a closer look at the boat. The cover on the boat was not the winter cove. Since getting to the mountain to take advantage of the snow was not going to happen I needed to get something accomplished. 

My neighbour Brad came and helped me pull the iced-up cover off and replace it with the proper one. I’m not sure if it’s just me but sometimes I wait till the very last minute to do something I should have done in the first place.

Changing the cover and cleaning up the boat made me feel good.

I’m sure skiing would have been a better feeling. 

But getting a task off the to-do list is a pretty close second. 

Winter reminded me who was the boss. It also reminded the drivers of BC who the boss is as well. There will be other powder days. There will be more time for skiing. I look forward to more turns on skis. If you can’t escape winter, then you might as well love it.

Let it snow, let it snow.