Blogs from Fernie, British Columbia, Canada, North America
The Bicycle Diaries: A Series of Tales from the Kootenays
Published: June 8th 2011North America » Canada » British Columbia » Fernie
June 2nd 2011
It's not the places you go that matter, it's the people you meet along the way Normally I wouldn't agree with this statement - I've always valued the destinations while traveling - but I admit that until now, I'd never traveled by bicycle before, not to mention through the Southeast corner of British Columbia. There is a certain spirit in the Kootenays. You can sense things are different here. Maybe it's the fresh air and clean water, or the "outdoorsy" atmosphere that make people interested in the guy with a solar panel strapped to his bike, or perhaps within these huge mountain valleys there's just a little extra room for an open mind - particularily in Nelson, a town that seems more accepting of dreadlocks and hemp clothing than of dandelion-free lawns. During every single day ... read more
Fernie - Packing up to go Home
Published: January 18th 2011North America » Canada » British Columbia » Fernie
January 18th 2011
After every snow condition possible -limitless powder, rock hard ice, slush and even rain - we called it quits today and are drying out our gear ready for the long trek home via Calgary, Vancouver and Sydney - We miss you all and I am looking forward to closing the wallet (skiing = tearing up $50 notes whilst hurtling down a mountain freezing to death!). Love the mountains and the mountains around Fernie are some of the most beautiful in the world but be glad to be coming home now. Highlights - Hot tubs in deep snow, the Canadian people - gracious as ever, starlight freezing nights, powder like I ve never seen before - (went CatSkiing (where a CAtSki drags you up a mountain into uncharted deep mountain terrain)), seeing the kids rip down slopes ... read more
January 11th 2011
Yesterday we left delightful Montana and made what will be our last leg of this amazing journey - back over the border back into Canada. We d had an incredible 20 inches of fresh snow over our last 3 days in Whitefish - that made the snowboarding/skiing epic and the drive out interesting to say the least. The obligatory coffee in Whitefish and we climbed aboard our big F250 Truck and headed north. A small detour to Beaver Lake turned into a minor drama as I managed to tap the brake on ice and slip a wheel into soft snow - despite dropping tyres pressures in a hand freezing -15 C, packing cardboard and evergreen tree branches under the wheels, we just buried deeper into the snow. Sarah and the kids coped very well as things ... read more
January 7th 2010
Firstly I would like to start by stating how much I love Fernie; great town, nice people and an awesome adventure playground of a mountain. We are now getting more frequent powder and all I can say is wow! The last two days on the mountain have been sensational, the best yet by far. Well as promised we'll fill you in on our festive activities over the holiday period. As soon as we arrived in Fernie we felt totally at home. The hostel is really comfortable with new and interesting people arriving everyday, great views of the mountain and it is situated in a great part of town. It's almost like being back at uni; everyone goes out on a school night and bums about the rest of the time. We're loving being boarder bums! The ... read more
March 13th 2009
So we finally left Fernie (kicking and screaming), our final 3 weeks were totally awesome, we finally got some ‘legendary Fernie pow’, lots of champagne snow. We had lots of fresh dumps and found some wicked runs through trees, and also some good on-piste skiing. We also got lucky as rat ate through one of the grid lines for the whitepass chair which is half way up and a few of the runs off the top of it were only open for hiking, which a lot of people were not keen on doing, however we took full advantage of this and although in total probably hiked about 3 hours a day, we had the most amazing fresh runs ALL DAY, NO LINES other than our own!.. We came back everyday with HUGE smiles on our faces. ... read more
March 2nd 2009
Boulder Hut, Boulder hut is a small hut in the Purcell Mountains near Kimberly. Details can be found at www.ptarmigantours.com . Departure time was 12pm on Wednesday for a Heli pick up at 2pm. I arrived at 11:30 at the Red Tree Lodge and found out that Marion one of the ladies who was supposed to be going had pulled her calf muscle and there was a free space going. So a quick call to Debbie who was in bed in her PJ's. A shower, hair wash and quick pack later Debs was on the bus and coming with!. Now that's a lady, 20 mins to shower and pack for a 4 day back country trip!!!. The boulder hut is located about a days hike into the Purcell Mountains and so we cheated a little and ... read more
February 13th 2009
Well we have been in Fernie for 6 weeks now and we are loving it. The snow still hasn't arrived and we have kinda given up on that one. It's always coming next week. It may happen but I fear not until before we depart. We are well into planning the next stage of our trip and have a departure date for Fernie which is 12th March. We fly to Vancouver and then drive down to Moab with Kyle for 5 days mountain biking, then we are exploring the parks on the way for a couple of nights in Vegas. After that we drive to Seattle via Death Valley, Yosemite, San Fran and Lake Tahoe before spending 10 days in Vancouver with Kyle and exploring the area. After being here a few weeks and 'finding her ... read more
January 29th 2009
We arrived in Fernie nearly 3 weeks ago, to heavy snow, that turned into rain on our arrival and has been absent since. Our journey was pretty stress free, other than the fact that our snowboard bag weighed 37kgs so we had to take some stuff out and put it with our other hold luggage and pay £44 extra! Our place here is pretty sweet. We have our own en-suite and very comfy double bed(albeit it could do with being a bit bigger Sam takes up half the bed!) we have free wi-fi, satellite TV, and hot room, 2 massive fridges and a pretty well equipt kitchen! Our landlords are amazing, they keep asking what else we need to make our stay more comfortable, so inevitably I came up with a list☺ We are sharing with ... read more
November 30th 2008
Once again I need to be beaten for slacking off again in terms of Blog updates. Anne and I are still in Fernie, but sadly, today is our last day! Tomorrow we leave for 3 months in Scotland prior to heading to the Balkans. Fernie has been our home for the last 18 months, and whilst we are sad to go, we are excited about our next adventure. We have had a terrific time over the last 3 months since our last post. We took another jaunt into the 'wilderness' with Ian to Glacier National Park. A beautiful place, but alas we were socked in with alot of fog and rain, so we missed many of the vista's. Good times are always had with good friends, so we had a blast. Toronto and Niagara Falls was ... read more
Banff to Fernie and back to Vancouver again
Published: October 28th 2008North America » Canada » British Columbia » Fernie
October 20th 2008
We loved Banff but we were excited to continue on our roadtrip, so after getting a quick coffee in the morning we continued on our way to Fernie. The drive was nice, lots of different scenery compared to what we have seen so far, there was ofcourse mountains but there were lots of farm land and a couple of massive lakes. But the highlight would of had to of been driving up to a grey wolf standing in the middle of the road. We were the first car in bit of a convoy so we slowed everyone else down and also got the best view of him but we couldn't get the camera out in time to capture it as we were in a bit of owe, as the grey wolf is not a very common ... read more
