The snowmobile zoomed right past Maya, passing literally a few meters behind her. I held my breath to avoid inhaling the black smoke, and almost put my fingers to my ears to protect them from the racket. In the distance I could see about a dozen other snowmobiles, milling around like bees in a flower bed. But they aren’t bees, and they weren’t in a flower bed. In fact, they were in a “non-motorized” zone and in addition in the Whistler watershed – the area that Whistler gets its water from. Understandably, the residents of Whistler aren’t interested in drinking water polluted by the inherent gas and oil leaks and…

I’ve been avoiding driving up the Diamond Head Road for a few years now, since it is often icy and very dangerous. Many people don’t realize this, and on a few occasions I’ve seen four or five cars in the ditch, and tow truck drivers are said to make thousands of dollars on a good weekend there. However, it’s a great day trip – it’s only an hour away, you can drive high, the access is quick, the views are spectacular and there’s reasonably good skiing, so I do like going there once or twice a year. After a not too early wake up, we drove up (with Mirella and…