Big White: Ending the Season on a Good Note

Neil didn’t have the best start to his skiing season. On the second day he was up on Cypress he broke his leg and was off his legs for 3.5 weeks, and off his skis for about six weeks. However, aside from this (very) bumpy start, this season was great. We managed to go up to Cypress about once a week mid-week during the winter, and a few more times on weekends after we got back from Hawaii. Neil doesn’t seem traumatized and was excited about skiing again (to say the least).

Last year on the Easter long weekend we headed to Big White for the season finale. I checked a few other options for this year’s Easter weekend, but decided to head to Big White again since it’s a great resort, accommodation in Kelowna is relatively inexpensive and it’s not as far as let’s say Silver Star.

So on Good Friday we crammed into our rental car, three adults (Gili’s mom was visiting), and Neil in his car seat that took up one and half seats on the back seat, leaving half a seat to the adult in the back, since all of our skiing gear still had to go in. The drive was long, over five hours, but luckily the driving conditions were good.

The Airbnb I booked turned out to be a sweet deal. Not only was it nice and spacious, but we could also use the backyard which had a trampoline, and the host had two little girls who Neil enjoyed playing with.

We skied at Big White for two days. The first day was nice and sunny. On the second day an Easter bunny greeted us with some brownies but also flurries of snow and colder weather. Still the skiing was excellent on both days. Neil really improved his skiing during the last few weeks of the season, by this point linking turns and doing a whole run by himself. It seems that “ordinary” skiing started to be a bit boring for him, so he was also doing jumps and going between the trees. A few time I spotted him from the lift and pointed him out with pride to the person sitting next to me – “this is my son”. If the conversation got any longer I also added that he broke his leg skiing a few months before. It seemed hardly believable. 

The drive back was uneventful. We stopped in Merritt and had lunch at Boston Pizza. As we discovered last time, it is one of the only possibilities to get decent food in Merritt. Then we managed to go all the way back to Vancouver without stopping again. Neil was a true trooper on the drive and he actually demanded that we’d keep driving and didn’t want to stop.

Cypress was still open for a couple of more weeks after that and we really thought we’d get another day or two of skiing in. But the next weekend Neil was either not feeling well or just tired and didn’t want to go (unheard of!) and on the weekend after that Gili was sick. So it turned out that once again we finished the season with a great Easter weekend at Big White. Not a bad place for a season finale, especially for a season that started rough but ended on a very good note.