π
2017-02-20 01:01
in Nsnow, Snow
After Banff's Lake Louise Resort, we finished our tour with Sunshine Valley, another resort 45mn away but affiliated with Lake Louise.
Sunshine Valley is a bit more towards Calgary and definitely an interesting set of 3 mountains which start with a long ass gondola ride (20mn or so) to get to the real snow village where most of the lifts are. The day we went was family day, so driving in took a while with a long line to the parking lot, but at least we got a spot in said parking lot, not everyone did. Thankfully the lines at the lift were not that long (<5mn in singles line), despite the crowds.
many many cars
after a long gondola ride, finally arrived to the real base
got 4 inches of powder in the last 24H, not bad
backcountry gate that required an avalanche beacon
It was all nice and good until we went side country, I hiked up a short minute to get over a rocky ridge to a snow path where others had been. And honestly it's hard to know after the fact since I couldn't see all the way down when I went, but I believe the edge I was on collapsed when I was trying to get down the cornice, which caused me to fall and land on my back, going down head first without being able to stop.
I remember catching air twice, feeling some rocks, and eventually I landed after the 2nd jump on my back where I took off over some rocks and landed in soft enough snow. My backpack made a hole in the snow and stopped me there. Thankfully outside of being a bit frazzled, I was 100% fine. The only damage was my GPS watch that got shattered against a rock. From what I can tell this is the track I did while sliding head first on my back:
Since in the end, I was perfectly fine, I finished the day with Arturo and counted my blessings...
Sunshine Village is definitely an interesting resort, worth going back to (and they have wifi at the top of lifts as well as pokestops, woot!)
I did better the rest of the day :)
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