Family Day Weekend 2012 Authored by the group of 5

—-12 members of the ski club say “put the Tonquin Valley ski on your list“.

Good snow, warm temperatures, and a great adventure.  We had heard that it is a long ski in and by God it was- in fact a  ½ marathon long.

Our welcome at the lodge was warm and satisfying with waiting hot coffee, tea, juice, fresh chocolate chip cookies (hot cinnamon buns the next day) and with the reception of our generous and friendly hosts Sara and Caroline.   Our very abundant and delicious, made from scratch, meals were served at a round table comfortably seating all 12 of us and equipped with a lazy-susan.  One had to be quick with the self-serving as hungry ski- mates around  the other side of the table wanted to “spin the wheel” to avail themselves of lasagne, greek salad, scalloped potatoes, ham, pancakes, bacon …and the list goes on.

For sleeping, the group was accommodated in 5 cabins each with its own style of wood burning stove. Various experiences ensued  in getting and keeping fires going but overall it was a success.  Maybe we even had some pleasure in rising in the middle of the night to stoke the fire.  And a fact not to be missed, is that, as we were the first guests of the season we had a “fresh” outhouse.

On Sunday some folks played on the hills and others skied to Moat Lake/ Moat Pass.  We might have all skied further and longer but we were told that fresh cinnamon buns would be on the table at 3:00 pm sharp and they were (delicious).

With fresh overnight snow, glorious sunny skies, dramatic scenery and a leisurely lunch at McCarib Pass our ski out on Monday was a pleasure (at least until the creek section).   One of our group Ivan had left us at an earlier junction as he was remaining in the mountains for another 6 days to join other ski companions.

For several hours, our group steadily skied towards the parking lot and vehicles except for Wally Wabbit who seemed inclined to bound up the nearby slopes just for the fun of it.  The last 2 kilometres along the winding, twisty creek challenged our tired legs and demanded good mental focus to stay out of the open creek.  We all did-there were no wet feet..

Thank you very much to George and Margo for a fun, invigorating and overall great trip.