SITE FEATURES
 SnowSeeker scribe, Trevor Suer rips through some powder on opening day at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, located just outside Golden, British Columbia. DAVE BENFIELD/Special to SnowSeekers |
GOLDEN, BC — The gondola line felt electric; everyone knew that they are about to experience at least one run of light, fluffy untouched flakes – a heli-skiing experience for a little waiting and a lift ticket.
Reaching the top of Kicking Horse, we headed straight for CPR ridge and hit the glades to the right of the gondola, where untracked knee deep was waiting for us to tear it apart. From just that quick little run big smiles appeared on the faces of Dave Benfield and Liz McBroom – both from Edmonton, Alberta, they knew this day was going to be incredible.
From there it was over to the Terminator where we made fast, wide open turns, blasting through the powder down a perfect fall line. What an awesome first run.
Our next run took us back up to CPR ridge and this time it was a beeline for the chutes, or particularly, “All Aboard.” The snow and coverage in here was hard to believe for opening day, so we took full advantage ripping down the run. Then it was laps on the Stairway to Heaven Chair.
My friend, Todd Bown and I decided that the snow was so good, we were going to take the cornice just below the lift tower. Bown hit it with speed first, landed and rode off down the face. I took the same line as Bown, trying a Lincoln loop but my one ski ejected on landing and a tumbling I went.
From there the comic relief just kept happening as I fought my way uphill through crotch-deep snow to retrieve my lost ski.
Benfield and McBroom were further down the Redemption Ridge and both said they found some excellent untouched turns. We all agreed that it didn’t feel like we were skiing at the beginning of December but more like the middle of January. The snow was just that great.
“This year has started out awesome,” said Kicking Horse's Jordan Petrovics. “It pretty much set up our base for the rest of the season. We also did some summer grooming on runs at the bottom, allowing us to open the bottom runs earlier.”
Kicking Horse strategically placed more natural jibs in different locations throughout the mountain so look around for the hidden jibs. As well, they’ve added new avalanche cannons, which should enable them to open terrain faster as the cannons are more efficient. Also during the summer, they started surveying and planning for a new future lift replacing the Pioneer Chair with a mid-mountain station and ending up beside the Stairway to Heaven Chair.
Although the lift has no scheduled installation date, with the surveying done they will be able to implement their plans as soon as they need to.
A few more laps finished off a fine opening day with some leftover fresh turns down the CPR chutes. I couldn’t believe there were still some fresh turns hidden out there. Finally, it was time to head to the bottom for some après ski at The Peaks which offered up live music, micro beers and a great atmosphere. You could definitely tell by vibe in the air and the smiles on everyone’s face – opening day at Kicking Horse was golden.
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Total snowfall so
far this season:
10046 cm