Happy New Year from our new home in Sun Peaks, British Columbia!

Snow Ghosts at Sun Peaks - the bright colours of my Alchemy of Ride jacket definitely stand out!

This is where we arrived mid-pm Christmas Day after two days of travel from San Diego: The beautiful Alpine-themed ski town of Sun Peaks, in British Columbia, Canada - designed by Paul Mathews, the president of Ecosign which is also building the majority of the Beijing Olympic sites. For geography geeks, Sun Peaks is four and a half hours east of Vancouver, near a city called Kamloops (which has an airport).


We were arriving by rental car, after four months travel over three continents with Semester at Sea. It's a floating university where my husband, Dr Simon Hudson, was working as a tourism professor for undergraduate students and I was working with the "lifelong learner" group - check out my World Odyssey blog if you're curious. 

After months in hot and humid climates, we needed to swap our summer luggage for our ski gear in the town of Canmore, in Alberta, before heading off to British Columbia - a six and a half hour drive which we did in low volume traffic on Christmas Day. Icy up to Golden (one truck hit black ice in front of us but got control before any collision), with masses of snow banked at the sides of the highway, and then the road surface cleared making it a smooth, magical journey through Rogers Pass and the valleys of BC.

Crystal Bowl, often above the cloud line as pictured here - great place for powder

Here's the delightful abode we're renting in Sun Peaks, BC for a sensational season in the snow...... 

Hubby Simon making sure no-one misses him
in his distinctive Alchemy of Ride ski pants!

Ski in/ski out was our number one priority and we got just that: walk 10 steps to a ski path and scoot across a little bridge (which someone has festively festooned with fairy lights), along another path past condos with hot tubs (often occupied), and we're on the bunny hill heading down to the lifts. For the return journey, there is a handy signpost directing to "Village Hotels" (opposite the village school which is also ski in/out at the top of the beginner poma lift). This handy location means we can manage without a car all winter (we dropped our rental in Kamloops and got a ride up the mountain). Grocery shopping is the only nuisance as prices are as steep as black runs in the village store but there are buses, car shares and deliveries from Kamloops so we'll figure that out somehow.

Major highlight of the season - we have both our sons with us! Not just for the Christmas holidays but for the rest of the wonderful winter. We knew Fergus, our younger son, was going to be working at the Sun Peaks Grand but we didn't know that Rupert would also get a job in the village. He's starting after New Year at Vertical Cafe - cooking lots of organic and vegan fare so he's going to love his work and their products!



It was our first Christmas all together for three years, so you can imagine the joy of our festive reunion in a cute and cosy condo with a fresh dump of snow piled outside. We found our rental via Sun Peaks Survivors, a Facebook group that is proving to be very useful. Rupert has already used it for ride shares and yesterday I managed to get hold of a USB mouse when my laptop touchpad suddenly stopped working. Touchpad is still broken but at least I can use the computer now!



So far we've had four lovely ski days on really good snow with a touch of powder two mornings. Getting our ski legs going is taking a bit of time after four months based on a ship (lots of deck laps and gym workouts) but it won't be too long before we're back to peak performance - hopefully. Found a great group of skiers yesterday who let us join them for the morning: giving us a jumpstart on local knowledge around the slopes as well as that wonderful feeling of fitting in somewhere new in likeminded company. Fergus actually met one of the skiing group a few days before on the chairlift and set the whole thing up. Nice role reversal after all those years of moving countries when our first mission was to find friends for our kids!

New "Fun Peaks" ski friends!

We also attended the annual Re/Max Christmas Party last night and met tons of locals and visiting Australians. And bumped into Sun Peaks royalty: our good friends Mayor Al Raine (Canadian Ski Hall of Famer) and Olympian and retired Canadian Senator, Nancy Greene Raine who is Canada's most decorated female World Cup racer, founder of the Nancy Greene League (which our boys took part in during their youth), Director of Skiing at Sun Peaks, former Chancellor of Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, and is also a regular ski host on the hill throughout the holidays. They are such a charismatic couple and the lynchpin of Sun Peaks lifestyle.

Nancy Greene Raine - Courtesy of Sun Peaks, photo by Adam Stein

This whole endeavour of ours is a bucket-list bonanza that we've been awaiting for a long time. After spending many winters in European ski resorts in our 20s and early 30s, we always planned to be ski bums again some time. To get to do this with our sons is the icing on the cake. 



Useful Links:
https://www.sunpeaksresort.com/
https://www.sunpeaksresort.com/ski-ride/sports-school-rentals/lessons-camps-programs
https://www.facebook.com/SunPeaksResort
https://www.instagram.com/sunpeaksresort/
https://twitter.com/SunPeaksResort
https://www.youtube.com/user/SunPeaksResortTV
https://www.sunpeaksgrand.com/
https://www.verticalcafesunpeaks.com/
https://www.facebook.com/VerticalCafeSunPeaks/
https://www.instagram.com/verticalcafe/

New Year's Eve at Sun Peaks