OnSno.com

Day 3 at Silver Star started as did any other day here at Silver Star – about 8am was the alarm wake up call. Breakfast was largely uneventful, but the report coming from Ed reporting a -14C current temperature was not overly comforting. We had had pleasant weather relative to this so far, with max temperatures being about -5C. Ed and Tess hit the slopes first as they always did, followed closely however by Pip and I.

We skied a number of runs, and didn’t bump into Ed and Tess the entire morning – the lack of queues meant that there was no waiting around at the bottom of a lift line, and hence less chance of bumping into people on the mountain. We skied a number of runs around the Silver Woods area, and a run or two on Pip’s favourite – Far Out and Silver Fox. Because of the blizzard the night before, there was a considerable covering of new snow in all areas. Even the runs claimed to be groomed had a dusting of 5cm+ across the board. This fluffy coating made for harder skiing, and certainly cooler toes.

Ed and Tess returned to the house for lunch, while Pip and I headed once again for Bugaboos Bakery. Unfortunately, as it was earlier today than yesterday (being only 12:00pm), Bugaboos was busy – really busy. We decided to take some time out, and went and sat in the Town Hall (basically the day lodge) for half an hour, hoping the crowd would dissipate while we were there. At 12:40pm, we returned to Bugaboos, only to discover that there was still a considerable crowd (although the line from the cashier didn’t extend all the way through the door as it did earlier in the day). While we couldn’t find a table of our own, two Australian ladies from Newcastle invited us to sit with them – they had plenty of spare seats between them – and so we did.

After we had warmed up over lunch, and finished eating of course, we decided that we would ski only another few runs before heading back to the house – it was bitterly cold, and the wind wasn’t making life much easier either. After returning to the house, we decided to investigate further the possibility of Snowmobiling and Snowshoeing. Nat, Pip and I walked to the village in search of a little more information, and somewhere to book all these activities.

Our lift tickets were ’5 of 6 days’, meaning we had one day to take off (which we had already decided would be Wednesday), and hence one day to relax and do some non-skiing activities. After not being able to convince Nat to come snowshoeing with us, Pip and I booked to go on the ‘Starlight Cabin Rendezvous’, which involved a few hours of snowshoeing, and a dinner in a cabin in the backcountry, followed by a sleigh ride home. The rest of the crew decided that they would catch the sleigh ride both ways, but join us for dinner at the Wild Horseman’s Cabin.

Unfortunately, this was only happening on a Thursday – so it would have to happen after a day of skiing, rather than at the end of our R&R day. We walked across the village to the Resort Information Building, in order to find out about snowmobiling. We left there not long after, with a ’2-hour snowmobile safari’ booked for Ed and I, with Pip deciding to ride as a passenger. This was booked for Wednesday afternoon, and so would be during the afternoon of our relaxing day.

Following all of this booking/spending/etc we returned to the house where Pip made popcorn – an afternoon snack. We watched an episode or two of yet another CSI marathon, and then got ready to hit the village for dinner. Tonight we went to ‘Long John’s’ pub, a place that none of us had ever been to before. The food was in the style as to be expected at a pub, but still very nice. We didn’t stay long as we were all exhausted, and so we made our way home after a quick stop at the grocery store.

Once we had returned from dinner, we watched some more CSI and also an episode of NCIS (which was very much appreciated as a nice change to CSI…. CSI CSI CSI). Everyone fell asleep relatively early, with Nat being the last awake at 9pm. We all hoped to sleep in in the morning, and so no alarms were set when we went to bed. Everyone hoped that the weather would warm up before the morning, so that we could ice-skate, snowmobile and tube without freezing completely.

Keep checking back as new photos will be up this afternoon hopefully!