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Day 6 – our final day here at Silver Star started with news that the 12-year old boy who was involved in yesterday’s ski-lift accident was in an unknown condition at a Vancouver hospital. The boy was at Silver Star on a school trip, and was in a snowboard lesson at the time. This was good news, because at least the accident hadn’t been a fatality.

We woke up at around 8am, and had breakfast as per normal. Ed and Tess once again hit the slopes first, while Pip and I took it a little easier. Once we finally hit the slopes, we decided to ski around the Silver Woods area, with Pip wanting to ski ‘Robin’s Hood’ – a glade run through the trees. This was hard work, but still enjoyable – very different to most of the other groomed runs we had been skiing.

From Silver Woods, we went towards the Comet Express chair so that we could ski F.I.S. once again, and also take some action photos while we were there. It was relatively windy at the top, and partly foggy, but the conditions overall weren’t too bad. After skiing a number of runs here, Tess and Ed decided it was time for lunch, and they went towards the village to meet up with Nat. They ended up eating at the Italian Garden – a proper restaurant (wow!) – while Pip and I continued skiing (we had eaten breakfast considerably later than they had).

Pip and I went from the Comet area back across to Silver Woods – via Pip’s favourite, ‘Silver Fox/Far Out’. We experimented a little and skied BX Express, something we hadn’t done previously, and this turned out to be a similar, but enjoyable, alternative to Silver Fox. By 1:30pm we decided that it was probably time for lunch – and we hoped that Bugaboos had finally cleared out (in previous days, it was a nightmare at lunchtime). Unfortunately for us, we still couldn’t get a table when we finally got there, and so went to see the others who were still dining at the Italian Garden. As we walked in, they were walking out, so we turned around and tried Bugaboos once again.

We finally secured a table and had our normal lunch at the bakery. The Summit Chair, where the accident happened the day before, had been closed all day and was still closed at this time. We hit the slopes again heading for the Powder Gulch area – somewhere we hadn’t been back to many times since we had arrived. Luckily the weather was nicer over here than it had been previously, and we skied a few runs we hadn’t done before. We headed back towards the village at 3pm, as we had to be back at the house by 3:15pm to make our snowshoeing commitment (from the night before).

After returning to the house briefly, having a snack and a drink, we hit the track and walked back to the village. Pip and I went to Valhalla Pure, the meeting place for the snowshoe tour. The snow outside was coming down thick and fast by this time, and we were hoping that it would clear up not long after. After fighting our way through the crowd to sign waivers and get a pair of snowshoes, we went back outside to escape the chaos inside.

Unfortunately for us, because our tour was cancelled the night before, we were all there in addition to all of the people who had booked a tour for tonight – meaning that there were about 14 or so people on the tour… way too many, and way too many rat-bag children (with parents that didn’t seem to care about their poor behaviour). While this was disappointing, as there were only 8 people booked for Thursday’s tour, there was nothing we could do except enjoy the scenery (and the peace and quiet of the forest once they finally fell too far behind to be heard).

As the sun set, we donned ‘head-torches’ and continued climbing through the forest – heading for Wild Horseman’s Cabin. Nat, Tess and Ed jumped on a sleigh ride at 5:30pm in order to meet us at the cabin. Pip and I enjoyed the Glacading (sliding down snow chutes between the trees) and Avalanche Running (a technique for sliding down powder-clad snowbanks) that we got to experience en route to the cabin.

When we finally arrived at the cabin, we enjoyed the most exquisite meal we had experienced the entire journey – consisting of (entirely home made) gourmet tomato soup, fresh salads and vegetables, spinach and tomato pasta, wild salmon from the BC area, and AAA steak. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal with amazing flavours and options available. The meal was finished with a fantastic ‘Cappuccino Cake’, which was enjoyed by everyone. Following dinner we jumped into a horse-drawn sleigh (the same one the others had taken on the way there) and enjoyed a very pleasant ride back to the village.

Upon returning to the house, we readied ourselves for our departure the day after and packed bags to the best of our ability. We were concerned about weights of bags (due to excessive shopping, and no flights being taken since we had started), but Ed assured us the if we balanced the weight, there would be no problems.

After packing, and speaking to John, Cheryl, Kim and Max for a while, we headed for bed – we certainly needed the sleep after all that walking and activity, and we had to be up at 6am… even earlier than our normal early starts!

Stay tuned – I’ll hopefully get up a few more days as soon as we get back from dinner tonight!

Check out the gallery – there are some great photos from the snowshoeing up there!