Reverb

Being able to snowboard for free is awesome. In fact a total God-send for people like myself and Melissa for whom are too poor this season to justify going. This was probably the one and only time I’d get to go this season unless someone is so kind as to pay for me *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*.

Well every year up on Grouse Mountain they hold a special day of free skiing / snowboarding with a minimum monetary donation or canned food towards charity. This year that free day was Dec. 6th. I didn’t announce it before on here because…well I found out very last minute and quite honestly wanted to be amongst the few to enjoy it. Aren’t I nice and greedy?

I couldn’t ask for better weather. There was just enough cloud cover to keep the sun from being a glaring nuisance, yet they were high enough above the city that I had a clear view all the way to Mt Baker and you could see Vancouver Island. Those cold clear winter days always makes everything appear so much closer than they are.

We headed up to the mountain as early as it opened with a short stop prior at Blenz for some wake up java. It had to play into make all jealous of the amazing day plan.

After getting in a couple of runs we chilled out at the lodge and had a nice slice of pizza sitting out on the patio overlooking Vancouver and everything else below. I believe we did an effective job in making all the people needing to work Wednesday jealous. We squeezed in a few extra runs in after lunch and had a nice little sit down by the open fire pit by the ice pond where some kids were ice skating.

I haven’t been up to Grouse since elementary school day ski trips and boy is it a lot nicer than I remembered. It looked like the day was the first outing of the season for many others. Luckily for me I had company tumbling down the mountain with a board attached to my feet whilst I reacquainted myself with this sport.

The rest of the day was very enjoyable with Melissa doing my hair after we came back down and grabbed some more coffee. We decided to iron chef it with the brick of salmon my dad had caught awhile back. Enough salmon to cook in two different methods with limited ingredients. So what ended up happening is a piece of salmon covered in honey mustard sauce, lime juice and rosemary and a piece of salmon covered in lime, cilantro, rosemary, and some other spices I can’t quite recall. In the end we had that served up with some vegetables (zucchinis and mushrooms) and some rice (which was a mix of white and brown rice). Delicious! There was way to much so the quest to invite more friends over began and much was devoured.

The perfect ending to a nice spontaneous snow day. I love Vancouver. Oh, you can view more photos here.