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The weather was not so great today with higher winds and a hazy overcast. However the snow conditions at Sunshine were excellent lower down so we were able to tackle some more black runs. No photos today though.

This evening we had a message from the rep informing us of the pickup times for our return flight on Wednesday. Apparently we’re now flying back with Thomas Cook rather than Monach as Inghams decided to combine the flights. They did this three weeks ago, just after we booked, but didn’t bother to tell us. The new flight is a couple of hours later, so we’ll almost certainly miss our FlyBe connection back to the island. So rather than a relaxing last day skiing tomorrow, we’ve got to call FlyBe and try and arrange a later flight, and hope the kennels can look after the dogs for the extra time.

Perhaps the rep can work something out for us, but I’m not optimistic as Inghams are almost certainly the worst tour operator ever, and their telephone staff in the UK are universally ignorant and rude.

After the first Canada trip back in 2007 when we booked directly with them and they changed the flights upsetting the whole holiday (ski school started on Sunday and our flight was moved to arriving late on Sunday!), we swore we would never use them again. Unfortunately when booking with lastminute you don’t know for sure who the operator is until you’ve gone through the booking process.

Anyway, hopefully FlyBe will be able to help, but those Dash 8s are normally quite full out of Gatwick and we’ve got a lot of luggage.

Today we went out to Golden, British Columbia to spend the day snowmobiling. Excellent fun, but much harder work than anticipated.

The snowmobiles are powered by a 380cc Rotax and made by Bombardier. With myself and Catherine on the same snowmobile it did seem a touch underpowered, but there was a 500cc option available.

We spent four hours up in the hills, with a barbecue lunch at the top where they even had veggie food.

Yet another beautiful day in the Canadian Rockies. We started the day at Sunshine Village where we tackled some more black runs. We’ve now been on all the mountains at Sunshine, and today’s snow was the best we’ve seen on this trip.

This evening we went back to Mount Norquay for the night skiing. I decided to hire a snowboard, and as a result ended up sliding on my backside for a longer distance than I can remember. I may have a few bruises in the morning, but all the bones are still in one piece.

Snowmobiling tomorrow!

The weather forecast for today was not so good, so we decided to go back to Mount Norquay as it’s a lower altitude than the other two centres. We had great visibility all day and a few hours of sunshine too.

Norquay is a fun little ski centre with loads of steep blue runs that are perfectly groomed, so it’s ideal for practicing technique. It was much quieter than the last time we were here, no crowds or queuing.

In the afternoon we went tubing, which involves sliding down an ice slope on an inflated inner tube. It was great fun, but I somehow managed to miss the matting used to slow tube riders down, instead I launched over the top of the end berm and straight through the plastic fence too! Wish I was videoing it for Youtube!

This morning three deer wandered up the hill outside our hotel balcony, I was in the shower, but Catherine braved the cold temperatures in underwear to get a picture. The picture is understandably blurry, and would probably fit right in with a Bigfoot fake…

So far the wildlife count is 6 Deer in town and a Coyote on a frozen lake. No Cougars, Wolves or other large scary predators yet, though it’s St Patricks day, so we’ll avoid the bars just in case.

Today we had a day off from skiing, instead we went out to Spray Lake to see the Howling Dogs husky sled teams.

The guide, Catherine and I were dragged along by Tron, Kermit, Ella, Doc and Diesel. The latter being without doubt the noisest dog we’ve ever encountered, he was clearly given noise lessons by a Wookie… All the noise stops when the dogs get moving though, and the Alaskan racing huskies, whilst certainly not having the presense of their Siberian colleagues, are real athletes regardless.

Spray Lake is just outside Banff national park, and a beautiful part of the country – it seems every other view of the Rockies is better than what went before, and it’s genuinely awe inspiring.

This evening we were back on the skis at Mount Norquay for the floodlit night skiing. The only issue with this is every time we got close to the treeline I expected a Cougar to jump out, perhaps with a posse of wolves for backup! Nevertheless, night skiing was great and we even tried some freestyling, admittedly unsuccessfully – still, the snow didn’t taste too bad! They have tubing now too, so we’re going to give that a go on Friday.

Some pictures from the Spray Lake: