BC Winter 2025/26 Recap

I have never really been an autumn or winter person before moving to Canada. For me, the cold and darkness wasn't worth the 5 days of skiing I did each year in NZ. Canada has given me a new perspective on these two seasons. Although it rained for like 3 months straight from November to January here, the Christmas lights, festivities, and snow on the mountains made it a joyous and special time.

At Creus Engineering (my first job) we did pumpkin carving for Halloween. It was funny since everyone in the office had carved many pumpkins in their lives, but this was my first time.

We also made it to a Canucks ice hockey game and had front row seats, thanks to Creus. Canucks play in the highest league so it was very entertaining. We looked up how much the top guys got paid, and in one of their games they got paid well above our whole years salary.

Over the Christmas period we visited Bowen Island and saw this property with plenty of decorated Christmas trees. We also skied at Whistler on Christmas day with Jackson and Maria which was special. It was a bluebird day with short lift lines so such a win.

We also tried snow shoeing at the top of Grouse Mountain with Nicola. This was an interesting experience to say the least, particularly on the way down. The snow trail we went on was hard packed which made walking on it with snow shoes extremely hard - they are more designed for powder. We had people overtaking us just wearing micro spikes for context. Nevertheless it was beautiful and there's something so magical about being on snow, maybe the way it absorbs noise.

Lucas and I did an interior trip early January while in between jobs. We skied two days at Kicking Horse while staying in Golden, and then two days at Fernie. It was exciting as we hadn't ventured that far into BC before, and I had never been on a ski trip like it before. We were a bit nervous about the 10+ hour drive to the interior considering it was peak winter and we didn't have full winter tyres, but the roads seemed to be well salted. Kicking horse is very steep and has out the gate terrain, some of it you have to hike to. Fernie was a bit less steep, but had five big bowls to ski in. The snow was rather scarce at Fernie but we still got a great first day. We also had our friend Josh to show us around, both on the mountain and in the town.

One spring weekend, a group of friends put on some banana costumes and headed to the Vancouver Rugby 7's. The NZ women ended up taking home the trophy which was cool, they dominated big time.

I really wanted to go and ski at Mt Baker (just over the border in the US), so Lucas and I went there on my birthday. It was very chill vibes and I think we were both shocked at how we had gotten so used to skiing at these massive resorts, particularly Whistler, that it made Mt Baker feel so small. We then went to one of my favourite restaurants for dinner in Lolo, Akbarjooheh.

Our final hoorah for this ski season was a weekend trip to Whistler in May with a group of friends. It was classic spring skiing with warmer temps and slushy snow. We felt the need to re-wear our banana costumes again to provide some entertainment and spread the joy. That evening we played a dress up game and went for dinner at Sushi Village. A few cocktails later we found ourselves dancing in Buffalo Bill's. What an end to the ski season!

MacKenzie

28 Oct 2026