Dude, Where's My Snowboard?: Going to the Dogs!

So you may recall that we hopped on a bus to see the Hockey last weekend and met a bunch of nice folk from Elkford who invited us to see some Dog Sledding?

Well, I managed to wangle a Sunday off work (well, I say a day off, but I had to work rentals from 8am til 10am - but no biggie!) and we headed off in the van to Elkford, which is about 45 minutes drive from Fernie. Elkford is the "Wilderness Capital of BC" and the scenery on the way there was lovely. Plus we've had all this new snow which made it extra special.

What can I say? I think I LOVE Elkford. They have their own diddy ski hill, with one T-Bar drag lift (which is a real thigh burner, I can tell you!) that serves eight runs. It's all manned by volunteers and a day lift ticket costs $20! BARGAIN! We took our snowboards with us, on the offchance that we could do a bit of riding, and we were rewarded with a near empty hill, and a bunch of friendly Elkfordians having a nice relaxing Sunday on their little bit of mountain. And the bonus was that the dog sledding was taking place about a stones throw from the base of the ski area so we could watch some of the races and then go for a little snowboarding session.

The yapping, howling and barking from a lot of Huskies and other breeds greeted us as we had a look around - it gave me a real sense of Canadian culture with weatherbeaten, grizzled looking sledders smiling and having a good old natter with other sledders, standing next to makeshift trucks with large cages on the back for the dogs and wonderful old fashioned sleds balancing precariously on the top! The dogs just get SOOOO excited about the whole thing, and they can tell when a race is about to begin as they all start going bonkers. We saw some truly beautiful pooches who all came from the same families, and spoke to a few owners who told us were very welcome to give the dogs a cuddle and take photos. We even saw the MOST adorable Husky puppies, that Danni and I wanted to kidnap immediately (they weren't pulling any sleds, obviously!)

We saw a few starts of some of the races - they were more like time trials really, with sled teams leaving at five minute intervals. There are teams of people who physically have to hold the dogs back at the start line - which makes for amusing viewing as one guy was being dragged along on his bottom by a team of over-eager doggies!

Once we'd had our fill of racing, we went back to the ski hill for some riding and found two great jumps that had been built by some locals. Baden had his video camera so he took some footage of us all going over them, and we were soon joined by a bunch of local teenagers who were really nice kids and came to join in. One of them was VERY good and put us all to shame, but was very modest about it!

Here's me and Jethro looking gnarly, courtesy of Baden and his filmic genius:

We then ended the day in the lodge at the bottom of the hill, which serves hot food like nachos, soup, burgers etc. Because it was the end of the day, the lovely ladies behind the counter decided to charge us pittance for it - Danni got a massive bowl of yummy chicken noodle soup for a dollar! I think we'll definitely be going back to Elkford at some stage - they don't get that many foreigners there and I think they found us quite interesting, hence the warm reception.

Some typically stunning scenery on the way to Elkford