Evenings in Panorama Mountain Resort and Fairmont Hot Springs, BC

A couple of months ago my work took me to the south east side of British Columbia, specifically to two beautiful resorts, Panorama Mountain Resort and Fairmont Hot Springs.  Both these resorts are located near the town of Invermere. This was a work trip so the days were spent at work while the evenings were spent in making the most of the trip. It was a 4 day trip not including the 2 days of driving. 

Me and my colleague drove down to Panorama Mountain Resort on a Sunday, starting at around 8 in the morning from Kelowna and reaching our destination by 3 pm. The drive was smooth and uneventful. Panorama Mountain Resort is a Ski and Gulf resort nestled in the Purcell mountains. It is situated at an altitude of 1500 m and has a top elevation of around 2400 m. It has 129 ski runs with the longest run being 6.5km. I don't much know about skiing so not going into too much detail about the ski side of things.  As far as I was concerned I had 3 evenings in Panorama to do some sightseeing and enjoy the idyllic setting of my temporary workplace. So first evening I started off with the thing I love most when I am in a new place. An aimless walk around the place. I started off from our hotel, the Pine Hill which is situated on a higher elevation just at the base of the start of the network of ski lifts. I had noticed a convenience store at the edge of the property and keeping that as my end point I started walking. I took a series of steps which took me down to the store. At one point I was directly under the cable car which starts from the base. These cable cars are some of the cutest I have ever seen. One set contained 3 small half open chairs where you can only stand. They reminded me of the video game Roller Coaster Tycoon. I stood here under the chairs as they went over me. I waved back to a kid who waved at me as it went past. With the chairs gone, I resumed my walk and wound my way down to the store. All of this area was all small lodgings and houses. Far beyond a huge mountain loomed over everything. Behind me, in the direction of where I descended was the mountain side covered by the ski slopes. The scenery was stunning. I made my way to the store, bought some stuff and made my way back to the hotel this time taking a different route. 

By next day evening I found out that having food here was going to be a problem for me. I eat only halal and in places where its not available, which is most of the places I go to, I just stick with veg options. But this place was expensive. I thought I would be leaking money if I continue having lunch and dinner at the restaurants at the resort so I decided to go to the town of Invermere and have something there. Fortunately, there is a shuttle bus which runs to and fro from the resort to the town. I was among a bunch of resort employees who boarded the bus and after a ride of 30 mins descending through the mountains, going past some stunning houses, it dropped me in the town just near my destination, a Chinese restaurant. I was the only one in the quiet restaurant and after having some nice fried rice I made my way outside to take a little walk before I board the bus back to the resort. Invermere is a town of around 4000 people. At that time of the day though, it looked like an abandoned town. There was no one in sight. I walked around a bit looking at the closed shop fronts. There were some pretty shops on the main road and not much. It was getting dark and at the back of mind I had this fear of missing the bus. So I did not stray too much from the stop that I was supposed to board the bus. I walked into one of the stores nearby to get something to eat and I spotted a few fellow Indians. I overheard them talking in Hindi so I knew they were Indians. I struck up a conversation with one of them and soon enough all 3 of them were engaged in conversation. One guy, Sandy was kind enough to assure me that in case I missed the bus he would drop me off to the resort. That reassured me a lot. Here was a random person with whom I spoke for just 5 mins who was ready to drive me almost 20 kms at 10pm in the night. Some times strangers are more helpful than friends. I walked to my stop almost 30 mins earlier than the scheduled time and waited there. A solitary figure on the road. There was no one else in sight. No one on my left till my eye could see and no one on the right till the end of the street. Luckily though there was a bar on the other side of the road and I could hear laughter now and then floating across the road. That kept me company in the cold night. The bus was 30 mins later than the scheduled time. Turns out the schedule I knew and the updated schedule were different. I made a mental note of this new schedule for my next 2 days. Anyway, I was safely tucked back in bed by 1030pm. 

Third day bought an unexpected surprise. Without going into the work details all I can say is that I got to ride pillion on a snowmobile. It was a short ride on the ski slopes but it was fun. Also, for the first time in my life I went on a ski lift. While coming back to the base on the ski lift, on my way down a couple of people shouted to me that I was going the wrong way to which I simply laughed. I am yet to learn the art of coming up with a witty reply in situations like this. The evening was uneventful. Once again I went to the same Chinese restaurant in Invermere and had the same dish. Third evening was again a repeat. 

Fourth evening we checked-in at Fairmont Hot Springs. Situated at a distance of around 25kms on Highway 93, this is a resort centered around a swimming pool fed by natural mineral hot springs. This day I was tired from the work so I did not do much but the next evening I again went out for a walk. The resort is bunch of buildings clustered around the central pools which have splendid views of the surroundings on one side.  I walked out the main building where we were staying and ventured away from the building. Directly opposite the approach road there is a small hill on which I spotted an old building. Curious I went near and spotted a signboard at the base of the hill which mentioned that the building was the site of the original natural hot spring water baths. Intrigued I followed the directions to the small building and looked inside. Its a small structure divided into 3 rooms each containing a small rectangular bath recessed into the ground. It was filled with water. In two of the rooms the water was overflowing. It was naturally flowing into these more than 100 year old baths. It was exciting to look at. From here I ventured further upwards where I spotted a white structure which looked like a view point. It turned out to be a place where weddings take place. It had a nice view. It was slowly getting dark and again I was the only person here. So I quickly made my way back to the hotel. It was a nice little excursion for an evening. Next day we packed up and left for Kelowna. Overall a nice trip considering I was actually there on work.  

Goat's Peak Hike, Kelowna, BC

Goat's Peak Provincial Park is a small park in West Kelowna near the shores of the Okanagan Lake. One of my colleagues at work strongly suggested me to go on this hike as it had nice scenery and not too many people. Joining me on this hike were my friends Kanwal and his wife, Sonal. The trailhead was a quick 30 min drive from our locality. 

We were on our way on the trail by 10am. It was a cloudy and a bit overcast day and there was also a forecast for a rain later in the afternoon. The initial section of the trail is pretty flat is a more of a casual walk with the open Okanagan lake on your right. To the left is a wall of rock running along the length of this section. There were some good views of the lake from here. The actual elevation gain started sometime later but a good 2 hours hike later we decided to stop at a view point and end our hike there. Here we sat for a while, took some photos and chatted for a while. But most importantly we took in the views there. Too often we get more involved with the task of actually completing our hike to the top and forget to just chill and enjoy the hike. 

We started our descent back from here when sometime into our hike down it started drizzling. We hurried up hoping that either the drizzle stops or we reach our car before the drizzle turns into a full on downpour. We found ourselves somewhere in the middle. We were still a bit away from our vehicles when it started raining heavily and by the time we reached our vehicles we were a bit drenched. Fortunately not too much for we had our rain jackets on.  Overall, it was a good half day to spend on a weekend. 

A trip to Greenwood, the smallest incorporated city in Canada.

Greenwood is a city of around 600 people located in south British Columbia. Back in 1890s it used to be a hub of mining with population touching 3000 people but over time when the mining industries shutdown it's population dwindled to its present levels. Back then they even had 2 newspapers being published from the city. It was incorporated as a city in 1897 and even though the population later declined it has kept the city label hence its claim to fame as the smallest incorporated city in Canada.

A few months back Divu, his wife Vani and I made a day trip to Greenwood. It was both, a casual ride to a nearby attraction and also as practice for my car driving. I bought a used Corolla last year and having got the license early this year I wanted some highway driving practice. The drive itself was unremarkable and we reached Greenwood after 2 hours of driving. But, much to our dismay the Rail Museum, which is on the way to Greenwood, that I badly wanted to visit was closed unexpectedly. We wandered around aimlessly looking for any person inside or outside but there was no one so we moved on to the city. We roamed the streets of Greenwood just taking a look at the cool old buildings there. It all looked like a set from a western movie. Some other pretty buildings were the post office, then on the Main road there are many more with the one with Greenwood Saloon Inn perhaps the best. 

We stopped near the City Hall building which is one of the prettiest buildings there and were just chatting there when a car stopped near us and a guy started talking to us. He mentioned that they used to hang people in the top floor of the City Hall. That was quite a way to start off a conversation. Divu then asked him if there were any haunted buildings there and the guy replied with 'which isnt?'. We all laughed out loud but seriously I am a fan of all things spooky and creepy and had someone actually shown us around these buildings I would have loved to explore them. Unfortunately it was not going to happen then.

City Hall

As we were just parting ways the guy then asked a question which seemed quite random. He asked us if we know Clint Eastwood. We said yes we know him and I actually love his Dollars trilogy of westerns. After this line he hands me, because I was the closest to him, a paper with something written on it and zooms away. We were left standing on the road with the paper in hand. I read the contents and it had all kind of white supremacist and Islamophobic stuff. I chuckled to myself thinking what would his reaction have been if had found out that I am a Muslim. This was the first case of me encountering something like this in Canada. Well, we threw the paper away and resumed our walk intentionally not thinking too much about it.

Adding to our bad luck, the museum in Greenwood too was closed. So we drove to Grand Forks and then on to Christina Lake where we stopped briefly before heading back. We had lunch in a restaurant in Grand Forks wrapping up our small casual trip.