I've had a very happy couple of days exploring the ski hill at Kicking Horse. Christmas and Boxing Day were wonderfully deserted on the slopes and although most of the Christmas Eve dump of snow had been tracked out what was left was still soft and fun to ski. It's pretty steep though and I don't mean the prices.


While some resorts seem to try and inflate their difficulty to be more appealing to experts I reckon Kicking Horse tries to talk it down to appeal to more families and people looking for gentle cruising. Certainly some of their "Blue" runs here run to a darker shade than that. In fact the steep skiing down the sides of the ridges is a lot more manageable than it looks from below (or indeed at the lip waiting to drop in!). Excellent snow conditions helped but once I got going I really enjoyed it, and the Germans were lapping it up.


I've been staying in the very lap of luxury itself at the Vagabond Lodge. It's a great log cabin style building and Ken and Lori the owners are wonderful hosts. Delicious breakfasts and hot lunches are laid on and the beds are the most amazing things ever. Mine has a big feather thingamajig on top of the mattress that you sleep on. It's incredibly comfortable and I've been reminding myself that the word holiday is 50% of "ski holiday" (more if you go by letters alone!) so I shouldn't feel guilty if I just want to lay there and read Jasper Fforde all day. They don't do evening meals but there are restaurants in the neighbouring lodges. My particular favourite is the Highland Lodge and its Scottish themed pub "The Local Hero". The manager is a very friendly chap from Grantown-on-Spey and the bar is patrolled by a gorgeous bushy-tailed marmalade cat. Not only that but they have Irn-Bru! It was my first taste of the orange nectar for years. This being Canadian Irn-Bru it's not exactly the same. Some of the more rococo ingredients (Ammonium Ferric Citrate anyone?) not being that welcome in Canada the bottle carries a message "not a good source of iron". Thanks for that.