1889 Feb | March 2018

northwest destination
CROSS THE CANADIAN BORDER in
Eastern Washington at Oroville and head
north up the Okanagan Highway and, after
125 miles, you’ll reach SilverStar Mountain
Resort, a ski village in British Columbia’s
Monashee Mountains with the feel of a
European getaway in the Alps.
It’s here that I’ve spent a relaxing week of
work and play each of the past two winters.
Though it’s a ten-hour drive from Bend, I
would consider making the trip even if there
were no snow and no skiing—just for the
change of pace.
With 3,282 skiable acres, SilverStar is billed
as B.C.’s third largest ski resort, following
nearby Sun Peaks resort (4,270 skiable
acres) and Whistler (4,757 skiable acres). For
measure in the lower Pacific Northwest, Mt.
Baker registers 1,000 skiable acres, Stevens
Pass 1,125 acres and Mt. Bachelor comes in
at 4,318.
The skiable acres at SilverStar that I’m
most interested in are those that comprise
the 105-plus kilometers of the Nordic trail
network. For the past two years, we’ve
shared a condo just above the village so we
can drop down daily and along one of the
Nordic arteries. Our Nordic-skiing, fat-tire
biking friends found this place—a threefloor,
three-bedroom space with a good
kitchen, a soft living room and a hot tub—
and asked us to join two years ago.
On the first morning and after a long
drive, I tried to shock my system with a long
ski and sustained climbing. The starting
elevation in the village is 5,280 feet. Those
who are used to living and skiing at sea level
will feel the effects of altitude immediately.
Though I live at 3,500 feet and ski at 6,000
feet, I could feel the lightness of breath
from exhilaration, from height and from
excitement as I kicked up Paradise trail
toward the summit of SilverStar on a 1,000-
foot climb. From there, I dropped down
over the back on a loop of Comin’ Round
the Mountain. On a spur from this loop is
Lars Taylor Way, which ties into the Nordic
mecca of Sovereign Lake. I thought I’d wait
‘til tomorrow to hit Sovereign Lake.
Since the early 1980s, when Vermonter
and first and only U.S. men’s Nordic Olympic
medalist Bill Koch popularized the new style
of skate skiing, cross-country skiing has
taken on two forms—the new form that
resembles duck-footed ice skating where
the skis are turned outward at an angle, and
the traditional form of kick-and-glide classic
skiing in which you glide along set parallel
tracks. I warn you in advance, I’m a huge
proponent of the classic technique, so much
so that friends long stopped asking me to
skate ski with them.
Hockey players, I’m told, make good
golfers but maybe not skate skiers. Having
grown up playing hockey, I equate skate
skiing with the power-building drill of
pushing your teammate across the ice
while he faces you and resists. It seemed
like too much work then. While it offers
the appearance of skating on snow, skate
skiing doesn’t have the same release valve
as smashing your padded opponent into a
retaining wall. My fellow lean Lycra-clads
pursue a more passive form of aggression
measured in kilometers.
Classic skiing, on the other
hand, is zen on snow. The motion
is as smooth and as natural as
Blake Jorgenson/SilverStar Mountain Resort
It’s here that I’ve spent a relaxing week of
work and play each of the past two winters.
Though it’s a ten-hour drive from Bend, I
would consider making the trip even if there
were no snow and no skiing—just for the
change of pace.
FEBRUARY | MARCH 2018 1889 WASHINGTON’S MAGAZINE 83