Mid-Life Crisis

Just like life, a day of skiing is a day of tough choices. Although Sun Peaks offers the amazing option of 122 different ski runs,  at the end of the day—when you know it’s your last run—you’re always faced with that tough decision. Which run will I ski last?

My indecision was accompanied by a feeling of reluctance—one that we all know; one that we first felt as children and one we still feel as an adult: all weekends lead to work on Monday morning and even when you’re out skiing, at some point in the afternoon, riding the chair lift to the mountain, you realize that this is the your last run of the day, the week, or the season.

I felt that little creep of disappointing reality as I rode the lift to the top of Mt. Morrisey (1,675 m; 5,495 ft.). The sun had already disappeared behind a row of snow-covered mountains, the sky had dimmed and other skiers were already sipping warm drinks down in the town of Sun Peaks. The wind stung at my cheeks and my eyes watered a little.

I looked back across the valley at all the other final run skiers, taking the lift to the top of the larger and more prominent Mt. Tod. Not me—I was heading up the opposite-facing slope. I had already discovered my favorite run and I was going to repeat it one last time.

“Mid-Life Crisis” is a safe and standard blue (intermediate), but with all the right ingredients for a perfect run: there is height, a few fun drops, some nice open patches for speed and best of all, dozens of tree islands to dodge as you fly headlong down into the valley below.

For me, it was the perfect way to end a perfect day of skiing. I mentioned the run the next morning, as I left the town of Sun Peaks on the early morning shuttle. I shared the van with a couple from New Zealand—dedicated skiers who had flown halfway around the world to ski Sun Peaks.

“Yes, yes, Mid-Life Crisis!” the woman exclaimed in her strong kiwi accent. “We love that run.” We traded ski stories back and forth, a play-by-play of our day-by-day. No matter that we were in the same resort and on the same mountains—we had lived two very different lives in our days skiing Sun Peaks.

I pondered on the year before, when I had chased summer in winter by going to Australia. And yet here were New Zealanders chasing winter in summer by coming up to Canada. Nobody does winter like Canada.

My new friends loved the snow up here—they loved the wide-open mountains, the utter lack of crowds and like me, they loved the infinite options of skiing the terrain at Sun Peaks.

As they recounted their ski vacation in detail, I nodded in agreement.

“Me too,” I thought. I was sad that my days at Sun Peaks were passed, sad to face the reality of life. My fun was over and it was time to move on.

Such was my very brief but deeply heartfelt mid-life crisis.