February 4th, 2016 – Anna and I were sitting in our monster truck on the way to meet the Tangier Selkirks guys for a day of heli skiing. In the car we were having mixed thoughts: snow was falling hard, we were looking at 15-20cm of fresh snow and the valley was covered in clouds. This would have been fun in the resort, too, we thought.
Revelstoke is a very laid back place. People are relaxed and friendly. An important member of the Revelstoke community is Gnorm, the power gnome. Gnorm stands on a little board at a weather station on top of the Ripper chairlift and is constantly visible via a webcam. The board he stands on gets cleared of snow every day at 3pm. Typically, a day here starts with a look at Gnorm when you wake up.
If Gnorm looks like on the picture above – everything stays nice and easy. However, if Gnorm is covered in snow, everything changes: Revelstokians forget about work, jump into their cars and race up to the resort (the road, unfortunately, runs past a school where the speed limit is 30 km/h – some racers seem to forget that). And if you arrive too late, the lift queue looks like that:
