Dakota Ridge Road Mayhem… Maybe not?
Dakota Ridge, December 30, 2010
Ah, yes, Dakota Ridge Winter Recreation Area official opens today, Saturday December 17th.
Y’all who grew up driving the hurl-inducing highway to that place off in the middle of nowhere called ‘Whistler’ or clawing your way up Mount Seymour 30 years ago in a woody station wagon know of what I speak.
Dakota Ridge is our Cypress, only without chairlifts ‘n stuff. It’s modest, homespun, the creature comforts are retro (quonset hut with stove and benches, outdoor toilets), and the scale hasn’t quite caught up to the sugarplum visions in our collective noggin… but it’s ours and we love it to distraction.
That’s why, today, you’re going to get up and stretch, put on the work gloves and make DAMN sure those chains fit before everyone loads in swaddled up to the eyeballs in snowsuits, and long before you slide those skis in over top of the kids’ heads and tell them, “Don’t move!”
Here’s three basic things you need to know about vehicular travel to The Ridge :
- If you go off the road or cause an accident, you’re paying for it all. BCAA doesn’t cover you for indecent acts on summer tires or (ahem) ‘all season radials’, and however far the tow truck has to come (Sechelt or Gibsons + however many km up the one-lane-with-pullouts road you managed to wriggle and get you back to where the bill will return your sanity, right quick… it’s on your dime.
- If you insist on ‘taking a run at it’ in your beater car on aforesaid tires and gum up the road for everyone else… well, just think of a beetle, on a hot rock, with a magnifying glass folding that big ol’ sun’s rays into the pinprick that will take it into the afterlife. (The buddhist in me cringes at this example, but you get the image). Do you really want to be the Ruiner of Children’s Dreams on opening day? I didn’t think so.
- Alpha Adventures in Wilson Creek (you can’t take your sillybutt chances on the road without driving right past them) has a gargantuan, cartoonishly unmissable passenger van made for the express purpose of getting you and yours up to the top in comfort and with your dignity intact. Use it.
For everyone else, chains at the ready, good tires on fresh for the season, best helpful attitude packed along with the gear, there are two handy places to check in on Facebook for current conditions and recommendations. The Dakota Ridge Page, and the Dakota Ridge Rideshare and Ski Buddies page.
