Golden, British Columbia, has long been one of my favourite winter destinations. I call the Alberta Rockies home and every time I jump across the divide, I seem to find plenty of snow waiting in the Purcell Mountains. 

My most recent visit, in early January, gave me four days to discover new ways to spend an adventurous winter weekend in Golden.

We are lucky to live in an area where we are free to explore our mountains at will, only the valley bottoms and areas close to the roads are private property. The Rocky and Purcell Mountains around Golden don’t care about what the Canadian dollar is doing, or what the price of oil is; time stands still and the only thing that matters is the mountain in front of you. The logging and mining industry not only brings employment to the province of British Columbia but they also build roads for resource extraction that we can use to access the backcountry

Kicking Horse is known for many things – its title as ‘the Champagne Powder Capital of Canada’, its abundance of varied terrain, its-easy-to-get-to location, its laid back charm. Even though this winter hasn’t brought the volume of snow we’re normally used to, the conditions here are still better than most everywhere else -- in the West at least.

Winter is usually a time to switch gears and participate in winter sports and put the mountain bikes away for a rest, but this season with unenthusiastic snow conditions and mild temp I figured it was time to try out fat biking.