We spent a great week at Sun Peaks in Canada BC skiing and enjoying the Olympics during our mid-winter break.
When we first moved to Seattle, I wondered what in the world mid-winter break was for. Our school systems have a Spring Break around Easter, but this was the first place I ever lived that also had this extra-mid winter time off. I initially thought it was so everyone could go skiing, but it turns out the local schools adopted this extra-break to clear out the schools during the height of the flu season. Nevertheless, we spend the extra time skiing.
Sun Peaks is a very lovely, very family-friendly ski area across the border in Canada BC. We stayed at the Delta Residences which are condominiums connected to the Delta hotel - as such we had the benefit of plenty of space and a small kitchen, along with access to the hotels heated out-door pool and five hot tubs!
Since we were in a condo we were planning on cooking for ourselves but it turns out that Sun Peaks has some surprising gluten free options.
First, while there is only one tiny convenience mart in the village (this is a really small village that you can actually ski down the middle of) they had a health food store, Rocky's Market Au Naturel Foods, which carried gluten free mixes and soups.
As to eating out at Sun Peaks:
Mantel's Restaurant at the Delta - We had two great dinners at this restaurant. They were extremely knowledgeable and accommodating. They even made the very picky Gluten Free Teen some risotto just the way she likes it. For breakfast, in addition to eggs and potatoes, they offered gluten free cereal!
Morrisey's Public Room - A burger joint that offered gluten free hamburger buns.
The Ski Lodge at the top of the Sunburst Lift had gluten free pasta.
Best of all for us was the great family time together, a moderate amount of snow, and some sunshine. It is so much fun now that our kids are for older for us to spend all this time together doing something we all love. My Seven Year is already setting his sights on the future Olympics although he wants to give up skiing for the snowboard! I have to admit that after five days of skiing my almost forty-fiveish body was hurting! I had a major wipe out on Thursday that left me bruised down one side and I really just wanted to sit by the fire on the last day and read. But I summoned the last little bit of energy and skied one last day (but no tree trails or jumps for me). At dinner the last night (btw - what a treat to be able to eat out), we all went around and said what we were thankful for. I thanked the Gluten Free Teen for not being a teen for the week, but for just hanging out with the family and being a kid again. She in turn thanked me for not being "an old farger" and skiing with the family five days.
