Background

About a year ago, in December 2003, I had an epiphany. Wait, does an epiphany have to be a good idea? Maybe, maybe not. That's a question for another time. Any case, I had an idea: what if, in the winter of 2004-2005, I took an RV, and toured around the province, hitting all of the ski resorts I could find, all the while writing a book about the whole experience? I was obviously pretty stoked on the idea, I mean, who wouldn't be? I wasn't sure how feasible it was, but I was willing to give it a try. I got a notebook, and kept it with me at all times, writing down anything that came to mind. I discussed the idea with a few choice people, and took their ideas to heart.

At some point, I decided to combine my passion for snowboarding with my passion for beef dips. For those of you who don't know, a beef dip is a warm sliced roast beef sandwich, usually served on French bread or a hoagie bun, with beef broth au jus on the side for dipping. Over the past couple of years, I have become what I would like to think of as a "beef dip connoisseur". As such, I came up with a tentative title for my book: "The Search for BC's Ultimate Beef Dip, and Other Snowboard Stories". Not bad, hey?

I continued to jot down notes in my notebook, including goals and the timelines for accomplishing these goals. Of course, being the procrastinator that I am, these deadlines were not met, and by the time July rolled around, I was faced with being committed to the journey, but not really having done anything to help it on its way. My mom came to me to ask if I was truly going to do it, and in so doing, I realized that I would regret not going through with it all.

Somewhere along the way, my brother Callum decided to join me, and it kind of took off from here. Later on, Josh decided that he wanted in as well, and the crew was complete.

A ton of planning has gone into this whole endeavour, and there's a lot left to do, including trying to secure sponsors. Maybe I've left all of this until too late; we'll have to see. Now if we can all just pray to the snow gods...

- Todd McBride