Susanna and I swung through Trout Lake on our way to Baldface to drop in on the ambassadors of soulboarding; Cholo Burns and Jenna Low. Trout is very comparable to Birken, both in terms of rural population density (maybe 30 peeps in town on a busy day), and to the caliber of the surrounding backcountry.
One big point of difference is the NoBoard Cafe. Full espresso shop with Breakfast scrambles... and it has a skate bowl next door(!) This is a community with priorities.
Cholo and the NoBoard posse are riding all kinds of epic lines - sans bindings. Literally surfing on snow with no attachment to the board whatsoever. Just balance, momentum and gravity. It's fresh. It's innovative. And it's progressing rapidly. It's the most free-thinking movement in the board community in over 15 years, for sure.
Oh, there ALSO is a general store... which practically makes Trout 'New York' compared to Birken. Check out the gas pumps... I'm told the oldest working gas pumps in B.C.
I'm not sure.. but I think we may have dined-and-dashed the NoBoard cafe(!!) We were deep in conversation on all things B.C., and i'm not sure we paid for our goods?!
TR