Exploring the Duffy

With a limited amount of fresh snow at Whistler in the last few weeks, I have been feeling pretty uninspired with the skiing. A few backcountry trips changed that pretty quickly. My first proper touring trip of the season was out to Mt. Chief Pascal with Landon and Tristan. The freezing level had been jumping around all over the place and we knew we were going to have to get above 1700 metres if we wanted to find anything worth skiing and stick to really steep north facing slopes. We managed to find some good steep alpine chutes with great stability which allowed Landon to ski a really steep face over some decent exposure that was super cool. Other than the chutes, the snow was horrific with a crust layer that just grabbed onto your edges and wouldn't let go. It was a fun trip, but the ski back to the car was some of the worst skiing I have ever experienced!

Initially for my reading week I had high aspirations of a multi day over night backcountry trip out in the Duffy Lake Road area. Conflicts with time off work mixed with mediocre snow reduced the trip down to a one night expedition out to Snow Spider hut, however avalanche hazard for friday went through the roof overnight and we decided to play it safe and only do a one day trip. I called David repeatedly this morning to wake him up to tell him of our change of plans and invite him along. He didn't take much convincing once he was awake. It was Davids first real day of touring after his AST 1 and Landon and I wanted to try a new mountain, so we decided to head up Rohr, the mountain across the valley from Chief Pascal. It was an interesting walk straight up the mountain, following a skin track that took us through some pretty tight trees and tested Davids skills at kick turns for the first time. At the top, we dropped into a few steep chutes and had triggered a few shallow slabs which was extremely unnerving. All in all it was a successful day in the backcountry.

Happy David

Competition Recap

The first week of class at UBC started as David and I were uploading the Revelation gondola in Revelstoke for the first day of course inspection for the Freeski World Tour Qualifier. An uneventful drive up Tuesday afternoon had got us to town at a reasonable hour and despite leaving the city with nowhere to stay, we found ourselves as first time couch surfers. We spend our five day trip indulging in the amazing hospitality of our hosts, Chad and his roommates. The venue for the qualifier down separate reality was quite a bit less snowy than last time I had been in Revelstoke but the landings were just as flat as I remembered them. The qualifier went off early Thursday morning with high winds gusting at the top but somehow the visibility stayed good enough that the judges were able to see the whole course all day. I dropped in 23/23rd of the ladies who were hoping to qualify, an enormous number competing for very limited spots as there were already 16 prequalified girls in the comp for day 1 to be held on Friday.  The goal for the run was to stay on my feet and ski strong and fast, while opting for a safer line by avoiding the larger of the cliff bands. Unfortunately this choice didn't pay off as I placed 8/23 and only 4 girls moved on from the qualifier to Day 1 on North Bowl.

Christmas Holidays

Wow, it's been a while since I posted, but I guess I haven't really been skiing for a while. Here is a short edit that I threw together from my few freeski days over the holidays. About half way through the holiday the snow started to fall and I finally got a chance to try out my new 183 Shiros from Volkl. They are probably the most fun skis I have ever had! I managed to make it through this year with no broken bones and will be heading out to Revelstoke for the Canadian Freeskiing Championship this coming week (instead of going to my first week of classes) in hopes of qualifying for the Freeskiing World Tour. 

Pebble Creek Cabin

After an unexpected invitation on a family trip and some hasty schedule reworking so that I could leave two days after confirming I would go, I arrived at the Whistler Heliport to board a helicopter that would take me and the Drinnan family to Pebble Creek Cabin for 8 days. Seeing as how I had only met part of the family, an had no idea of their existence until just days before the start of the trip, I was nervous to what the week was going to have in store for me, living in an enclosed space with four people I barely knew.

The trip materialized by chance on a day trip out to cowboy ridge. A family friend of my touring buddy came along for the ski and was talking about the trip they were going to do out to a cabin north of Pemberton. Since they were getting dropped off by helicopter, they were looking for one more person to fill the helicopter. I checked my schedule when I got home and called her the next day. I was in!

Pulling an Ingrid Backstrom

Quick jaunt to Baker

Once again the Ryan, Patrick, David and Jenny crew hopped in the bucket of bolts (Ryan's minivan) and started out on a trip to a new mountain. This trip was a quick one, a day trip down to Mt. Baker. None of us had ever been to Baker before and David was the only one on the trip who had ever skied outside of BC before. What an exciting experience! After a mandatory Tim Hortons stop before crossing the border, we drove south to the ski hill, unsure of what the conditions would be like as there was no snow in sight for the majority of the drive. Out of nowhere the mountains and snow appeared as we pulled into the parking lot.

Parking lot change

The sun was shining and the snow was better than we expected it to be. A bit of dust on crust, not too bad considering how heavy everyone says the snow usually is. The first major difference that we noticed at Mt. Baker vs. all the BC mountains we have skied at was the amount of effort spent on signage. There seemed to be a sign for everything, from "snow sliding off roof" to "low chair clearance." They seemed pretty paranoid and even the lift tickets had written on them "your safety is not guarenteed." Despite all the warnings, the chairs didn't even have safety bars! Patrick was very disappointed. Another difference is that to get to any terrain that looked any bit interesting, you had to duck ropes with more signs. These ones read EXTREME DANGER ZONE and proceeded to explain that rescue may not be possible. It was only later, on the way home that we realized that if you wanted patrol to come and get you in these areas, it was a minimum $500 fine!

Revelstoke

Staring at the unlimited Revelstoke terrain

Since the originally planned Revelstoke trip in early January did not happen, a much shorter version was undertaken on the last weekend of Feburary with Patrick, David and Ryan. We left Vancouver on the Friday night and after many Tim Hortons stops and a few roll up the rim wins by Pat, we arrived in Revelstoke too late to do anything but hit the sack.

Teapot

Teapot

In the middle of February, Landon and I took a trip up north to Williams Lake where Landon was responsible for teaching a level 1 course on the weekends and the two of us did a 5 day touring trip out at Teapot Lake/Mt. Elsey during the week. This was my first experience with any sort of winter backpacking trip as well as my 3rd through 7th days of touring ever. Luckily, the lack of experience on my part didn't seem to have any effect on the trip and despite stories of having to sleep in a snow cave the last time Landon went on this trip, it couldn't have gone much smoother.