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.

Touring

After letting the touring set up that I have aquired this season gather dust for the first part of the winter, I was finally able to put the gear to use on my first touring day ever at the beginning of February with Andrew. The weather looked like it could go either way, get sunny or cloud over, but we got lucky and caught some sun up in the Duffy, north of Pemberton.



Looking over at Joffre

Finally good to go

So it turns out I broke my mandible in two places when I crashed on New Years Day. After a trip down to the hospital in Vancouver to get my mouth wired shut, I returned to Whistler and spent most of my time sleeping, rock climbing and hanging out at Merlins, the bar at the base of Blackcomb.

x-rays. Can you see where it broke? The doctors couldn't at first

 

Broke my face

Today we went out to Flute to build a jump and work on flips and linkin loops. This one didn't pan out so well and I ended up in the clinic with a hole in my face.

Big hole!