Playing it Safe

Conditions are starting to get a bit spicy out in the backcountry, with a lot of surprising natural and skier triggered avalanches occurring in the area. My friend John, out visiting from Banff, went for a tour with me yesterday. We thought we'd check out one of my favorite lines - a broad, lovely pillow field off the backside of White Queen. Concerned with what we'd been reading we opted to dig a pit and see what was going on before jumping on the slope. We found the two nasty surface hoar layers down 50cm and 80 cms respectively. Moderate compression test tapping popped both of those suckers out easily and we decided to retreat to more anchored terrain. We had fun running laps in the trees and skied some great powder.

Fun in the trees.



John layin' it down Alberta style.

Acidopolis

Headed out for a quick tour with my buddy Joe. It snowed again last night. So with all the snow we've been getting lately it was time to get into the steep and deep. We skied a line I've never skied before in 5 Mile Basin. It's called Acidopolis and is a great steep sustained line that opens up into a fun pillow field and then more treed goodness. It was deep and light today. The snow frequently blasting into our faces. I giggled the whole way down this run it was so good. Ski cutting produced one tiny soft slab avalanche. About 7 feet wide, 6 inches deep, and ran about 30 feet. Other than that predictable release, things seemed to be pretty solid. We ended the day with a great run down the steep trees off the shoulder of White Queen and enjoyed the first good turns off of anything south facing in weeks, thanks to the frequent snow of late. Another sweet powder day in the Kootenays.

Joe in the midst of "living the dream"

Cat Skiing!

Yesterday I got the awesome opportunity to go cat skiing for the first time! Since France is working for a heli and cat skiing operation just outside of Nelson, I got the hook up and got to go cat skiing for free. Now that is love. It's been snowing pretty good throughout the week and it snowed another 5 inches the night before I went cat skiing. It was an amazing experience. Skied untracked, totally blower powder all day long under blue skies with amazing views. Even the guides were impressed with how good the conditions were this late in the season. The day was epic to say the least. I didn't get any photos of us skiing because we were just having way to much fun skiing over a foot of heavenly powder. I definitely recommend going cat skiing!

Dave, our guide, at the top of our first run.


One of the bowls we ended up skiing later in the day.



One of the many slopes we slayed.

Sweet Pow Day

Had a fantastic day out touring with Steve and Timmy. 5 Mile Basin has been the place to be of late because it just keeps delivering the goods. It snowed about a foot over the past week of super nice, light blower powder. Our first run we dropped into a mellower line to get a feel for the snow and do a bit of observing. The snow felt solid, just minor surface sluffing, and ski cutting produced no results. The snow was just too cold to form into a surface slab. So, we headed back up for another couple runs on something a little bit steeper and, fortunately, deeper. We found great snow up to knee deep in some spots. Definitely a great day of ski touring. I'll let the photos tell the story.

Tim enjoying the pow on our second run.



Loving life.



Tim hitting a pillow.



"Why is powder so fun?" said Timmy.



"I do concur," replies Joshua.



An American flying in Canada.



Joshua enjoying the steep and deep on our third run.



Timmy loves pow...


But where did he go?



Steve in action.



Steve flying.



Tim in deep.

Short Day

Steve could only tour for part of the day because he had too much school schtuff to do, so we headed to 5 Mile Basin for some quick fun. I wanted to check out 5 Mile because I haven't been touring around Whitewater since last Saturday and I was a little concerned about slab avalanche formation over the past week. 5 Mile never dissapoints. It has lots of variety and lots of options for a variety of snow stabilities. We dropped in off the ridge at 6850 feet and dug quick snow pits after trying to ski cut the slope with no results. The snow was fairly solid with no solid slab formation off the ridgeline. The lower we got, the heavier the snow got and, naturally, the more cohesive and slabby the snow was, however, it did not appear to be at that critical point yet. More load and warmth and it should be a concern. Anyway, we skied a great line through glades and trees for a nice 1100 foot run in heavy, but still pleasantly soft snow.

Here's a vid of Steve gettin' er' dun.



Me pretending I know how to jump off of stuff.

Road Trip

Headed up to Valemount earlier this week so France could check out the helicopter job potential up there for the summer. But since we had to go through Revelstoke, we had to stop and ski the new resort. It's a big mountain. Lots of vert. And fortunately for us, we happened to hit it on a powder day. It snowed 6 inches Sunday night and then kept snowing all day Monday when we were skiing the hill, or maybe I should call it a mountain. After all, it is 4,735 feet of vertical. I skied almost 25,000 vertical feet on Monday and wasn't even hitting it that hard. That's like going heli skiing! Crazy. Here's one of France enjoying some powder on her 5th day ever snowboarding. She's doing great. She's wearing my jacket because her zipper broke in the morning.



In the car. My head looking 3 times bigger than France's.


France on a sunny day in Valemount.


The sucky view from Valemount.


The view over Slocan Lake, about 45 minutes from Nelson.

Winter Is Back

Winter is finally back. Last night it snowed about 5 inches with moderately strong southwest winds so we had to get out and hit some real powder. Tim, Steve, Trevor, and I headed up with the intent of skiing some lines off the backside of White Queen into Five Mile Basin. White Queen has a nice north facing bowl that offers a fantastic 800 foot run into Five Mile Basin. We took a few laps on this and then skied another north facing pillow field that we noticed initially on our way to the summit of the Queen. The powder was especially delicious since we'd all felt a little powder starved for the last two weeks. The powder was boot deep, some places deeper, and nice, cold, and dry. Love that coldsmoke. To get back to the car we decided to ski a line off the south face of White Queen that none of us had skied before. We had a long 2000 foot run back down to the road, but the powder wasn't deep enough to keep us from hitting the nasty melt-freeze crust formed over the past two weeks. All in all a good day in the mountains with good friends.

Steve enjoying winter again on our first run.



Joshua in the pillow field.



Steve on the lower half of the first run.



Tim hitting one of the pillows.



Trevor's turn.



Steve hitting three pillows in a row.


Joshua, Tim, and a random dude on the summit of White Queen.