HundredGrandDan: March 2013

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Mt Cheakamus

Daily Vert: 700m + 1800m

Total Vert so far: 53,150m

Runar in Psycho chute

Steve at the hut

Checking out fissile

Fissile at sunset

Looking back to Whistler

Sunset skinning

7.30am start

Cheakamus Glacier

Mt Benvolio and 'The Wave'

North Face of Mt Cheakamus

Socked in by the time we got up top

Nailed it. Stoked.

Shredding down Overlord

Fissile from the other side

Blue ice on Overlord

Last lap down Cowboy

Friday, 22 March 2013

Cayoosh Swivel Rocker

Daily Vert: 1500m

Total Vert so far: 50,650m

Conditions inbounds had been really great this week, so great it was more difficult than usual to find a touring partner. Eventually I relented and spent the Thursday of this week shredding peak chair with my main man Joel. Conditions were stellar and I had a great time ripping fast laps, but by friday I was ready to go walking again.

The weather forecast was slightly uncertain, but eventually we settled on Cayoosh, as it would be great in good visibility, still possible in not so good visibility, and there was still some treeline terrain to work in case of bad visibility. As it turns out we needn't have worried.

At the parking lot we ran into a friend of a friend call Chucky who is in training for his ACMG assistant guides exam, and his friend Alexi, who is training for his ACMG full guide exam. We didn't plan on skiing with them and left the parking lot a little while before they were ready, but before long they caught us up and we ended up skiing together the majority of the day.

Steve checking out the route from near the end of the high approach road (quicker in my opinion than the low road)

Alexi breaks trail towards the main saddle

Steve and Chucky angle across the glacier

Cirque Peak, from the summit

Steve on top

Looking down the seldom skied West Face of Cayoosh. Looks good.

Steve charges 3 turns down the Summit face

Checking out our lines.

Wooooo!

Just a tiny fraction of our many, many turns down Swivel Rocker... That run is seriously long! A tiny word of warning here: If you aim for the most obvious saddle between the north glacier and swivel rocker, you will pop out above the giant cliffs, slightly left of centre in the photo. It is necessary to double back just a little in order to enter the bowl slightly higher up in order to avoid these.

Steve arcs down Swivel Rocker.

And when we got back to the car there were two cute babies hanging out in the back of a truck... weird...

Monday, 18 March 2013

Spearhead Glacier laps

Daily Vert: 1000m

Total Vert so far: 48,150m

After a fairly snowy and stormy weekend the weather was looking good on monday so we considered a mission to Mt Pattison. It wasn't long thou until we discovered that breaking trail all the way over to there was pretty much off the cards, as even on Dean's Adieu the ski penetration was around 20cm and travel was much slower than usual. We switched plans and attempted to ski the Warrior Couloir, but a sudden wumph in the snow pack as we started to head up the stairmaster had us quickly retreating. We switched aspects and skied the fair mellow runs that lead from the top of vista bowl back onto the Spearhead. These runs were super deep, possibly some of the deepest snow I've ever skied in a large alpine bowl. Good times indeed. We finished the day with a fun lap down Corona bowl and I was home in time for my 4 o'clock shift at the spag.

Golden Boner training laps

Daily Vert: 500m + 500m + 500m + 1000m + 500m

Total Vert so far: 48,150m

A few weeks of rain and crappy weather made it hard to get out on exciting missions, so to keep up my vert I decided to load up a backpack with a heavy load and get in shape for big multi day spring trips.

It's not particularly exciting, but my times improved considerably over the course of a week or so which should make other trips easier in the future.

By the end of the week I could complete the 500m lap with a 20kg pack including one transition in either direction in around 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Monday, 11 March 2013

Steep Creek overnighter

Daily Vert: 2100 + 1950m

Total Vert so far: 45,000m

Steep Creek always seems like such a cool spot for an overnighter- lots of trees, lots of alpine, easy access, multiple skiable aspects- so with a few days off lined up and a forecast reading 'a mix of sun and cloud' it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The first day ended up having a lot more cloud in the mix as opposed to sun, and snow conditions on some runs were a little bit variable, partly due to the large avalanche cycle that occurred part way through the last storm, but we still found plenty of sweet lines. Our second run, down the west face of 'The Dome' was one of the coolest of the whole trip. Very deep and protected snow with perfectly spaced trees, as well as far few tracks than lots of the other runs that we looked at.

After a quick break for an afternoon snack we headed up Peak 2318 at sunset and skied down the North Bowl by headlamp... which was very cool.

Day one, lap one.

Day one, Lap 2

Day one, Lap 4. Not our first headlamp skiing of the season, but the first time we did it deliberately!

Skiing back to the campsite as happy as Larry.

Day one elevation profile

Day one GPS track

Day Two we woke up at the civilised hour of 7am and headed out for a quick lap on the West Face of Pk 2318. It's just a 2 hour lap from the campsite, and because you won't believe me when I tell you how sick it was, you should check out the photo below.

West Face Pk 2318

After that we headed over to the main ridge system leading up to the summit and rappelled into a couloir on the lookers right handside

Vince skinning up to the summit ridge

Benoit raps into the chute

Phil in the chute

Success stoke

After that we headed back up to 'The Dome' and skied Stoop Chute 3 back into the creek. After collecting our gear it was all the way back to the top again for a final run down Chute 56 to finish. As anyone who has been there will know, Chute 56 at sunset in good snow can be quite a magical experience, and today was no exception.