Total so far: 10,265m
A casual afternoon stroll with Urpens to DOA before work on Xmas day. The snow was rubbish, but DOA is always a nice line to ski, it just looks so cool!
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
DOA, Dec 25th
Daily vert: 200m
A casual afternoon stroll with Urpens to DOA before work on Xmas day. The snow was rubbish, but DOA is always a nice line to ski, it just looks so cool!
A casual afternoon stroll with Urpens to DOA before work on Xmas day. The snow was rubbish, but DOA is always a nice line to ski, it just looks so cool!
Friday, 21 December 2012
Musical Bumps Dec 21st
Daily vert: 1200m
One of my favourite routes for a snowy day is taking the longer route over the musical bumps (not the shorter, flatter way you would go if rushing out to Fissile) and also taking in the slighter steeper chutes on Russet Ridge. On this day the snow was considerably deeper than expected, although luckily it was surprisingly light, so we were still able to mince out some turns even thou the terrain isn't the steepest around. We did however have to break trail for the entire day, and the ski pen was around 30-40cm, so travel was not the quickest. This was especially noticeable when skinning back up to Cowboy Ridge from the bottom of Russet Ridge, when the ski pen was closer to 50cm. The slow travel meant that we didn't get back on top of Cowboy until around 4pm, which was a little later than planned seeing as it was the shortest day of the year... and to make matters worse, to our dismay we discovered that singing pass had not been trail broken. This was quite worrying, and our heads were filled with thoughts of a long and cold night in a snow cave as we slowly traipsed through the snow on the lower flanks of Oboe in the quickly fading light. To our eternal glee, after about an hour we eventually found other tracks somewhere in between the start of the trail and Oboe creek. Without headlamps (Rookie mistake) we made slow progress down the trail, but there was a bright moon and the trail become wider and wider and we got closer to the resort. Definitely worth it for all the deep pow!
Total so far: 10,065m
One of my favourite routes for a snowy day is taking the longer route over the musical bumps (not the shorter, flatter way you would go if rushing out to Fissile) and also taking in the slighter steeper chutes on Russet Ridge. On this day the snow was considerably deeper than expected, although luckily it was surprisingly light, so we were still able to mince out some turns even thou the terrain isn't the steepest around. We did however have to break trail for the entire day, and the ski pen was around 30-40cm, so travel was not the quickest. This was especially noticeable when skinning back up to Cowboy Ridge from the bottom of Russet Ridge, when the ski pen was closer to 50cm. The slow travel meant that we didn't get back on top of Cowboy until around 4pm, which was a little later than planned seeing as it was the shortest day of the year... and to make matters worse, to our dismay we discovered that singing pass had not been trail broken. This was quite worrying, and our heads were filled with thoughts of a long and cold night in a snow cave as we slowly traipsed through the snow on the lower flanks of Oboe in the quickly fading light. To our eternal glee, after about an hour we eventually found other tracks somewhere in between the start of the trail and Oboe creek. Without headlamps (Rookie mistake) we made slow progress down the trail, but there was a bright moon and the trail become wider and wider and we got closer to the resort. Definitely worth it for all the deep pow!
Monday, 10 December 2012
Husume, December 9th
Daily vert: 500m
Ahh... a quick morning tour to Husume... thats a good idea... well, it was a good idea, but it turned out to be not so quick. First of all the Showcase T-bar wasn't open, so to make sure we were making lemonade we did a little experiment- is it quicker to skin straight up the Showcase line, or to ride Horstman and then traverse over? Turns out its about the same. Although I then had to traverse from the Blowhole to the Blackcomb Gate with my skins on... which was very time consuming and annoying. After that little delay we headed up to the Spearhead Col, but the weather was quickly deteriorating. There were a few groups at the top, all of whom had more ambitious plans at the start of the day, but most groups were redirecting to Husume given the weather. After skiing down Don't swill, which was pleasantly rock free, we noticed two blokes attempting to boot pack back up one of the other Don't Swill chutes. The explained that they had noticed crevasses on either side of them, and thought it was likely that the crevasse carried on in front, but the light was so bad it was impossible to see it, so they decided to go back up. Unfortunately they were having a nightmare of a time climbing back up, so we stood for a minute and considered our options. By this time several groups had bunched up together, and one dude said that he had a rope. We threw the rope down hill and lay it in the snow to help identify if there were any sudden changes in pitch. There wasn't, so hoping that any snow bridges would support our weight we followed the rope down the hill. This method worked quite well and it re-enforced the importance of having a rope in times of poor visibility, especially on a glacier. There was now about 15 of us heading to Husume, and the two guys who had been trying to climb back up Don't Swill set the final boot pack. The pace at which they did so compared with their speed up Don't Swill suggested that climbing back out of the Spearhead would have posed many many difficulties. We all sat around for a bit at the top and let the guy who had the rope go first- not that it really mattered- the snow was totally wind fucked!
Total so far: 8,865m
Ahh... a quick morning tour to Husume... thats a good idea... well, it was a good idea, but it turned out to be not so quick. First of all the Showcase T-bar wasn't open, so to make sure we were making lemonade we did a little experiment- is it quicker to skin straight up the Showcase line, or to ride Horstman and then traverse over? Turns out its about the same. Although I then had to traverse from the Blowhole to the Blackcomb Gate with my skins on... which was very time consuming and annoying. After that little delay we headed up to the Spearhead Col, but the weather was quickly deteriorating. There were a few groups at the top, all of whom had more ambitious plans at the start of the day, but most groups were redirecting to Husume given the weather. After skiing down Don't swill, which was pleasantly rock free, we noticed two blokes attempting to boot pack back up one of the other Don't Swill chutes. The explained that they had noticed crevasses on either side of them, and thought it was likely that the crevasse carried on in front, but the light was so bad it was impossible to see it, so they decided to go back up. Unfortunately they were having a nightmare of a time climbing back up, so we stood for a minute and considered our options. By this time several groups had bunched up together, and one dude said that he had a rope. We threw the rope down hill and lay it in the snow to help identify if there were any sudden changes in pitch. There wasn't, so hoping that any snow bridges would support our weight we followed the rope down the hill. This method worked quite well and it re-enforced the importance of having a rope in times of poor visibility, especially on a glacier. There was now about 15 of us heading to Husume, and the two guys who had been trying to climb back up Don't Swill set the final boot pack. The pace at which they did so compared with their speed up Don't Swill suggested that climbing back out of the Spearhead would have posed many many difficulties. We all sat around for a bit at the top and let the guy who had the rope go first- not that it really mattered- the snow was totally wind fucked!
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Vantage Ridge, Dec 8th
Daily vert: 1250
Total so far: 8365
The weather and snow conditions were looking great, so a relatively large group of Jon, Claire, Rob, Janet and myself decided to head up to the Duffy and score some pow close to the highway. The day didn't get off to the best start- Claire overslept and was almost an hour late, and Jon forgot his transceiver and was unable to find another at such an early hour in Pemby. Quickly forging a plan B, Jon drove my car back home, and I carried on with Claire, Rob and Janet to the Cerise Creek parking.
We headed up Vantage Ridge to the run called South Side (even thou it faces north) and were pleased to find the trail had be broken the whole way to the ridge line. A quick compression test gave 2 results of CTN, which was very encouraging. The girls took a break for lunch while Rob and I skied the sublime pow on South Side, then after skinning back up we carried on to Cheques in the Mail. The top of this run was equally fantastic, although there was a little bit of bush whacking to get back to the road lower down. The only drawback of this line compared to some of my Duffy favourites is the fairly long skate along the road to get back to the car, but the long runs of pow certainly made it worth while.
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Lesser Flute Dec 5th
Daily vert: 400
Total so far: 7115
On December 5th we rode Harmony chair and skied Harvey's, then crossed Burnt Stew and skied all the way to the bottom of Symphony. Here we chatted for a while with a dude from Lift Maintenance who had got his sled stuck in the deep pow at the bottom of the lift, the skinned up Encore Ridge to Lesser Flute. The weather was coming in and I had to get to work, so we skipped the planned lap on the 3 Sisters and skied back down the front to Symphony, then skinned up the exit road. Nice walk, mellow skiing.
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
7th laps. Nov 27th & 28th
Daily vert: 350 + 700
Total so far: 6715
A few days this week I boot packed up to 7th, mostly for additional cardio training and just because there wasn't really much else to ski. Not much else to say about that really. Later in the week I hoped to get out a bit more, but a big warm storm is rolling through, so going to be patient and hopefully get the goods once the weather settles down next week. The forecast for the Duffy is looking primo!
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Decker Trip, Nov 25th
Daily vert: 1275
Total so far: 5665
After yesterdays successful stroll around the Blackcomb Glacier, today we decided to head a little further a field and go over to Decker. I suspect we might have been the first group of the year to make it out that far... (except for the group who were summiting Pattison ahead of us... but they came over from the lower 7th route... doesn't count).
We started off with the usual skin up the 7th road, then after keeping our skins on for the mini descent of the Horstman Glacier, enjoyed some nice turns on the Blackcomb Glacier. We then skinned all the way to the Spearhead col, and enjoyed the nice sunny run down to Circle Lake. After skirting around the edge of the lake (we weren't sure how frozen it was) we took the long route up Decker, right over by it's western shoulder, in order to avoid the very unfilled in crevasses on the usual glacier ascent route. After a very enjoyable shred down Main Chute we skinned up one last time to the bottom of Disease Ridge, rather than take the lower traverse, as one of our group was a split boarder. A beautiful sunset and very nice snow in Lakeside bowl made for a great finish to a great day.
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