Sunday 27 December 2015

December Trips

Brandywine. Dec 2nd.
Dan, Steve.
Steve is 50% owner in the sled, so it was good to take it for a spin together.  Still getting used to doubling… especially on the roads which aren't yet filled in.  Some quick yo yo laps in the meadows for some good skiing and a successful trip.

About half way up

Sled parked in front of Brew Ridge

Skinning across the meadows.

Pillow poppin'


7th Heaven, Dec 4th. 
Dan, Seb, Sharon, Lee
Early season inbounds touring. The snow quality was quite exceptional… a real pleasant surprise…

7th Pow

Acceptable Quality



Casper Creek. Dec 10/11. 
Dan, Steve, Urpens
Quick overnighter to Casper Creek and Mt Duke.  Deep pow and all time pillow lines. This one was a trip to remember…






Flute Dec 14th. 
Dan, Bartolini, Zack King

Easy trip to Cowboy with the Spag boys. Easy apart from Singing pass on a snowboard that is.

Andy gets some on the Apostles


Cowboy ridge being glorious


Cowboy after we did our dirty sinful business.


Decker Dec 15th 
Dan, Vince, Sam, Kate

It was cloudier than we expected, and the Cham Chutes sucked like they always do… but everything else was blower!

Strong crew at the top of the Cham Chutes.

New ice cliff at the bottom of Decker


Steep Creek Dec 21st/22nd
Dan, Seb, James, Tec

Soooooo Deeeeeeeep….

Seb on the Steep Creek road


First lap was killer


Sick terrain


Chute 56 as deep as always


Best subalpine run in the Duffy?


Oboe Dec 23rd
Dan, Cedric.
Quick half day trip to the bumps.  Snow remains all time.





November Trips

Sproat. Nov 8th.
Dan and Kate. First trip of the season; a casual stroll up sproat.  Wasn't a great deal of skiing, but the sunset was all-time…..

In my happy place near Gin Peak

Gin and Tonic Lakes

View over to Sproat



Ridiculous Sunset


Metal Dome. Nov 10th. 
Dan, Vince, Kate, Jake. Another shake down trip with killer views.  Drove all the way to the Brandywine cabin, then skinned up to one of the cols just below the summit of Metal Dome. Wanted to ski the glacier but the crevasse hazard was huge after this brutal summer. Good skiing on the way back down thou :-)

Sweet view over to Garibaldi and Blacktusk


Deciding that we can't ski the Metal Dome glacier.


Vince and Link on the way down


Paul Ridge Nov 15th. 
Dan, Felix, Gab, Sam, Jake, Vero. Snow was good so another pre season warm up to Paul Ridge.  It ludicrously busy up there, must have been over 100 people. The whole zone was shredded by early afternoon.  Skiing was good thou.

Heading up to Red Heather

Sam making some turns

Getting me some Pow

Sun God. Nov 21st. 
Dan, Sam. First trip with the new sled… Sun God was a bit keen as it is so f*cking far away… plus we basically had no idea what we were doing…. long drive… tiny bit of sledding, but lots of fun :-)

Ready to unload the sled.



Stoked for a new adventure


Brandywine. Nov 29. 
Dan, Andy, Vince. Another sled trip… this time less ambitious. Still no skiing…. but getting used to the machine.

Slightly more successful sled trip this time around!




Wednesday 15 April 2015

Somewhere near Pemberton...

April 14th 2015

There is a particular peak not far from here which grabbed my eye when I first spied it a few years ago. Without a sled access is difficult (by which I mean long) but the thin snowpack at low elevations this year has made it a bit more accessible.  Rumour has it that certain local skiing luminaries would quite like to keep this area off the radar.  I'm not 100% about how I feel about that kind of attitude with regard to skiing zones, especially since I love sharing my adventures so much, but for now I'm going to take the middle ground and share the photos but with very few descriptions.

Our first view of the objective from the approach road.

Spines and the moon

Some sweet couloir.  The terrain up here is bigger than it looks, that couloir is over 600m of vert.

Due to the size of the terrain it took hours to traverse around the big face.

Awesome views.

A sweet shot of what we skied last week.

Once we made the ridge line the going got easier, but it still took about 2 hours to reach the summit from here.

Jamie near the top.

Summit Stoke Selfie.

Crazy terrain on and around the main face.

Big lines

Unskiable gnar

This stuff looks like it could be fun and skiable, but the photo doesn't do justice to the steepness and exposure.

Even the open bottom half of the face is huge.

The line we skied

The whole face in the afternoon sun.

Stoke!