Sunday, March 31, 2013

Espresso Sessions vol 1

"The soul often knows what the body needs, the trick is to convince the mind"

I saw this quote recently while on a rather laborious duration of ski touring, not a 'typical' day out, this was a 24 hour ski a thon including 8800m of elevation and required one to 'dig a little deeper' then normal. I knew it would not be type 'A' fun at the get go but given the company, the cause and a strange idiosyncratic curiosity I had to see if i could 'get through it', I was in.

The above quote met every contestant as they slogged uphil, at about the 3/4 mark of a 450 M climb. If you did the thing solo(which I was coerced into), that would mean 18 views of the quote, a team of three meant 6, 2 meant 9; you get it. The wonderful simplicity and meaning of these words have hit a chord and since then I think I have made a few decisions differently...

You see, dear reader, I am guilty of advanced FOMO (fear of missing out) when it comes to skiing and I do not like it, not one bit. Every other 'sport' I do does not involve this interesting F word at all, climbing, biking, running, dog walking, hiking...nope, just skiing. The other day, while considering a ski outing I have been wanting to do since I first heard of it and my mind was a blaze with the thought, I looked at the +21 temps and trying very very very hard to think of a reason to go it hit me like a tonne of bricks, why force something when it doesn't make sense (to you) to do it?

Instead, I enjoyed the wonderful weather, grabbed rock shoes, bikes, hung with Erin and poured espresso. Its bound to get colder again and if not, what can you do?

This may be a small step in eradicating the FOMO bug.

 "The soul often knows what the body needs, the trick is to convince the mind"

Spearhead Country

Was able to enjoy a couple of great days lately in the company of good people, touring around and skiing nice lines in the Spearhead zone. These outings were exclusive to the Whirlwind/Overlord and Fissile area.

Whirlwind Peak, Overlord Glacier.
Gaining altitude on the shoulder of Whirlwind peak.
Our goal was to ski this line just E of the overlord glacier, handrailing the right cliff and skirting right beyond that,

Enjoying some tasty N Facing preserved turns on said run.
Our goal realized!
On the way back the light changed again and again, from back-lit to direct, ambient to austere. Magic.


John looking up at Fissile.
Fissile Peak, Bananarama

On this day I met with Jim for a lap on Fissile Peak, it was very warm and the skiing could best be described as doable. Fun was had though, skiing this classic Whistler slackcountry run.
Jim on approach


Fissile bootpack.

Marginal yet fun.

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Mt. Cassiope

A pleasant and civilized day out in the Duffy Lake today with Jim Sandford. Conditions were fantastic and a great time was had save for about 1 hr in the beginning on a steep icy bushwhack where I am pretty sure Jim and I both were wishing to be somewhere different and slightly more pleasant, like maybe N Korea as Denis Rodman. But seriously, this is a great tour up into some big and interesting alpine terrain. We actually did not get to the top of Cassiope itself but settled on a minor summit SSE of it; this was due to routefinding error on our part and given our time constraints (dinner partys, cocktails) we pointed them down slope and got some great skiing in on preserved NW shots. 
Jim surveying the task at hand

We stopped here for a moment and took a look at...
This. A very widespread natural cycle took place likely last weekend out on the Duffy. Hard to say if it was preserved surface hoar pockets or solar crusts but things had popped out on almost every S, SE aspect up to size 3 with crowns anywhere from 40 to100 (est) cm, maybe more. One slide, appearing to have been initiated by warming rocks propagated close to a km.
Upper glacier.

Jim topping out on our highpoint.

The pine'


Reps go skiing!



On the way down we got to negotiate a war zone of wet slide trenches, fridge sized debris and more - luckily, we had grown to enjoy suffering early on in the day with the 5th class bushwhacking and the jokes kept flowing all the way to the car.

Cheers!

Ross

Monday, March 04, 2013

Steed Hut

Our annual winter trip to the Kootenays came and went with a successful trip to the Steed Hut area about 16km W of Nelson..
The sleepy town of Nelson at 7am.
We took helicopter pass into the hut...

Some of the terrain around the hut, the S face of Siwash Peak...


Our first run, a 45 degree shot off the ridge for about 400m..

Ridges..

Some of the terrain..

Ryan

Ryan

G, Cooking.

Ryan

Steed Hut.



Some the of S facing tree terrain.

N Facing trees.   



We had 2 days of amazing stability where one could ski anything one wanted, it was sensational. Followed by two days of storm skiing which was nice and deep, we stuck to the trees the latter two days which was great. The last day we followed the straight lines of the GPS track we had guessed on taking us back to the car after 22KM, freezing rain and a good long day. We found a broken into and cleaned out car...bummer! Well, the trip was stellar all in all.


K3 Catskiing

Had a great few days doing some good'ol fashioned cat skiing in the interior mountains of BC. Company and snow were outstanding, I'll let the pixtures 'splain it all..
The rides..

The crew, patagonia employees and friends from all over N America.

Gregor

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Gunna git me some powder!


Bobby bones in good form.

Anne with the new skis of joy.

We had to walk for 5 minutes on day 3...

Monica of Wearabouts joined us for a day, was great to have her along!

L Larry.


Walt.

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Jason

All is well that ends well!