The Bonnington Sessions

I had the chance to join some great friends over the last week on a tour through the backcountry of the Bonnington Range near Nelson, BC. Connecting 4 huts all within tree line, this tour has the makings for a classic. From each hut there is amazing tree skiing that you can hit from the front door and be back in time for an argument on who was in which movie or maybe a discussion on: "is it coffee or tea this afternoon?" Highlights included but were not limited to; powder skiing, great hut conversations, hundreds of "thats what she said's", getting to break our own trail for half of the time, amazing dinners courtesy of G (more on that another time), great coffee, views and especially the company of close friends for which I am always grateful.

Jono on dish duty, Copper Mtn Hut.
Bootpact to Empire Peak, It was all down hill from here. Through haunted ridges to a simply stellar run around old growth timber to a lake.
The adventure is there.
The start of the trip is the crux, a few hours on a logging road with humming high voltage cables over your head. Start dirty deeds done dirt cheap on your walkman for full effect:"HIGH VOLTAGE!"

Typical terrain on the B.
When I was a kid I had crazy dreams about flying, swimming underwater for days in the ocean and going to space. Now they are a bit more subdued but I remember a lot of them with revelry. These trees brought back some memories of those dreams. Twisted and laboured under the hard packed snow these things become almost human in form as they greet you anywhere above 1900 m on this tour.
The Grassy Hut, day 2.

I remember thinking more than once how lucky we are to be able to do these kind of trips. Thanks G, Jon and Zach for a memorable week.

Rockies Days

Had a great morning skiing to the top of and off the summit of my favourite local peak. It has rewarded us over the years with blower powder, brilliant views and amazing memories on the up-track. When you ski at a place enough, it becomes like a friend. I recall an outing last year during an impressively dry few weeks where the conditions were just atrocious for skiing: 1'' ice lens over facets. Although I felt bad for taking my friends out for possibly the worst skiing they had ever had, I actually remember feeling content and happy. Its just great to be out with friends on a beautiful mountain.

Wonderful uptrack through old burns..This morning I did not enjoy my usual 2 x espresso shots and on account was moving at a bit of a slower pace, allowing me to look around a bit more and use my "brick" (DSLR) a bit more.
As mentioned, today we got to ski right off the summit for 14oo m of fall line right to the valley bottom. Just great conditions in the Rockies right now..
Craig pushing some snow to the right
I like how this turned out even though I didn't get the exposure right at all, Craig is shown again with the snow to the right..

I hope everyone is out enjoying these great conditions right now!

K Country Days

Sometimes you are just grateful for a simple and wonderful day in the mountains...

Hector

Sometimes it only takes one photo to capture the feel of the day. Searching for answers on Mt. hector.

the perfect day of skiing?

How would you describe the perfect day of skiing? Is it a perfect up track? a lone pair of tracks on a perfect sun blessed shot? Does the perfect day even exist? Well? Does it?

For me the perfect day starts and ends with subtlety. The great coffee on the drive into the mountains, conversations with friends, a great lunch, the glow of first light, the wall of an approaching storm, perfect stellars falling onto your gloves, etc etc (you get it). Today on the icefields parkway, everything came together to form one of these days..

Wonderful supportive snow makes for great travel, here Zach enjoys some special time with the fabled snow goose. Both were unharmed.
Excellent travel approaching the alpine. Yes, we get to ski this in a few minutes.
Zach "Shropehawk" Cohen
Zach had to take a collect call from glory, he accepted the charges.

The perfect day is all of those things and so much more. It is a unique set of things for everyone.

When you grow up in a range of mountains they become an important place for your soul, when the conditions are right its borderline overwhelming. Its good to see the rockies coming around.

Thanks to Zach for another good one.

old school ski movies

There is something to be said for old school skiing. Knees together, apres ski schnapps, skinny ski kind of stuff, you know?. For some reason, and it can't be nostalgia because I never lived through these golden days, I just love the atmosphere and feelings you can see in theses old days of skiing. Maybe it was just the 50's through the 70's mentality that made this happen.

Watch this...

A Year In Photos

Looking through photos today made me realize a few things: The importance of friends, the importance of family and the importance of doing things that are good for your soul.

Here are some photos from the last year that help me reflect on the above. I hope that you all can think about important moments from this past year and be grateful in some way, enjoy.

Hayden, my nephew. I have had the chance to spend more time with my family since this little guy was born and it has been wonderful. I love this guy.
Craig and Catherine's wedding.
Drew on the way to Mt. Gimili. This was one of favourite trips of the summer, thanks to the great company and great surroundings and of course, outstanding choice of route.
Zach, North Wapta. Zach has been my best ski partner over the last couple of years, always keen to get out and do whatever is in shape. This trip to the N. Wapta was such a trip, we had intentions on a bigger objective but with a 48 hour window of weather we headed to this familiar place. We skied off the summit of Mt. Collie and had some time to relax in camp in T shirts. This is why I like spring touring so.
The boys on the way to california. G, Jon and I went to Cali on a fantastic road trip. This was one of the best trips I have ever had, we climbed everything we wanted to do and had a lot of fun doing so. We missed our friend Mike immensely and spoke of him a lot.
Erin. We travel, eat wonderful food, have great conversations and laugh for no reason at all.
Mike was my best friend. So long brother.
In the airport in Ottawa after seeing Mike for the last time, we needed to unwind. Jon always has something that will make us all laugh.

Rogers Pass

I had the opportunity to ski at Rogers Pass with my friend Craig lately. The hazard went up the day we arrived so we blasted a few hour ascent of Bruins and enjoyed a nice whiteout run to the valley bottom before the conditions deteriorated, as we were leaving the alpine we knew we wouldn't be back that way anytime soon as the snow was coming in warm and we had to tip toe a bit to get out of there. Oh well, we will just ski powder in the tree's we thought, and we did just that..

Breaking trail up Connaught Creek, we did this every day as we were the first ones out.
At the top of Grizzly shoulder with a few hundred meters of pillows, tree lines and small cliffs below us..and of course the 60 cm of fresh snow..
Since we just parked the Rav for a couple of days, we had to dig her out of the snow at the end. She enjoyed her thermal suit while it lasted.
The one skiing shot I got all trip.
The glory and the mystery of winter is all around.
Craig on top of 8812 bowl on the one alpine day we had.

New Years Eve Ski Day

We decided to brave the current conditions (basal facets and -20) for a day of skiing on the parkway. Off we went to Crowfoot Glades with the attitude of "checking it out". Once higher, away from the valley floor, both the travel and ski quality became reasonable and we enjoyed a few laps of nice powder turns up at tree line. After a cold start, the sky smiled a bit at us and the sun warmed our cheeks as we sipped tea and ate a few snacks around mid day....

Erin at tea time..

Pretty decent turns all things considered..

Marc and Kat, good friends.
Glory.

Nice to be out when its quiet in the hills...

Rogers Pass: Bruins and Video Peak

With Joy in the brain I set off with some of my good friends to the hallowed halls of Rogers Pass, BC. With below average snowfall, the pass still presents about 80% more snow then we have here in the Rockies at this point- we will take it. Craig, Zach, Drew and I were looking for a couple of big days to solidify the base for the upcoming touring season, barring bad visibility we were stoked to get up high and ski off some summits and with the stability at good/good/good, we were ecstatic.

Bruins Ridge
Craig Langford- Summit of Video Peak.

Day 1 we toured up into the alpine and over Bruins Pass to shred some sweet turns down the North Bruins glacier. A couple laps here sealed the deal and we punched back over and schralped up the remaining snow in the main bruins gully and down to the Hotel. About 5500 feet total elevation gain. Burgers and enormous talk prevailed soon after.

Sweet Bruins glacier powder turns
Our last day, we toured up the familiar Connaught valley with intentions on bagging a peak, Drew had to opt out on account of blistered feet- we could tell the last thing he wanted to do was be a bench warmer and we missed him on day 2. Too bad because we schralped up some pretty sweet December powder that day...
We punched it up to the Vid and skied from the summit. We were really stoked and energy was abounding all around so we just kept on going, up over Bruins Ridge and a much needed fresh powder session down some un-tracked lines on the ridge and back into the 8812 basin. Back up we went and over to Bruins Col for a run down into Connaught and back to the hotel for some chow. About 6500 feet elevation gain.

A really great trip with a couple of decent days in the mountains with great folks. Of note the Rogers Pass Hotel is really worth going to again if you are skiing there, the food is good, the service is good and the new owners are really physched. Its good that its back on track.

Happy Holidays!

Work and Whistler

A few days ago I returned home after a great trip out to Vancouver and the surrounding area. I mixed things up this this time around with a stopover in Vernon before heading west where I enjoyed some time in Whistler, Squamish, Victoria and of course metro Vancouver. This trip revolved around work with patagonia, mostly showing the Fall 2011 line up of product. This is a very good, satisfying and busy time of year for a sales rep- lots of phone calls, emails, driving and getting ready for Christmas while toting around many bags of garments and product to show store owners.

Squamish Brew Pub and Hotel. I stayed at this great place for work and a bit of skiing in the Whistler backcountry. Gear.
Tunes, double espresso and 12oo km's..
What I do, just add some great folks into those chairs.

I must say that the highlights as always included great food, friends and some skiing. I really love the Whistler area and BC backcountry skiing in general. A good day of touring was had as well as two on hill days; one skiing 50cm of fresh powder and one following a 10 year local to all the best spots. Great times.

Now I am recharged and ready to go skiing, its on!

Won Ton

wonton soup

Ground Pork

Green onion

Ginger

SoySauce

Wonton Wrappers

Chicken Stock (Pork preferred)

Broccoli

Bok Choy

Carrots

Take the top three ingredients and mix. Take wonton wrapper and wet edges, put a little meatball of pork inside, fold the wrapper. boil for 5 minutes- try one first to make sure.

In a different pot take broth and boil- add broccoli and carrots and toss in cooked wonton at the last minute.

2o minutes from no wonton to wonton.

early season skiing: Smithers, release the hounds.

Just finished up a great few days in Smithers visiting my good friend Katie, working some and of course getting in some early season turns...

We toured up onto a shoulder of Hudson Bay Mountain and had decent skiing and turns on the descent. One run was all we had in us with the arctic low parked right over us and really cold prevailing winds shoving it all in our faces.
Katie getting some tele-turns down the south slopes of Hudson Bay Mountain.
Prince George airoporto
Last week, Marc Andre and Drew and I teamed up for a too early attempt to go skiing, it was actually not to bad as we hiked into a beautiful spot to get a few early season turns.

yalda, dragons and more

What do you think of when snow hits you in the head? nothing..

In persian folklore, Yalda was the ceremonial first day of winter, a time to celebrate and rejoice over a good summer and hopefully a bountiful harvest. Wine, great feasts and dancing was enjoyed by all with cellars full of jams, roots and meat. In very early Japan, winter was commonly feared. Artwork from this time depicts glaciers as dragons, snaking down vast peaks and hiding man eating holes and other terrors of the mind- You were not to be seen or heard again if you dared to enter the mountains. No matter how you look at it, when the tilt of the earth favours skiers and the sunlight grazes the northern hemisphere at that magical oblique angle something good is about to happen and what better way to take advantage of it then by strapping some waxed boards to your feet and shredding the poop out of something?

Today I am on a plane bound to northern BC thinking about Yalda and Dragons. Next week I am back though and have about 10 days to try and squeeze in a couple of ski days. The forecast calls for snow and mild temperatures, the perfect combination for a good early season..

So friends, I suggest kicking back and dreaming about winter nights, powder skiing adventures and endless white with a glass of your favourite beverage because it is close at hand.

Early season 2010...