Just back from an amazing week with friends in the snowy world of North Blue River Lodge. Just pure good times skiing powder, enjoying great meals and the company of friends both new and old in the quiet mountains. We were able to get up high on day one, skiing some nice alpine terrain during the drought conditions at the time, linking up to a nice ridge, down a N facing couloir which connected to the valley bottom, 1200m later. A couple of us snuck out for a pre-dinner snack afterwords in the form of an excellent boot top run in the steep trees, back just in time for the apres and appetizer course. The next few days blur together between great skiing, lots of laughs and close to a meter of storm snow. Just great.
John prepares for another day of skiing.
Ryan enjoying some nice snow.
Linda having a good time on her Wailer 99's!
Chris grew a beard one day.
The odd cedar is dotted amongst spruce, fir and other friendly giants.
Graham Underhill enjoying another day of powder skiing.
Graham.
Ryan having just a great time and sporting a super attitude as usual.
Vicki, a new ski friend.
Ry - guy
Linda
Todd entering the white room for a conference call.
The trail breaking was deep at times.
Ryan got a collect call from Ullr here, he accepted the charges.
Vicki
John surveying yet another great gladed run.
Ry.
It just kept snowing and snowing and...snowing. Magic stillness and winter joy.
Todd embracing the mystery.
Every day there was at least a three course dinner, skier prepared and skier enjoyed!
Steve
Hut life is the best life!
Graham and Dimitri
Mark had a problem and couldn't get up.
Todd.
Thanks to North Blue River Lodge and especially the people, who always make these trips so memorable: Steve, Linda, Vicki, John, Ryan, Chris, Ellie, Todd, Dimitri, Richard, Graham and Mark.
Friend Ross Berg and I did a handy little link up in the Spearhead Zone which we gave the working title of 'the whistler reacharound', the other working title was 'two Ross' don't make a right', the tour went up to Spearhead col, down to guides notch, down Cham chute 3, over to vista zone, down vista chute, over and up decker, down the chisel couloir, back up Decker and down 9th hole. Good times! RB put together a sweet web edit here!
During the low tide we are still heading out skiing and enjoying ourselves. After all, there is snow on the mountains and travel is fast and efficient, perfect for climbing and skiing peaks and enjoying the beautiful sunshine and the company of friends in the mountains. Such a trip was had recently based out of the nicely appointed Coquihala Lakes Lodge where Mark, a great guy and owner of the facility welcomes ski tourers with open arms and smiles as in his words; 'they don't spray whiskey on the walls, wreck rooms or throw bones off the deck', indeed we did none of those things but we did have a great time nonetheless. But seriously, check out the lodge, its a great base for ski touring and you can ski more if you don't have to drive to Van/Squamish after..
Looking towards snowy summits, Coquihala range.
John, happy camper and coast range intimate.
Wonderful terrain and great travel.
Chris and Ryan, stoked to be out.
Nearing the summit, we actually had a great fun run down from here, jumping off little windlips and whipping down the soft windpressed lee side of the ridge proper.
The omnipresent trucks on the Coquihalla
Headlamp finish.
Gaining Mt. Thar in corn conditions.
T-Shirt lunch, pretty nice.
Some 'edge deep' turns down the N Side of Yak/Thar col.
Thanks to linda, Ellie, John, Chris and Ryan for a great trip!
Well finally the thumb of so called 'dirty high pressure' has dissolved and the first big storms of the year are on the horizon, a meter of snow may fall between now and Saturday morning..This is great news for snow riders as the mountains are a bit 'thirsty' right now. Alders, crevasses and the like lurking around...
Boom! The 40-50mm (water equiv.) expected for Friday. as you can see, the bulk of this is expected along the Southern reaches of the coast mountains. Duffey area has less snow forecasted then Garibaldi Park and the Vancouver mountains.
There has been skiing though, if one watches freezing levels and times outings with military precision, the goods can be obtained. The windows have been short, with freeing levels all over the map as this spell of high pressure fought to establish itself. It has been good though, quite good in fact.
Some local skiing lately in Garibaldi Park. Photo courtesy Julian Stoddart.
Don't worry though, we will all be out there soon, reveling in the mystery of the slide across snow, soaking up the energy from a winters storm, chasing friends down tree runs and enjoying a coastal winter.
Below is a web edit from a couple of recent days of skiing, I hope you enjoy.
Had a great time skiing and touring with Linda, John and Ryan over two days lately up in the Diamondhead area of Garibaldi Prov. Park. Just a bunch of fun skiing with friends in the scalding cold, blue skies and remarkable beauty of the Coast Range...
Skinning up to the Gargoyles..
Great preserved and slightly windpressed pow on the SE fave of the Gargoyles. Wind pressed POW is my second favorite kind of pow....I love some good wind press.
I joined the crew on their second day up at the hut. They had been walking around and discovered that S Aspects held quite enjoyable skiing due to the preserving nature of the cold temperatures and so with that in mind, made a nice descent off of the S side of columnar during their first day. When I arrived we headed back to the south facing terrain, this time the Gargoyles. South facing because we had the desire to stay warm amidst the arctic flow but also, its not always possible to ski S aspects on the coast...
You guessed it...Gargoyles!
Gargoyles? yup!
The Upper slopes of the Gargoyles were a bit 'schnarbed' but still quite ski-able, as we went lower though, the surface turned to powder and we enjoyed multiple laps on this great little ski peak. Hooting and hollering and just enjoying the great day, company and ski conditions...
The H.U.T.
The focus.
We did an exploratory mission down the NW side of Columnar Peak, was very cool and even a tad remote feeling down there..
