A 10 Day Ski Traverse from Near Bell II to Near Stewart BC

Ski Traverse 2013 from Matt Lucas on Vimeo.

January Through March 2013

A Short Canoe Down The Skeena

December Was Great!

Lots of days skiing but only a few runs made it through the editing process. One run in particular that didn't make the cut was maybe the best alpine skiing I've ever done. Really deep dry powder for the entire run, very top in the alpine to the very bottom well below treeline for about 4000ft! It was incredible and rare in this area to get great conditions top to the very bottom. Ended the month with a 5 day trip into Anderson Cabin with 9 friends which was a load of fun!

Knife Fight!

And some more amazing days in my early season so far. The video above starts (Not all my days, just the ones with good shots) with a fantastic day that Brad and I had up on Wesach Mountain. I skipped school (didn't get a call) on the perfect day finding bluebird with next to no wind on the summit. That wasn't all though. Once on the summit and in the warm sunshine we were treated to some views that you just don't get all the time. The valleys were filled with a sea of clouds with all those beautiful mountains poking through. And to top it all off, the snow was blower dry powder! We skied an amazing first run, got to the bottom some 800m vertical below and then marched up for a second even steeper lap. It really was that good.

Shames has had a slow start this year but its finally going strong now as can be seen in one section of video. It was spotty skiing watching for rocks on a less than metre base in the alpine but we found some dry snow. And then it all ends with an amazing deep powder run up Middle Creek on Nov 17. The snow was so deep but I somehow glanced off a stump, loosing a ski, and in the falling process stabbed myself in the upper thigh with my ski pole, breaking it and puncturing my quad. It hurt. Not too bloody but like a serious charley horse that wouldn't go away but it also forced my back to go out of alignment later in the week due to some awkward limping. But I'm back to normal now and skiing deep powder at Shames!

Season Opener in the Skeena Mountains

October 18/19, 2012 - My season has started with a bang. After nearly 6 months of rehabilitation following my acl surgery I felt I was ready to hit the hills again. Didn't help that all of a sudden summer left the northwest and the mountains were coated with the nice look of winter. The skiing felt great and I'm ready for more.

7 Days and Now I'm Rehabilitating

Wrapped up the season with a few fun runs around the area. With my lack of an ACL I took the last few weekends easy as the snow was becoming more difficult to ski without the natural stability that an ACL offers. I even opted out of a Oscar trip the weekend before my surgery in the hopes that I'd ease any swelling that might hamper a healthy operation.

April 8, 2012 - My last run of the season up Middle Creek and a steep one at that. I was a bit hesitant about skiing this as you can tell its steep however Roy walked into it without even hesitating so I had to ski it after that. We had just skied a new run off the south side of this ridge (peak 5306) getting some great corn snow into the Wedeene drainage. The skin back to the ridge was brutal with some very steep switchbacks but it made it all worthwhile after getting to ski this north facing run back into Middle Creek territory. 

April 6, 2012 - Heather and I skied the Happy Doom Traverse finding some unpleasent skiing conditions. In this picture its looks beautiful but we didn't get to ski this nice north facing powder. Nope we skied everything else including some difficult breakable crust. The views more than made up for the bad conditions though.

 April 6, 2012 - Heather nearing the Happy Doom col and after figuring out that she enjoys breaking trail.

March 31, 2012 - We joined a group heading into the Poupard area but split apart to ski something a little less committing. It was a great day out in the mountains skiing some amazing dry north facing powder. The views of Oscar and Poupard were spectacular and getting to watch Brad, Elissa and Mark skin right to the top of the skiable top of Poupard on the hanging glaciers was great. Heather, Roy and I up May Creek on my sled making it no problem which was a great feeling after so many  issues this year. This sled access and Middle Creek a few weeks later more than made up for the poor performance during the deep of winter.

March 31, 2012 - Brad, Elissa and Mark nearing the top of what might be the highest skiable point on Poupard. At least when trying to summit from May Creek. 

March 31, 2012 - Heather and Roy skiing great dry powder near Poupard. A great run!

April 27, 2012 - My knee with a complete ACL after having a hamstring graft the day before. It looks much better a few days later and I'm on the road to skiing one day soon. 

I'm Back and It's Spring Break!!

After two months of going to the gym many times a week, a scope to clean out the junk in my knee and a load of time on couch I bought a brace from DonJoy to serve as an external acl and started hitting the backcountry once again. Taking it easy of course which meant no jumping off anything and only skiing the softest of powder. As of the end of spring break I've skied 9 days and they have all been amazing. Not just amazing because it is better than looking at the peaks and hearing about the powder from friends but because the snow has actually been amazing. It was also of course great to get out after hearing about all the epic days and descents that have been going down though January, February and March.

March 24 - A short relaxing day out to Hidden Lake in the Shames Backcountry and we skied this fun run. Even better was that we matched it with a ski out of Geronimo on good snow as well. Not often you can get both. We watched Talon and crew ski some fun runs and marveled at all the tracks they have been laying down. They are charging hard out there and really taking advantage of the area and his Arctic Oven.

March 23 - Hans got in contact with me on my rest day about skiing the west face of Remo via Cornice Ridge and I jumped at the chance. At first I was going to leave Roy at home but knowing it is a mellow route and with good travel thought why not take him along as well. A fun day out in the sun and great to check this mountain off the list.

March 23 - Remo's southwest ridge doesn't go as we found out. You can see our bootpack which ended in a wall of rock. Led to a few minutes of adrenaline trying to scramble back up but just added to the adventure of the day. Roy was a champ through it all but wouldn't come close to me for a while after all of this. Bypassed the knob on the north side and then regained the ridge to skin to the summit. Next time I'll just skin up the face. Much easier and more direct.

March 17-21 - Heather, Roy and I flew into the Anderson Cabin for 5 days of great fun and then skied out to the highway. Our first 3 days were sunshine with the following 2 deep powder. It was great having a relaxing time in the cabin drinking beer in the sunshine outside after a fun day skiing powder.

Mount Remo from the Anderson Cabin area.

Anderson Cabin under metres upon metres of snow. When I was there in January 2011 we had to walk 4 or 5 steps up a stairway to get into the cabin. March 2012 had us looking into the loft!

Five days of food and gear going into the Anderson.

March 11 - Skied into Cherry Bowl with a great group of 10 people. Strange in that there were 5 guys and 5 girls along. Not often you get that ratio. Picked up 2 brits along the way to make the large group. As has been the pattern the skiing was top knotch.

March 10 - My first day back skiing after 2 months of sticking around town in Terrace. Heather and I headed over to Cats to ski some powder. We skied out the avy path below Iron Curtain later on which is the picture above. Glad to be back at er!!

Compilation of a Few Days Around and Torn ACL

Another edit from some days around the Skeena and Nass regions. The last shot had me jumping off a little double pillow which while tumbling produced a noticeable POP POP in my left knee. Turns out I'm not a teenager anymore and don't just jump back up again after a fall. I think its just a bad twist but I'm taking a few days off to rest and will get back into things slowly after I'm feeling stronger. But after further investigation I've found that I had a torn ACL.....



A few days were spent in the Middle Creek area skiing some pretty good vertical. Roughly 12,000ft of it with the highlights from the two days being above. Beautiful weather had us up into the alpine or my first time all season for some pretty good skiing. The top picture being a first descent off the shoulder of NW Hipp that we are calling Vanilla Milkshake due to its proximity to the run Smoothy.

Final Days of the Holiday

I got a GoPro for Christmas and the above footage is from January 2nd at Shames. I spent my holidays down south in the Shuswap missing many amazing powder days in the Skeena region but enjoying some fun family time. Heather and I went to Revelstoke with some cousins for a fun day of skiing but left a day early after seeing that there was a big storm heading for the North Coast of BC. We left the Shuswap on the 31st driving all day arriving back in Terrace some 14hours later just before the big storm rolled in. We had a gentle day of just a few backcountry laps on the 1st as we were tired from the long drive and were just a few chairs back of first chair on the 2nd getting some fun powder turns in resort before heading for the backcountry.