6 Days around the Region

Feb 13th - Mid way through our 2nd run and the snow has become incredibly deep. It was a great experience.

Feb 13th - Roy has become quite the trail dog. If I want or the snow is too deep he will stay right behind me most of the way up the skin track. I usually let him run ahead though because he enjoys that a lot more.

Feb 13th - Heavy snowfall on Obi1SkiNobi. Managed 3 laps of over the head powder. It was amazing.

Feb 12th - Elissa riding on Obi1SkiNobi. Fun snow to valley bottom.

Feb 6th - Returned to snow covered sleds after a day of skiing deep powder under heavy snowfall. The ride back to the highway was fun!

Feb 6th - Brad skiing some great deep powder on glades near Oscar Peak.

Feb 5th - Roy ready to go after a day of running on firm snow in the mountains.

Feb 5th - Roy looking a little tired at the top of our 1st run. With the firm snow he kept up for the entire run. Behind is Mount Little on the left with Little N1 on the right.

Feb 13, 2011 - The snow kept falling and our plans of heading to Oscar were quickly dashed due to the superb skiing we would have in the Shames Valley. We had to do some road maintenence to keep our track from the day before so decided a few laps of Obi1SkiNobi were in order. We started out with only 5-10cm of new wet snow down low but nearer to the lake found that the skintrack had been completly snowed over. Mostly due to wind transport but as well due to the heavy snow that was falling. Trail breaking was in the order of knee to thigh deep and exhausting. But with a trail in we did 3 laps of incredibly deep powder. It was amazing. The Sunday before I had said that it was my deepest day. That quickly changed with the snow we skied on the 13th. We didn't leave ski tracks, we left trenches. Roy had a great time out as well, surfing his sluff, jumping off pillows and barking at all sorts of things. 7 hours out in heavy snow had me done and spent.

Feb 12, 2011 - The storm that we were expecting to come did indeed and in the process dropped 30cm of great snow. Elissa and I did a few runs at the hill skiing amazing runs in sunshine. Not often that I get to ski powder with the sun out. We met up with Brad and quickly set off for something new. We drove down the road and set off to ski Obi1SkiNobi. Brad the machine Zeerip put most of the track in which was impressive considering how deep the snow was. After a quick 4 hours we were at the top of the run looking down into Monkey Bowl and over at Sun Crust Couloir which we had skied at the end of the holidays.

The skiing though was amazing! The top was a bit firm but very easily skied with the snow only getting softer the closer we got to treeline. Into the trees we were quickly getting faceshots and jumping off pillows to keep ourselves entertained. It was an amazing ski. Thanks Brad for getting us up there! A quick little day out with 4 hours up and 1 hour down. Not bad considering we spent the morning making laps at the resort.

Feb 11, 2011 - We heard good things about Middle Creek so Brad and I took Roy up there hoping to find some good snow. We instead found very deep sludge, a hugely inefficient skin track and high winds that were setting off red flags all over the place. We quickly turned tail and headed for the sleds at the bottom of a big slidepath. The skiing was fun in very heavy snow.

Feb 10, 2011 - At the top of our powder runs the Sunday before we sited what looked like an easy way to approach the ridge above. So far we had been bamboozled by steep forest and rugged gullies in trying to gain the ridge. With a group of 4 we punched our way up and on top of the ridge to the north of Oscar and skied a really fun old avalanche path down to valley bottom. The snow was great and the terrain had loads of pillows which was surprising to all of us.

At the bottom we decided to skin up to the pillow run climbers left of the waterfall and from there would drop into the same valley as BigLeBowlSki. We had gone the opposite direction when we skied with Jordon and Chad a week or so before. On that trip we had skinned by what looked like a great wide open pillow field with a difficult headwall exit that could be fun. It was indeed fun but we got a bit messed up on the exit. Brad dropped down into the steep trees to find a way through and when he got to a point of no return I joined him and sideslipped further hoping to find an exit below. It looked like all cliffs from above but we found a way through and low and behold even more pillows. Another great day out.

Feb 6, 2011 - A storm came in over night and we knew that it wouldn't dump enough to cover the rock hard crust we found along the Skeena River. So we headed north to Oscar in the hopes of finally finding a way into some glades that would offer great skiing. We used our skin track from the previous week and quickly found ourselves on very steep, runnelled, icy treed slopes. It wasn't fun and in the long run heading up high in a storm to ski unknown terrain was foolhardy. We got ourselves turned around, traversed back to some low elevation glades and set about skiing some incredibly deep powder. We managed to ski three 400m runs that on each lap was deeper than the last. It was all faceshots and smiles. We even had a dry place to rest at the bottom of each run under a big tree. This was nice as it was snowing heavily and there really is no way to keep oneself dry when you are moving in this type of weather. At least I havn't found a way yet.

Feb 5, 2011 - Brad and I took Roy up Middle Creek hoping to find some soft snow up high. What we came across though was rock hard snow up to treeline with some soft chaulky powder above that. It was fun turns though if just a bit jolting and we did two of the heli runs that Northern Escape does in the area. The skiing and skinning were incredibly fast and we moved through the area with efficiency. The snow was so firm in some places that even on mellow slopes Roy was sliding down the hill. But for the most part he tired himself out with limitless travel and loads of things to bark at.