April 23 - Brad skiing down from the 1800m high point between Happy Valley and Monkey Bowl. In the background is the lower of the Happy Double Lakes, Happy/Doom col and run down into Happy Valley of the Happy/Doom Traverse which we skied the day before and were standing in an hour or so previous to this summit.
April 23 - Looking south to Mount Valpy left of centre and a summit we skied from the top of in the centre for a long long run to the Skeena River during Spring Break.
April 23 - Frozen snowballs in the Valley of Certain Doom. Interesting features in that they would have fallen from the mountains above during the night after the snow firmed up. There were hundreds and hundreds of them.
April 22 - First bear tracks of the season near the entrance to Happy Valley. They weren't there when we skied up the valley.
April 16 - Fun new run up Happy Valley. A steep 500ft vertical couloir, open middle section and then well below the exit couloir to get through the headwall.
April 7 - Great snow skiing down on the lake near Obi-1-Ski-Nobi. Elissa and Brad below their run.
April 7 - And my tracks down to the lake. Not as long as the run above but still really fun.
April 1 - Mount Little through a break in the clouds from near the top of The Dome.
April 23 - Valley of Certain Doom - Happy/Doom Traverse with a variation - Spotting a cool looking line up VoCD the day before, Brad and I headed up again with full gear to handle some glacier travel. We got an early start with our skis on before 6am to beat the sun as the freezing level was going to spike early on. We motored on up VoCD with Brad out in front and myself trying my hardest not to fall behind. We motored at full speed for 90 minutes before finding our run wouldn't go in the conditions of the day. With no real objective for the day we slowed it down a bit and moseyed on up to the Happy/Doom col for the 2nd time in two days. Along the way we found an interesting feature in that hundreds upon hundreds of frozen snowballs had tumbled down from the lofty summits during the night. It was really cool.
We managed to arrive at the Happy/Doom col within something like 3.5 hours and thought that with such easy travel we may as well keep going. So it was a ski traverse down to the Happy Double Lakes, which soon had us on long steep bootpack up onto the ridge between Monkey Bowl and Happy Valley. We were standing on the highest point between the Shames and Skeena Rivers which is 1800m. The views from this summit were absolutely incredible. The best of it being to the south into the Gitnedoix Watershed. The ski down the north aspect was fantastic up high with creamy powder and a steep little couloir. We were then into the exit couloir from the Happy Valley Double Lakes which was a bit of crusty powder but easily skiable and then because it was still early just softening corn snow.
A fantastic day out in the sun with great views, powder, corn and another new run skied.
April 22 - Valley of Certain Doom - Happy/Doom Traverse - I've always wanted to ski up into this area not just for the fantastic views but as well because of the name. You are in the thick of it for a few km heading up this valley as there is next to no protection if anything rips out from the big mountains above. It didn't disappoint and Brad, Elissa and I had a great time heading into this new area for the first time. Not very many people have been up this way which makes for some great exploration. I came out of the valley with a sore neck I was craning so hard trying to look around every corner. At the Happy/Doom col we skinned up onto the high point of the ridge for some extra turns and fantastic views. The skiing down into Happy Valley was fun if just a little sloppy and we exited out into the headwall of Happy Valley on snow that was incredibly slow. Gravity works though, we just had a load of suction from the wet snow and were moving slow.
April 17 - I was without local partners for Sunday so met up with Josh and Anna from Prince Rupert to ski Obi-1-Ski-Nobi. We found great snow on a northwest aspect which had has skiing powder from the summit down to the lake, really carvable spring snow to treeline and then corn the rest of the way out. It was a fantastic day which as well had us moving really fast thanks to Brad and Elissa's skintrack from Thursday. We were on the highest point in less than 4 hours.
April 16 - On the 9th of April we spotted a cool looking double couloir up Happy Valley so headed on up there with Elissa and Brad to check it out. The top one turned out to be pretty steep and about 500ft vertical which was cool. This then put us on a wide open bench before we entered another couloir to get through the headwall. A great day out of steep couloir skiing with fantastic views once again. Not much to complain about when you find yourself up high in the mountains with great views.
April 10 - Not really even a ski day and I'm not counting it but I did have my skis on for about an hour. I had to bale pretty quick though when on the ski down from the switchback on very grabby breakable crust I caught an edge and rammed my face and thigh into a small group of trees. I sat in the snow for a few minutes dripping blood all over the place before collecting myself and skiing down to the rest of the group with a large fat lip and swollen nose. I quickly made the decision to head home with a mild concussion and spent the day on Heather's couch.
April 9 - Brad and I headed up Happy Valley hoping to find the same powder we'd skied two days before. Instead we saw the alpine being ravaged by high winds with some sloppy snow down low. But we persevered and made a day out of it skiing two laps of wet mank. One lap on the east aspect at the entrance to the valley and another much more fun lap on the north aspect skiing down to the entrance of the Valley of Certain Doom. A fun little day of exploration which we finished up with some isothermic bouldering on a large rock with a few metres of snow on top. I didn't manage to get to the top (fell heals over head when a large chuck of snow pealed off) but Brad did and was rewarded with a 3 metre jump into the deep snow below.
April 7 - For Brad's birthday, Elissa, Brad and I headed up to ski some powder on Obi-1-Ski-Nobi. The views were great and we skied some fun steep runs down to the lake on creamy fast powder. It was fantastic!
April 2 - The last weekend for lift access backcountry skiing took Elissa, Anna, Roy and I over to ski some powder laps on Darkside which is the other side of The Dome. The powder was great and we pushed it into some steeper terrain for our second lap.
Ran into some problems on the ski out when Roy and I were separated. I spent the next hour or so looking for him all over the ski hill. He was in a panic running up and down the T-Bar while I looked for him all over the rest of the hill. I later learned that he ran nearly all the way up to the base of The Dome. I finally tracked him down and we had a joyous reunion. I was getting a bit worried. Lots of people know Roy but he is so skittish around other people that he won't come to anyone. So there was lots of calling for him but that just confuses him even more. That little experience has pretty much stopped me from taking him skiing which is a little sad but I don't want to lose him.
April 1 - Brad and I skied Zymachord trees finding heavy wet slop down near the bottom but really nice powder up in the alpine on the north aspects. It was a fun day out looking for the good snow and set me up for the next day of powder skiing on Shames' last weekend of the season.
0 comments:
Post a Comment