Saturday Tour at the Hill

I headed up to Whitewater yesterday with Dayna and Donald for a couple laps and to check out conditions in the local alpine. After a warm spell earlier in the week, temps have dropped again and we received new snow to near valley bottom, and the recent temperature crust that formed at lower elevations has been sufficiently buried with low density pow.

We were the first people in the parking lot besides staff and broke a trail up Sneaky Pete’s and up to Prospector. There was about 15cms of fresh at the lodge and more up high, maybe 20-25. The snow felt good and unconsolidated on top, with a supportive base below. I’m guessing there’s about 95cm on the ground at treeline, maybe a little more after last night.

We had really good turns down Prospector (watch the video), blower the whole way down. A little early for Lone Pine though as we did scrape some rocks in the choke, and the sluff was running fast, making it a way more exciting line than it is later in the season when filled in.

As the day progressed, more and more people were hiking and skinning and tobogganing the ski-hill runs, but only a small handful of people in the backcountry, making for a quiet day of untracked lines. All in all a super fun day riding deep fluffy pow with friends in the Selkirks!

Play it safe out there in the early season!

Cheers.

Jumbo Pass – Nov 9-13 w/Video

Photo by Steve Shannon – https://www.facebook.com/SteveShannonPhotography
http://www.steveshannonphoto.com/

Jumbo delivers again! Another epic trip into the incredibly beautiful and remote Jumbo Pass Cabin this year, making it the 5th winter in a row that I’ve attended this super rad trip that my friend Brace puts together.

A group of keen skiers (and myself the token splitboarder) converged from all over the Kootenays, Columbia’s and Alberta to shred powder snow on the Jumbo Pass. We got rad, we got loose, and we got pow on our faces. Core shots, face shots, whiskey shots, and various unmentionable things went down.

The drive in on Saturday morning was gnarly, four 4x4s all with tire chains headed up the 50kms of deep snow on the logging road. Thanks to Henry for breaking trail and getting super loose on the way up, showing us how it’s done.

The snowpack was decent, 50-80cms on the ground at the pass and up to 120cm HS in the alpine above the cabin. There was an ice crust down about 75cms with large grain facets to the ground, this layer whumphed on us several times while skinning and produced some fairly concerning results in our snowpits (CTH (21) down 75cm, fracture character: SC) So we chose our terrain accordingly and rode safer, more supported features.

The sun came out for us on Monday; something that has never happened at Jumbo before, so we headed up to cabin peak for a sunrise lap, the colours were incredible, one of the most gorgeous sunrises I’ve seen in years. The sunlight lasted the whole day, so we lapped the North bowl above the hut until our legs gave out, then retreated back to the cabin porch for some sunbathing and gaping at the massive views of 11,000ft glaciated peaks.

I felt exceptionally lucky, it was Remembrance day, and we were basking in freedom and sunshine.

It warmed up on Tuesday, and the snow began to turn to schmoo, but by the end of the day it cooled off again and began snowing, leaving a thin temperature crust but still the turns were pretty good, at least for early November that is…

It’s always super cool to be in the mountains riding powder when the valley bottoms are still in their anticipatory autumnal mode of awaiting winter, bracing for what we know is already happening high, high above. The pow-slayers have awakened from their summer hibernation and the season for snow has begun.

I hope everybody has an epic winter…

KEEP JUMBO WILD!

November 6, First Day of Splitboarding!

Silver Ridge cloud inversion, Nov 6

It has arrived, again, like an old friend. Winter is back. (And I’m blogging again!) There is a snowfall warning in effect right now in Nelson and it’s puking outside, bringing back so many memories of winter and all of the associations of radically fun times. The snow has been coming down consistently enough for the last week or so to blanket the mountains in delicious powder, and a deep enough base to ride…finally.

The Top

I’d been keeping an eye on conditions in the alpine and heard some good reports from friends, so I headed up the long, 11km+ mining road, climbing 1200m to the ridge. I was greeted with some really incredible views south down the cloud enveloped Slocan Valley over an ocean of cloud, and for moments the big peaks of the Goat Range would reveal themselves with pockets of sunshine lighting up the big aesthetic faces of Mt. Brennan and Whitewater Pk.

Good coverage.

Conditions were good, variable coverage but 50-80cms throughout Wild Goose Basin made for knee-deep turns through some pretty deep baseless powder, but no coreshots or even a scrape. There had been a few small windslabs that had popped out during the last intense snowfall on Sunday perhaps, but mostly unconsolidated snow gave me confidence and I chose a very safe route to the top, and on the way down my ski-cutting didn’t produce any results in the sheltered trees and bowl I rode through.

Looking Back

All in all a sweet first day, a long slog to the top but well worth the effort! The first few turns down the mountain through the deep snow were a little sloppy but once I figured out the snow it was all pow-slashing good times! So good to be back on the board getting amongst it! And the 900m high speed descent down the logging road was a super extreme fast exit.

Stoked for all the upcoming good times in the mountains! Hang loose!