Will Winter Ever Come?

Howdy folks,

Things have been quiet here on the blogging front recently.  But, aside from that, the current question is when will it snow?  It's December 6th today ... and the snow conditions on the south coast of BC are pretty darn minimal.

I've been trolling lots of weather sites, and have an impressive list of sites to uncover snow depth and weather info.  But, the reality is that this is a very late start to winter this year.  I skied at Blackcomb on November 27th last year - had a 9000m day, and recorded " blue sky, fresh snow, and cool temperatures - a perfect day!".  I recall a great snow pack.  In constrast, right now Whistler/Blackcomb has a 40cm base (that's, like, one foot and 3 inches or so).  On the local hills, there's no snow covering the lower cut on Grouse Mountain, and only a few centimeters of snow up higher.

Further afield, I've heard that folks have been having some good skiing at Roger's Pass - up above treeline. 

I'm supposed to lead an alpine club trip next weekend to explore up the S and W sides of Mt. Sproatt from the new Whistler Olympic Park (that's where the x-country and ski jumping will be for the 2010 Olympics).  But, they only have a few centimeters on the ground, so very likely I'll be canning that trip ... unless there's a big dump of snow down to 1000m or so (not looking good right now).

Ron, Carole, Gord, Jenny, Killaine & I are planning to do the Bonnington Traverse near Nelson over New Years - snow is pretty light out there too (again, 40cm reported at Whitewater).  

Ah well ... one thing is (hopefully) certain ... it will snow sometime soon!

Black Diamond Voodoo Ski Reviews

Lou Dawson's backcountry skiing website has had a thread on Black Diamond Voodoo skis - these are the ones I skied on last winter. Some good comments on these skis:

http://www.wildsnow.com/?p=1176#comment-10608

I added my own comment in there as well:

I skied on the Black Diamond Voodoos last winter as well, with Dynafit bindings.

Prior to the voodoos, I had a pair of Hagan Titanal skis - for me, I found that this skis didn’t have the flotation I was looking for in powder, they didn’t have the stiffness for awkward conditions, nor did they have the sidecut for tight turns in bushy trees (I live in British Columbia). The voodoo addressed every one of these issues for me, and I found it to be a great ski. The stiffness took a bit of getting used to, and I found I had to push the skis into the turn on hardpack.

On the topic of twintips - I don’t like them. The fact that you can’t easily stab a ski into the snow and use it as an anchor is a real inconvenience for ski mountaineering. As Lou pointed out, the twintips do feel different at the end of a turn - they seem to slide out of the turn more than I’d like - I’d prefer if it was a bit more “grabby”. (of course, this is just my personal observation - your mileage will differ!)

Finally, on the topic of quality … I had the exact same experience as freeheel above - the top sheet has been falling apart on the tails where the skins clip on. The skis look pretty beat up after just one year of skiing. I’ll contact BD about that and possibly return ‘em. Also, I found that the boot center mark did not align with the “true’ boot center (which was marked with a separate score). Caused some confusion for me with my ski tech.

All in all, I found the Voodoos to be great skis - if BD would ditch the twintips and improve the quality of the tail skin clips, it would be great.

Ascent of the Kleine Matterhorn

Before we started the Haute Route, the guys & I spent a fun day of skiing at Zermatt. For fun, we made an "ascent" of the Kleine Matterhorn ...

The route to the summit is very challenging ... you first have to take a lift up ...

Then, walk through a tunnel in the mountain ...

The crux of the route is the final pitch to the summit. Here, the team prepares to use extreme aid to get up the hard part:

The final snow slopes mean an easy final ascent:

The summit!

And, a view of the "real" Matterhorn from the summit of the Kleine Matterhorn:

Skiing at Kimberly

After skiing at Skoki, I was due in Fernie for a week-long Avalanche Level 1 course. Killaine & I drove down from Lake Louise to Cranbrook, and stayed at the St. Eugene's Mission Hotel. It's a converted residential school (i.e. it doesn't have a happy history), but the local band owns it and has converted it into a very nice hotel. It was a nice place to stay.

The next afternoon, we went skiing at Kimberly. Unfortunately, we missed the big dump of snow they had overnight, but there were still a few bits and pieces of powder to hunt down.

... and enough for Killaine to bury herself in ...

A few photos don't do Kimberly justice - it's a nice sized hill with lots of exploration potential - and a pretty laid back atmosphere.

New Years at Skoki

Killaine's birthday present this year was a trip into Skoki Lodge.

Skoki Lodge is a rustic old lodge-type-large-cabin located back behind the Lake Louise ski area. Killaine & I had hiked past it a few years ago on a backpack trip through the area during the summer, and thought it would be a great place to go back and visit in the winter.

We started in on January 1st (Killaine's birthday) - it was clear, but chilly - around -18 or -20 that day.

Skiing in, just past the ski area. We scrambled a couple of the peaks in the distance when we were last in the area.

Approaching the lake before Deception Pass.

Skoki Lodge. It was built in the mid-1930s as a backcountry ski destination for the early visitors to the Canadian Rockies. The ski in took about 5 or so hours.

The weather was quite blustery the next day, so we did a long, flat but very neat tour around Skoki Mountain. In this photo, Killaine is skiing across one of the Red Deer Lakes - the headwaters of the Red Deer river that ultimately flows through my Mum's town of Red Deer.

The next day, we did an interesting ski up to Merlin Lake. The route up was a little steep and tenuous in places - it was much more fun to ski down. Oh yeah, the snow was a thin crust over a heavily faceted base - ski penetration almost to ground at times (but better higher up).

Merlin Lake is in the upper basin to the top right.

Killaine skiing below Merlin's Castle.

The next day, time to leave. By the way, the staff at the lodge was super friendly, and the food was excellent - definitely a good, historical Rockies place to visit.

A blustery climb back up to Deception Pass.

Looking out across the lake below Deception Pass. The posts are put in to guide folks in/out in whiteouts.

Killaine on the ski out, with Temple and Aberdeen/Haddo in the background.

All in all, a great trip!

Not All Ski Days Are Fun Days

Killaine & I had a fun, but not terribly fun, day of skiing at Whistler. The skiing was good and conditions were great, but:

1. The restaurants were beyond packed out - packed lunches on the side of the ski run from now on!
2. We had to ride one gondola ride with some sort of wierdo who got overly excited in an angry way about a story he was telling (you had to be there)
3. We were accosted by some dweeb trying to sell us timeshares in Whistler
4. Another gondola ride with kids who "just about" pulled out their joints and started smoking them ... and
5. My truck was broken into while parked at Whistler Creekside (in the underground parking). Fortunately, "only" around $100 was stolen from Killaine's wallet.
   

Killaine praying for respite from the crowds in the restaurant.

My truck - without a window!

Boxing Day Powder

Boxing day was a clear, sunny day in Vancouver, albeit cool, and the previous day had dumped a fair amount of snow on the mountains. So, in the spirit of a lazy boxing day, Killaine and I headed up Hollyburn Peak (near Cypress) to ski the back side of it.

The ski up Hollyburn is incredibly popular amongst the snowshoeing crowd.

The recent snow was plastered all over the trees near the summit.

As I mentioned, the summit is very popular ... but (virtually) everyone stops here. Killaine & I dropped over the north side of the peak and skied the foot or so of fresh powder along the ridge that leads NE from the peak of Hollyburn, kind of up and above Tony Baker gully.

The runs were short, but the skiing was great, and it was a beautiful day - all in all, not bad for an afternoon powder run!

Christmas Day

What better way to celebrate Christmas in our new home by doing a short ski!

Killaine and I went up the Alpine trail on Mount Seymour - just for a single run 'cause we had to get ready to go for Christmas supper at Hugh's.

So, a short climb up, and a good run down in the new snow.

On our way up

Killaine tromping up the Alpine Trail.

A windy, snow blown Christmas afternoon at Brockton Point!

Mount Seymour Dawn Patrol - December 20th

The tradition continues ...

For "fun" (and, 'cause it's something you can do in Vancouver), once a week I try to wake up at 5:30am, drive up to Mount Seymour, and do a couple of laps of skiing up the Alpine trail and down the ski runs on Mount Seymour. I get around 560m of vertical in, finish up by about 8:30, and get to work by 9:30.

This morning, I started my first downhill run in the dark - skiing by headlamp. This picture kinda shows how awake I was that morning:

First Ski Day of the Year

I (finally) got my first ski day in of the year ... I blew off work yesterday (tuesday) and headed up to spend the day skiing at Blackcomb.

It was a great day - 8" of fresh, cold powder, blue sky and about -8. Very unusual weather for this time of year (really, for November, it should have been misty and raining or snowing!).

I found a nice knoll just below the top of the Crystal Chair to climb up and have lunch in the sun.

Very few people on the hill, at times, I had entire runs to myself. A great day, and great start to the ski year.

2006 / 2007 Ski Season Summary

Well, I must have a little spare time at the moment ... so I've decided to summarize my ski stats from last season (winter 2006 / 2007).

A bit of background, for some unknown reason, I started tracking all of my exercise - I guess ostensibly so that I can compare progress (or, lack of) from year to year. Anyway, my ski data from last winter is some interesting data I've been able to pull out.

First ... some summary statistics:

• Total ski days: 44
  
• Total backcountry days: 30
  
• Total downhill days: 14
  
• Total vertical:
• ascended (i.e. backcountry vertical): 22,505m
  
• descended (backcountry & downhill): 100,498m
  
• Total amount of time spent skiing: 239 hours

Of course, some caveats to these numbers ... for a "ski day", I counted any day where I had skis on my feet and skiiing for more than an hour. So, a "ski day" includes the short trips I did up Mt. Seymour in the morning, getting a couple of backcountry runs in before work. It also includes evening skis at Cypress or Seymour.

Charts galore:

Month-by month breakdown of vertical, downhill (blue) and backcountry (green).

Season breakdown of days spent skiing by month, broken down by backcountry and downhill. Note that in January I spent a week (with Killaine) at Sorcerer Lodge, and then in April spent a week doing a backcountry ski trip in the Spearhead/McBride area. Also note the drop off in skiing in February and March (when it seemed like every weekend had horrid conditions).

Finally, a breakdown of hours of backcountry versus downhill. No surprises here!