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Ouray & Alta

Comp Days

Moab, Utah. Playing with dinosaurs.

One bluebird day up north. We had some successful low elevation sled laps & some deep pow shovelling experience. This was the last sled pit of the day, hence the lazy shovelling.

gnarpatrol-blog

We drove 18 hours chasing winter and highlight was

Chasing Powder!

This year we both have real jobs and have planned holidays months in advance. This upcoming week was idealized with faceshots and steep pillow lines in new zones. I've been all over topos, google earth and training at the gym with much anticipation. Climate change has left us with bullet proof backcountry and sunny skies for the duration of our trip. We've been making the best of it but also looking elsewhere. Where is winter hiding?

Jackson Hole? Only a chance of snow

Utah? Freezing rain was forecasted for this weekend

Japan??? Too late, save it for 2016

SMITHERS! My home town is getting dumped on.

http://www.sandrah.biz/mountainweather/ski_hill_snowtable.php#.VM1o4Gh4pcR

and there's even more in the forecast. That perfect -15C blower champagne powder that will bring you to tears of happiness?! Yes please I WILL drive 17 hours for that and my mom's pecan pie. Double dose of perfection.

http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Ski-Smithers/6day/mid

Tomorrow, Prince George 13hour and an evening of catching up with friends.

Monday, 5:00am departure to arrive at Hudson's Bay Mountain just in time for first chair.

Lucky for us, Hudson's Bay lost power yesterday and are open Monday for a "bonus day" as they're usually closed during the week. AWESOME!

Pow, Pow, Pow!

On a positive, my gore-tex works

We left Vancouver in a mad rainstorm and when we arrived at Paulson Pass - 1570m to a vision of winter AND it was snowing. We thought we may just get that 10 cm forecasted for Red Mountain Resort.

Well that 10cm was 1cm but the snow was soft and we enjoyed a morning of classic snowboard side hits, no executive backcountry safety decisions, leisurely assents on a chairlift and buckets of runs. By mid afternoon it was rubber ducky style rain, ski patrol was hauling people off the mountain in sleighs and the pub was deemed the safest place at the resort. In an effort to concentrate my riding in the backcountry, resorts are pure luxury despite the conditions. A playful day at the resort with a group of friends will always be remembered.

The wet snow made for a Sunday Funday of 2-stroke education and new snow scoping.

Our next destination was Kootenay Pass, one of my favorite places to splitboard in North America. The trees are perfectly spaced, lots of hits in steep and mellow terrain and generally always above the freezing level. The parking lot sits at 1774m. Sadly not this time, the pineapple express rose freezing levels all across BC. We were willing to change our trip but avalanche conditions were only worse further north. Glacier National Park received 30cm of snow prior to the warming, HIGH from Alpine to Below Treeline. Smithers, a 14hr drive had rain as well. My mom was upset she was rained out of a visit. So we've been making the best of it....video to follow....

At least we tried

The week was shaping up nicely, freezing levels were hovering consistently around 1600m. Wednesday Nov 26 and Thursday Nov 27 left a scar on my memory and our future snowpack, RAIN and lots of it to 2200m. The icing on the cake? A week long cold snap with arctic outflow winds ensured a solid snowpack. Living in the city I was trying not to be jaded and wanted to give it a try. I'd ridden rain crust before and found an amazing collection of bullet proof terrain in Alaska last year. Could it be that bad?

I teamed up with great ski company Lucas and Robin, in town from Kamloops. We were able to drive to the Blackcomb Snowmobile Cabin and tour the remaining 2 kms to the trailhead. During our tour we passed a group of snowshoers, including one member bootpacking. Our two groups continued to play leap frog and I never saw the bootpacker puncture the surface once. As the valley basin opened up we caught small pockets of wind loaded snow, the remainder was frozen ice. Water running paths marked the slopes in parallel lines.

We toured to the end of the valley for adventure sake. The shrill sound of frozen waves on skins made a memorable sound, certainly not a welcomed one.

My desperation for riding this winter has certainly dropped the bar. I get excited when freezing levels hit 1400m. I live in Vancouver and have embraced rainy days at risk of getting stabbed my a commuter umbrella with contradictory views.

A gem amongst the rain crust

First time splitboarding up the Duffey Lake. A few trips were cancelled due to rain crust, no snow and no snow. It's a long drive from Vancouver, 3 hours without traffic. High temperatures in the alpine was the theme all week, 3 degrees celcius at 2200m and rain...Escaping the concrete jungle was a priority. There would be good company, snow of some variety and whiskey. Yes, maple whiskey solves most snow dilemmas.

At 1800m the crust began to soften. We found consistent pit results around 2000m. Conditions were in our favour to tour higher.

No one brought their cameras, we were that committed. Iphones stole the show. Rocky the dog straight-lining it.

Touring back to basecamp

Higher elevations were saved from the rain in this area. Lucky for us approx 10cm snow on crust. We farmed it before lunch time and started the trip home.

The ultimate road trip

The summer of 2013 I managed to cause a non-surgical tear to one of my quad muscles while skimboarding. Skimboarding was my favorite summer time boardsport, I've yet to return for fear of setting back this season. I spent most of the 2013 summer limping around with a cane, drinking with my neighbours and working on my tan. My sports med physician doubted a snowboard season and advised me to at least not jump off cliffs. I had 5 weeks leave of absence over February/March and a home in Rossland. Ultimately I was not being left behind from a GNAR Patrol trip to Tailgate Alaska in April. Over February I did nearly buy a ticket to Ecuador, nearly. I had to take a lot more rest days than the rest of my friends. Home alone I watched hours of freeride skiing and snowboarding including Freeride World Tour, Subaru Freeride and Masters of Snowboarding.

This year to finish my leg rehab I've signed up for 2 of 3 competitions in the Subaru Freeride Series. Telluride, Colorado March 4-8th and Big Sky Montana March 25-28th. Open registrants compete in a qualifier competition and the top 20% move forward to the main event.

http://subarufreerideseries.com/

Day 1: Check-In, Qualifier Day Inspection

Day 2: Open Qualifier Comp + Inspection for Main Event (20% move to next day)

Day 3: Main Event Day 1 (60% move to finals)

Day 4: Main Event Day 2 – Finals

Day 5: Weather day

Christmas 2014

With only 4 days off travelling north to Smithers was not in the cards. Too far to drive (on winter roads) and too expensive to fly. Christmas would be all fun and games in Bralorne, BC.

We left after work on Christmas Eve. We dropped our duo of backseat drivers off in Lillooet and continued in the dark along Hwy 40. Alternating between single and double lane gravel road you can see the tall tree tops along the roadside and rockfall scattered across the road. Driving in the dark you can't see the several hundred meter drop into the Bridge River. It's a long drive (118kM) and next time we will sled over the Hurley FSR. Below are some photos from the drive home.

We spent two days touring at Sunshine Mountain, used since the 1930s. The base cabin remains and the area is deemed touring only.

We had one day of straight sled-boarding. With the help of some experienced riders we made it through a 1hr access with open creeks, alder bashing and only a few shovelling moments.

View from the meadows.

Ice wall for lunch.

Mark's classic sled line to end the day.

First turns of the season, short run of gnar - Brandywine, BC

First Turns of the Season

Headed out with Dwayne, a new neighbour and splitboarder whom I met on splitboard.com forums. We're both in Vancouver for various reasons, our first winters not living in mountain communities and surrounded by fellow riders.

The forecast called for a 'sunny sandwich' - 40-50mm of rain expected on Friday and Sunday with a sunny break for Saturday. Knowing that we'd have to bootpack regardless of our chosen location we settled for a closer drive to home and an area we were familiar with from summer hiking.

Brandywine Meadows allowed us to drive to the snowline & from summer photos we hoped some grassy sections of hillside would have sufficient snow to get some turns. Regardless, we'd have the gear out for the day and that was enough for me.

Approaching our final parking spot we began to settle on "a day out" rather than finding some turns. Even if we just carry our gear its great cross-training, right? We ran into one group of two who opted for snowshoes instead of skis.

Change-over close to the meadows. We probably could have done it sooner but we were taking the cross-training approach...

There's hope! Do you see what we saw? :)

Deep pow! 42 cm of the finest coastal snow on grass.

View across the valley. The terrain potential is exciting. Hopefully we can hit this area a few more times before all the snowmobiles snow up. No doubt it will be farmed quickly.

End of our zone, time to navigate the boulders back to our skin track.

Leaving the valley freezing levels were rising quickly. Everything was melting :(

All in all, a great day out. Let it snow!

First turns of the season, short run of gnar. - Brandywine, BC

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