Not sure how long this season will last as COVID will make the world implode so here’s a photo-dump of various random trips from around our traditional stomping grounds this year.
Whistler and Blackcomb
The Sea to Sky has had a massive issue with its underlying snowpack via a buried persistent weak layer from the early season. However massive consistent storms in January followed by consistent snow in February had us poking around on lower angled terrain in the Blackcomb area. Here are some randoms from around the Circle Lake, Spearhead Glacier, Vista, Decker area of the Blackcomb backcountry
image: Lee Lau – Spearhead Glacier ridgeline walking
image: Lee Lau – preparing to drop to Vista Lake
Relevant links:
- Variable thin Russian Roulette Whistler snowpack from Snowbrains
- Wayne Flann Avalanche Blog
- Avalanche Canada
image: Lee Lau – down to Circle Lake from Spearhead Col
image: Lee Lau – Saucer Bowl
image: Lee Lau – Corona Bowl
Duffey – north of Pemberton
Rohr
We had the blessings of bluebird skies following a cold dump of snow in late January. This covered up alder nicely and made it possible to get top to bottom 1000m shots of the S-facing Rohr avalanche chutes. Timing is crucial for these lines and we got lucky with the timing for our two laps
image: Lee Lau – first lap up
image: Lee Lau – deep tele turns
image: Lee Lau – first lap of cold smoke
image: Lee Lau – second lap direct from ridgeline
image: Lee Lau – spine walls for the second lap
image: Lee Lau – steep exit through the gut for the last pitch to the bottom
image: Lee Lau – the line was good all the way to valley bottom
Heartstrings
Late February rolls around. Our friends from Vancouver Island come to visit. Their timing really couldn’t have been better. Temps were a tiny bit warmer than ideal but two mid February storms have laid even more base down. The week before they arrive two cycles put 10cms then another 10cms down on supportive stable snow.
Weather delivers for the Island crew. We work windows of visibility, rock walls to give us definition for skiing and manage to mine areas of perfect non-wind-affected snow. Three 400+m laps of perfect snow plus glimpses of the surrounding summits and icefields are the reward
image: Lee Lau. At Joffre Lakes
image: Lee Lau. First lap with an enormous ski cut that yielded no results
image: Lee Lau. Second lap being chased down by convective cloud but just another visibility for confident turns
image: Lee Lau. Second lap
image: Lee Lau. Third lap with an untouched powder field (except for our own group’s tracks)
image: Lee Lau. Such an aesthetic line
Vantage
The Island boys were around for another day. Weather promised for visibility for the first bit of the day with a storm rolling in for the latter part of the day so we picked a zone to give us option. We made our way up Vantage Ridge and as we gained it; graybird set in and visibility went to cloudy soup.
We made up for this by laps in trees and then enjoyed yet another top to bottom ski where the snow was good all the way
image: Lee Lau. Lillooett Lake morning fog and sun
image: Lee Lau. Blue skies turned to gray as we gained the ridgelines
image: Lee Lau. Storm rolls in
image: Lee Lau. 20cms new of low density
image: Lee Lau. Powder attack
Joffre Lakes
Joffre Lakes isn’t just about the free wifi or the naked yoga instagram log. It’s also about alpine terrain and treed skiing. Early March storms deposited up to 40cms of low density snow from peak to valley. Sometimes one explores and sometimes one gets the low-hanging fruit. We picked that fruit and it was sweet.
First for us was the Managerbod tour with old friends and sending off new friends as they had their last pow hurrah before making their way back to the mountainous gnar of Ontario. We lapped more pow and had faceshots
image: Lee Lau. Aggresive surface hoar growth
image: Lee Lau. Blasting lap 1
image: Lee Lau. Gutting pillows for lap 2
image: Lee Lau. Manager pow
image: Lee Lau. Warm enough towards end of day for trailhead celeberatory beer
Joffre Lakes again
Joffre Lakes was so good and yielded so many instabangers we went back for more. This time we hit up a birthday mission for a triple lapper but found that pure Westerly slopes had a stout sun crust; skiable but not the overhead blower to which we had become accustomed. No matter. There were some north faces that required our attention and we did to those what needed to be done
image: Lee Lau. Going up for lap 2. The first lap we skied in the backdrop was sun-affected unfortunately
image: Lee Lau. Paparazzi pulled through as we dropped for lap 2
image: Lee Lau. Inexplicably other groups left this fat couloir for us to destroy
image: Lee Lau. Pow harvesting commencing
image: Lee Lau. Beautiful pow in a straight down line
image: Lee Lau. Powder snow all the way down
image: Lee Lau. Not a track in before we started
image: Lee Lau. Acceptable quality
Darwin zone
A cold spell for mid-March brings in unseasonably low temps. While sun affect is putting paid to even W and E aspects everything remotely north-facing still skis beautifully. Travel is fast as coverage has improved all season. We spent a bunch of time hunting N-facing couloirs and had nice payback as the zone delivered a distinct lack of crowds, reasonable (but not overly steep) lines, and sheltered N facing stable snow
image: Lee Lau – working ridgelines to get to the promised land
image: Lee Lau – couloir 1
image: Lee Lau – yes this did ski as well as it looked
image: Lee Lau – couloir 2
image: Lee Lau – that also was of acceptable quality