Valhalla Mountain Touring Feb 4 - 11 , 2024

We are sickeningly lucky. The snowpack of BC got destroyed by successive atmospheric rivers. The shores of Slocan Lake were bare.

But as we got to our transfer day to VMT temperatures dropped and it snowed. Our first day was -2 and we pottered around the area adjacent to Lodge remembering that it was ski and not bike season.

Day 2 we toured into the Ruby Basin area and banged out 1300m+ of legit pow with 20 to 25cms on the windloaded aspects we skied. Eminently acceptable!!!Attachment 485696Attachment 485697Attachment 485698Attachment 485699Attachment 485700Attachment 485701Attachment 485702Attachment 485703Attachment 485704Attachment 485705Attachment 485706Attachment 485707

Good morning Lee. Looking forward to todays stoke. Go get some!

Nice Mang!

Lucky ducks! That was close. I have heard that skiing the prior week has been pretty awful.

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Originally Posted by Dromond

Lucky ducks! That was close. I have heard that skiing the prior week has been pretty awful.

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We dodged a bullet for sure.

More...

Given the conditions we had been expecting it's next to impossible to attach enough superlatives to the day. 2cms of new. -3.5 to start the day warming to -1.5. Winds were nil and we had light to start and end our 1350m vert of touring.

Skied zones below Rugged Peak, Grizzly Bowl and Jasmin Peak generally staying at shots between 2300 to 1950m to get the best snow possible including Into the Cosmos Silly Butt, perhaps one of the most unique run names evah.

Snow kept improving throughout to the point that we could edge deep and displace pow without hitting crust. The light really cam on at end of day to tie it all togetherAttachment 485841Attachment 485842Attachment 485843Attachment 485844Attachment 485845Attachment 485847Attachment 485848Attachment 485849Attachment 485850Attachment 485851Attachment 485852Attachment 485853Attachment 485854Attachment 485855Attachment 485856Attachment 485857Attachment 485858

-3 in the morning. -8 during day with clouds and light and snow and all the weather but not a lot of wind. We toured through the logging roads to access the N facing slopes off Shannon Lake in the Pyramid Moraines area.

The best snow is still from 2350m to 2000m so that's where we did laps. Then exciting challenge skinning through some slidepaths to end the dayAttachment 485986Attachment 485987Attachment 485988Attachment 485990Attachment 485991Attachment 485992Attachment 485993Attachment 485994

Nice Shannon Lake is beautiful. Doesn’t another small operation have a hut in that area?

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Originally Posted by teamdirt

Nice Shannon Lake is beautiful. Doesn’t another small operation have a hut in that area?

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VMT was hoping to put a satellite smaller lodge in the tenure just SE of Shannon but I believe Covid nixed that. There's also all the Valkyr Huts about 4 valleys over to the SW

-3 to -7 during the day as we toured into the Cariboo zone. Despite 2cms new and 3cms or so throughout the day lower angles still skied the best. Happy birthday ski Georg!

Bring on more snow, more dessert and more Intuition Liners booties!Attachment 486125Attachment 486126Attachment 486127Attachment 486128Attachment 486129Attachment 486130Attachment 486131Attachment 486132Attachment 486133Attachment 486134Attachment 486135

- 10 with 3 cms new. Keep getting the constant refresh. Finally seasonal temps! Ruby Basin, Ruby Bowl, Ruby Peak, the south facing Sapphires.

Pretty special to have high quality snow on all aspects.
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Last day

Benny Peak haiku

Sunny stable pow
Views to near infinity
Shannon Lake bounty

-11 to start the day. Beautifully seasonally cold and fast travel.

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