Northern BC 2013/2014 Stoke, Conditions

[swissiphic]

Back to the Dairyland zone for another hit it and quit it milk crate product testing night mission.

Ventured into previously sluffed out/wind affected terrain and suffered a bit on the uphill...so did the milk crates. Torque from leading edge angulated foot placements caused minor bowing and cracking in the plastic. It appears that structural reinforcement will be required for durability. Kinda thinkin' 1/8 or 1/4 thick alu L shaped beams along the leading edge will do the trick. Mods to commence shortly.

Ski quality was interesting...steep pitch with dust on ice or hard crust strewn with previous tree bomb landmines. Some pockets/turns of soft old decomposed windslab and four turns of settled old facets with 10cms of fresh on top. Fun, techy, one-turn-at-a-time skiing.

Full moon created an amazing winter ambiance...stoked to bear witness to a true highlight of winter...full moon night skiing.

[Angle Parking]

Low tide + green light = 5000

[swissiphic]

Stunning.

Is that the King Louis face?

[Angle Parking]

Stunning.

Is that the King Louis face?

Yep

[swissiphic]

Damn... 'tis a nice part of the neighborhood you guys live in there. Heart swells for quality of NWBC life...we really do have it all when it comes to diversity of ski terrain, snowpacks and microbreweries.

[garyfromterrace]

Low tide + green light = 5000

Oh yeah AP! One of my bucket listers there, hope you can show it to me in person when I get back there. Not too many ski runs that have been on my to do list for 20+ years. Nicely done, thanks for posting up!

[swissiphic]

Absolutely nuking in Stewart, atm...

About 45cms on the ground from the past 11 hours of stacked twonie drops and still comin' down hard.

It's a true classic dump...just like the old days, it dumps on a weekend so the roads don't get plowed till monday, IIRC...so, faceshots driving around town.

[swissiphic]

Snow keeps piling up in the Stewart townsite. 70cms since around noon yesterday. Town is buried.

No match for the GAME CHANGER Stewart style custom vehicle snow rake. Cleaned off our vans like it was a light Terrace dusting.

[Angle Parking]

I'm scared too ask, but anyone care to inform me as to how HBM is holding up with this heat?

[XXX-er]

really good spring skiing/beer drinking

the weather site sez it isnt freezing at night but the snow is still pretty crunchy till aboiut noon

[Angle Parking]

really good spring skiing/beer drinking

the weather site sez it isnt freezing at night but the snow is still pretty crunchy till aboiut noon

That's good to hear. Forecast shows dipping temps for next week as well which is good since I am nowhere near done skiing for the year.

MEC was out of Gold Label btw. I'll see if I can score some elsewhere in cowtown.

[LeeLau]

Minus 1 @ 2000m on glaciers in the Howsons still

[swissiphic]

really good spring skiing/beer drinking

the weather site sez it isnt freezing at night but the snow is still pretty crunchy till aboiut noon

The long wave radiation game is strong atm. Cool natural phenomena that occurs well into may/early june based on personal experience gained from past overnighter camps at altitude...I recall a ski tour camping trip on may long weekend back in 2004ish where we camped at 6 500 feet in really warm conditions. Daytime highs on solar aspects were into the low/mid teens, upper snowpack was water saturated wet grains. Night time lows only got to around 7 degrees C and we woke up with a barely supportive refreeze crust every morning.

My strategy for these conditions is work the open slope, afternoon shading, long wave radiation cooled snow. Use the google earth "show sunlight" feature to find the shadow lines on terrain of interest and time the afternoon to early evening outing to ski that specific terrain and exact ski lines to hedge bets for the best skiing feel and glide in the either micro refreezing wet grains, or, not yet refreezing but slicker skiing snow due to the arresting of the free water percolating down from the surface grains.

Factors that negate the cooling/refreeze are; obviously any cloud cover which greenhouses the snowpack, warm rock radiating heat in couloirs or at sides of open slopes, large tree trunks and longwave blocking tree canopy sections. Ideally, I look for generally polar aspect, open slopes with a bit lower angle of pitch.

Here's an example of a zone I ski in early to mid may and the ski line that hugs the shade line in the early evening. Nice little 2000 vert foot shot that always provides a tight ending to a pleasant spring day if the weather/snow stars align.

It's all about strateski, contrarskian tactics: leave late, get back home even later...here's what my spring line will look like on may 5th at 7:30pm.

[XXX-er]

That's good to hear. Forecast shows dipping temps for next week as well which is good since I am nowhere near done skiing for the year.

MEC was out of Gold Label btw. I'll see if I can score some elsewhere in cowtown.

I found a tube in the skin box so no worries we can still reglue your skins and i can restock this fall

I usually stock a couple tubes for this very reason

[Angle Parking]

I found a tube in the skin box so no worries we can still reglue your skins and i can restock this fall

I usually stock a couple tubes for this very reason

Awesome thanks.

[LeeLau]

Awesome views of the Waddington and the Tiedeman Glacier on the way up north to Smithers

[Reformed]

Felt like May on HBM today. Sunday dawned as a day in March and transitioned to the current May conditions by late afternoon. Glad we left early!

[LeeLau]

Burnie views

[XXX-er]

you and Shar are the only married couple on the Burnie trip so you would have got the " Conception room " cooler and quieter what with all that heat the Amish maid puts out but going at it like Pine Martens every night is a lot to live up to you know La

might leave you too depleted to be on the A team eh ?

[Angle Parking]

Thin and getting thinner but hard freezes make for green light conditions. By my count 13 people skied the 5000 face between Friday and today, including a group who gave Lee's group a special salute on their way out from Burnie.


The 2000 or Headwall of Big Simpson. A shorter but often more interesting piece of skiing compared to the showcase 5000.



The Hour Glass. I really want to ski this line and a few others in it's vicinity. Unfortunately I only seem to find myself in this neck of the woods on my way elsewhere.

[Angle Parking]

Poking our noses up the unskied couloir to the looker's right of Wolverine Den that Carpathian has talked about before.



The view up

[XXX-er]

Yeah its an up route rather than a line to ski, good to see the Hourglass at extreme low tide, thinking back 4 yrs ago I can see where those rocks on the lookers right would have probably anchored the snow pack > the boot pack up the left

http://www.schussboomerdownhill.com/

On the other side of the hill we were rocking the skin suits and drinking lotsa beer, I think the Shussboomer might be the only citizen DH race left in Canada

[garyfromterrace]

Awesome work AP, congrats! First "D"s are a beautiful thing.

Al, they still run the over the hill in Vernon. Plan is to be skiing in the boomer again next year. Only cause I look so good in a DH suit Haha.

[XXX-er]

I heard a comment on saturday that the skin suit squeezes the massive quad muscles of old DH racers up to be redistributed around the gut, I had some shorter GS skis but I splurged on a piece of toko HF tribloc and managed to win the old guy wreckreational class

[Angle Parking]

By my revised count 14 people took advantage of the conditions and skied the Kathlyn Face this past weekend. We were 7 at the top when I was there. Well done to the local scene. This is a view of the face taken from my deck.

5000 ft of skiing