Sol Mountain Touring - A week of Monashee pow

[LeeLau]

Every year a group of friends get together and fly into a ski touring lodge. It's a fun time and a good way to be immersed in skiing and the surrounding terrain

This year it was Sol Mountain Touring in the Gold Range of the Monashees. This is just a picture dump for now

Day 1 - Deep Into Debt and Banana Belt Broken skies. - 14 temps. Half day so got a quick hit up Banana Belt then down Deep Into Debt. Back up again and down Hoods to Bill Fraser Lake and back via Headlamp

[LeeLau]

Day 2 - Homer Glades, Premium Red, Merlot, Lodge Notch Monashee trees pretty much have the perfect spacing. Got lucky with conditions. Valley fog, moderate (-15) temps, fast snow, broken skies have even Sw facing runs running fast knee deep pow. Took opportunity to ski from subalpine to valley bottom for first half day Sol Mountain Lodge















Hiring a cook == no brainer. $320 pp and I'd eat probably that much. A good cook is so efficient and its nice to sit on ass after skiing and stuff face. We got pre=breakfast, breakfast, lunch, appies, dinner.

[LeeLau]

Day 3

In an attempt to hit all the low points in the Sol Mountain tenure we had a pleasant ramble from the lodge up and over Mission Ridge via Cariboo Pass to Peters Lake. Then beelined over to climb to Lodge Notch via Dead End and Ned End.

Back via Shiraz in sunset. Long day for a tour de windslab. Not much unprotected from the wind on the Fosthall side where we had hoped to have long runs of pow Very cold day. - 18. NE winds at Cariboo Pass. Cold sink in the valley bottoms were a bit challenging for heat management

[LeeLau]

Day 4 and Day 5

Day 4 - Chicken Knob, Funky Chicken, Baldur Glades, Bear Creek The snow was so perfect below treeline we did repeated laps off Chicken Knob, Funky Chicken and Back of Beyond. A wee bit of a long pleasant ramble back to Sol Mountain Lodge from Bear Lake. Same conditions as last few days. Temps -12 to -18 Skies clear. Snow is so fast, every pillow is a sender. Cold sinks in valley. Surface hoar growth in valley but not much of that higher














Day 5 - Baldur Trees Yet more perfectly spaced trees in the Monashees at Sol Mountain Lodge. Multiple 300m laps still possible in the Baldur area in perfect pow 2 weeks after a dump. Even colder today. -20 today. Almost no wind. Fast fast snow. Ended with a sunset Shiraz Lap

[LeeLau]

Day 6 - Solace Norquay

More overhead blower Monashee pow through yet more perfectly spaced timber. Started snowing today so no need to mine mature powder. On Solace then Norquay then back to Sol Mountain Lodge. Pretty much perfect day on 10cms of new bonding well to E aspects. Still snowing moderate amounts S2 to S4. -13 during day. Winds light

Walked by runs as primo as French Connection in search of the goods




Complex as fuck to get in

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Nice! I would love to do a trip like this one of these years.

[garyfromterrace]

Right on Lee! I'd love to check out Aaron's zone one day. He was on my first hut trip back in '93 or so. Looks like some amazing terrain.

[Dromond]

What were the average run lengths like? I was checking out the topo map (and from your pictures of course) it looks like good tree skiing but I wasn't sure if there were longer runs as well. Perhaps best for midwinter, low solar optimal tree skiing type conditions? That shot of French Connection looks cool.

[LeeLau]

What were the average run lengths like? I was checking out the topo map (and from your pictures of course) it looks like good tree skiing but I wasn't sure if there were longer runs as well. Perhaps best for midwinter, low solar optimal tree skiing type conditions? That shot of French Connection looks cool.

Oh man - it was wind fucked up high otherwise we would have gotten some good ones. French Connection was 'just" 600m as was Newfy so we went right by it for Solace and Norquay which were 900 and 800m

The longest two we scoped out were both off Mt Fosthall and are 1200m and 1100m vert - SE and NW facing. There are a few 800m runs on the western side of the tenure off Sol Mountain and Twin peaks. There's a 900m run on the east side that we also skied (Solace) and a few 800m shots from Baldur Peak that we didn't get to. Basically it was windfucked above 2100m - 2000m so we skied from approx 2000m to 1400m. I could have pushed it a bit and gone for 1300m but then you'd have to climb out and my partners were pretty happy to have me break all the trail back out. So in short most of the runs were maxing out at 600m treeline to treed shots but with lots of pillow dropping options.

You'll note the pics of Fosthall's N face I took on Day 3 where there's a clean cornice break on the N face, a pretty benign 40 deg shot then 3 couloirs on a ridgeline protecting the entry back to Cirque Lake. That's a 1000m shot right there. Then you have Slate Peak outside the tenure on the W face. Then also Ghost Peak and others on the SW side also just outside the tenure both with N facing long shots which I'd estimate were also 1000m.

Map is here btw - http://solmountain.com/winter#map . Geotagged and pieced together from the BC Government 1:20K TRIM data then marked up. So useful - every hut should do this. Could use on mobile or GPS. I also printed some copies and they sized nicely.

This is what we covered over the 7 days. Left out the 5 laps I did in the Mission Ridge area just N of the lodge while waiting for heli. Bonus of getting the last heli

[LeeLau]

Nice! I would love to do a trip like this one of these years.

Americans are cleaning up on the trips due to the USD. I had to book a 2018 trip already as soon as I got back and I'm going to book Sol 2019 probably in the next month. It was about 1850 Cad for us fully catered self guided for 7.5 days. That works out to 250 a day plus food and given the way i eat that was a good deal. That's what in USD - about 1300??

Right on Lee! I'd love to check out Aaron's zone one day. He was on my first hut trip back in '93 or so. Looks like some amazing terrain.

Aaron was taking a well deserved week away. I think he worked 6 straight weeks there and i just saw him on exchange. What an amazing place he's built

[LeeLau]

Last day and video



So Fosthall Creek

16 cms on the storm board but skied quadruple overhead blower of fist density on S, E, SE and N slopes In Hindsight we got Payback via Wall Street then were Laidback for a monster day of trenching. Some storm slab shears but good bonding between the new and old snow with a perfect right side up snowpack. Temps - 10 , winds nil to light Monashees quad overhead pow; 400m down, another 400m to go. Pro Tip: curl up your hood so it doesn't fill up with snow as cold smoke curls up and over your head leaving a massive plumed contrail of blower

Day 8 - exchange day - Lodge Notch Bonus of getting the last heli out of Sol Mountain is getting in quick Lodge Notch hits. Grooming may be subpar but access is convenient. 5 laps of 150m pow each is acceptable for needs































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[Fritz]

Beautiful [emoji106][emoji106]

🤤

[LightRanger]

Thanks for the TR, Lee.

Americans are cleaning up on the trips due to the USD. I had to book a 2018 trip already as soon as I got back and I'm going to book Sol 2019 probably in the next month. It was about 1850 Cad for us fully catered self guided for 7.5 days. That works out to 250 a day plus food and given the way i eat that was a good deal. That's what in USD - about 1300??

That's stupid cheap. What's a guide add, another $300 per person, per day?

[LeeLau]

Thanks for the TR, Lee.



That's stupid cheap. What's a guide add, another $300 per person, per day?

I think $ 450 total for the 7 days - its like $2250 for fully guided fully catered. Which is what in USD like 10 bucks?

[tyfattori]

Awesome photos man looks like a great time, I love seeing documentation of peoples trips. Can't believe the price is so low! I may have to book my own trip.

[LeeLau]

Wildsnow writeup https://www.wildsnow.com/22144/sol-m...s-ski-touring/

[GoldMember]

Nicely done! Thanks for the TR.