Couple of weeks in Interior BC - 2019

[LeeLau]

Don't want to distract from keyboard-warrior second guessing Everest climbers but thought I'd post up a few days of meadowskipping pow from two weeks in Interior BC.


Video filler is from 2 years ago.

First off to Sol Mountain Lodge. One of my fav lodges it has terrain for everyone (more Wildsnow bla bla here). Trees, steeps, big alpine faces (for those with range). We were in with a self-guided, fully-catered group. One of our group dropped out last minute so a half price spot for 700 USD came up and Gav snatched up the spot flying in from Cham which was having a mid-season warm spell. Way back in 2008 when TGR forums was more of a thing Gavan was a splitboarding backcountry fetus PM'ing me and Shar when he was the only Irish splitboarder in Whistler. We both took him under our wing. He went on to do great things and gut many collection zones embarking on trips thru the Duffey, Rogers Pass, Northern BC, AK, Then onto endurance adventures. But now sanity has returned and the fabled Monashee pow beckons

We flew in from Revelstoke on Feb 24th spending a half day on Mission Ridge slope-testing and knocking off 1300m

[LeeLau]

Day 2 Feb 25, 2019. The forecast was for clear skies. Winds nil. Curiously there was a persistent weak layer below treeline but all indications from yesterday and past reports were that the alpine zones were in good shape. The last few times we had been here alpine was sastrugi teeth-rattling crap and we had stuck to destroying powder in trees. We hatched some places to head high.

Somehow 9 of the 13 people on the lodge ended up going to the exact same spot to gut exactly the same kill zone. Groupthink and FOMO at its finest.



Up we went to the Banana Belt and then over to Sol Mountain where the winds were just starting to pick up. I volunteered to ski cut the N face of Sol Mountain aka Solitude. It starts out at approx 45 deg but then chills out to 40deg of 700m of N facing pow. Some sluffing was observed but the mountain's surface did not dinner -plate and allow my wife to cash out my life-insurance. The steep blower pow was indeed of acceptable quality



After skiing out the collection zone of Solitude we then split the group with all of us trekking back past Burnt Knob then back towards Bill Fraser Lake One pods then went back to mine the fine N facing pow of Sol Mountain back to Bill Fraser Lake and out at a reasonable hour.




Some more masochistic went on to Twin Peaks and skied a flank of the East Twin I'd had the itch to ski Twin Peaks for a while and thought it would be a good chance to scout the lines for the 800m shot of Payback from top to bottom. We were back to the lodge comfortably in time for dinner after 2300m of vert.

[LeeLau]

GQ, Gav and I headed off to go "take a look" at the N face of Mt Fosthall. I had scouted it from a previous trip where we had made a frigid tour down to the lowest part of the tenure and spied the impressive N face. Now that one has a lucky splitboarder presenting himself as test slope cutter one does not waste such an opportunity



In short order the good weather and light winds allowed us to skin all the way to Fosthall while another group kindly broke trail for us all the way to Cariboo Pass and beyond as they headed to Solmanity via a short bootpack to Fosthall's NE flank. The Peters zone (Avalung, Solmanity etc) all had low-density N facing zone so that turned out to be an excellent choice.



We found some variability on N Fosthall. The face itself was in the low 50s but the challenging snow was all in the steeps with the more low density guttable pow all in the high to mid 40s allowing us to ski the steeps conservatively then open it up into the benches. Routefinding via Cirque du Sol then back down valley wasn't an issue as coverage and snow quality was insanely good top to bottom.



Then ensued a pleasant ramble back up to Cariboo Pass then over to Crystal Vision where we pillaged pow. Back to the lodge this time with the beginning of sunset and total vert of approx 2100m

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Dang. Thanks for posting.

[Doremite]

Weather looks stunning

[el hefe]

God damn it. Right in my back yard and I haven't had a good BC pow day in over a month. Nice work and I am very jealous, right now work and family are killing me and viewing this kind of stuff gives me major anxiety and makes my marriage difficult.

[goldengarbageman]

Try adding home renovations and ACL reconstruction rehab to that. I am one cranky man these days...

[406]

Looks awesome.

[toast2266]

Dang. That looks rad.

[jackstraw]

Great and all, but wrong forum jong!

I'm getting out there in a month for some corn cycles hopefully...or some pow days would be nice.

[alive]

I'm with Hefe on that one. Love reading about it and looking at the pics, but there is that uncomfortable anxiety. Need to to change a few things to make this happen more.
Solid work, Lee! Does Slate or any of the peaks north of Peters lake ever get skied from Sol Mt.?

[LeeLau]

Great and all, but wrong forum jong!

I'm getting out there in a month for some corn cycles hopefully...or some pow days would be nice.

April the N faces are still good for pow. Nobody reads the TR forum. Actually nobody reads TRs anymore but its fun to write them so wth

I'm with Hefe on that one. Love reading about it and looking at the pics, but there is that uncomfortable anxiety. Need to to change a few things to make this happen more.
Solid work, Lee! Does Slate or any of the peaks north of Peters lake ever get skied from Sol Mt.?

Yah they sure do. We got to Peters Lake where you can launch to Slate in 3.5 hours from Fosthall from this trip. Last year we got there in 4 hours flat in an arctic outflow. Figure 1.5 hours to top out at Slate and 2 hours to get back so you can make it back by headlamp pretty easily even now

[LeeLau]

Weather change today. Still breathtakingly cold with temps at -20 but now with winds!

After a massive breakfast replete with lots of gluten-free vegan bacon the smart group headed off to Baldur where they were decimated by cold Arctic air heading up Baldur but then rewarded with cold smoke down Baldur Bowl then down to the trees below Funky Chicken and to Funky Lake. They were back in no time for hot chocolate and cookies.



Gav and I on the other hand are foolish optimists and had our hearts set on the Twin Peaks and the cherry top to bottom line of Payback. Our hopes are dashed quickly as we are sandpapered by whirlwinds of finely grated snow forming sastrugi on the very E alpine slopes we want to ski.

Changing our minds we hop over the S flank of Sol Mountain off the Traverse to Twin Peaks and head back towards Sol's N face. Both of us had pictures of the fine sub-N face called "Jungle Speed" which we had spied from yesterday's pleasant ramble on the opposite side of the valley as we were touring towards Fosthall. "It looks quite nice" conjectures Gav. "Yes. It should hold snow acceptable for our needs" I concur heartily.



Up to Jungle Speed using our photos to (correctly) figure out there were no cornices. We use a planar marginally treed slope to ski-cut into Jungle Speed where I trigger a size 1 and run it out and Gav gets some shooting cracks also going but also runs that out.

The middle part of Jungle Speed pays back the sub-par wind-affected top part of the slope and we gut the 450m kill zone with anticipation for the 300m COULOIR OF TRIPLE OVERHEAD BLOWER that awaits us at what should theoretically be the protected lower part of the mountain lovingly nestled and sheltered by friendly rock walls and trees.



BUT WAIT; there's more! It turns out that the winds have been howling off Jungle Speed and down the couloir. Which is now not TRIPLE OVERHEAD BLOWER but TRIPLE THICKNESS CRUST. We blunder our way down trying to make headway till Gav remotely triggers a sz 2 off rock walls at the very narrowest part of the couloir.

I'm higher so can still exit. Adios Gav! It was nice knowing you I think as I skin up and start traversing to reach a snowy ramp that I spied in the pictures taken yesterday. The way out is character-building for both of us. Mine involves taking skins off at an ice wall to change to skis so I can scootch with edges onto a platform then navigate some billy goat style rock cliffs to get to the (wind-crusted) but safe snow ramp exit. Gav's involves tip-toeing down Death Crust couloir to islands of safety.

We get out, grovel back to the lodge and eat cookies till we burst. Meanwhile the snow machine starts. Perfect

[LeeLau]

Feb 28 2019 - snow started coming down and it was minus 22 deg with wind. And Mim is an awesome cook and we had soooooo much fooooood.

Power-ate through three breakfasts and four coffees and got out of the lodge at crack of noon to get 700m of that new snow and slopetest NW and NE aspects on Dead Zone.

Then came back to get through triple overhead blower brownies and pulled pork appies before getting more foooooood for dinner

Dreamt of more pow as it fell

[byates1]

sweet, bump

[jorion]

Damn

[steved]

Try adding home renovations and ACL reconstruction rehab to that. I am one cranky man these days...

Think one can add in...trying to move things BACK to where they belong....AFTER home renovations, especially after new hardwood flooring(housewide, except for kitchen).... Freakin' kitchen still looks like a 19yo corporate Tech Support jammed cubicle.

[LeeLau]

Today from Sol Mountain Lodge. I bet if you offer 500 USD you'd get the spots

"From Sol Mountain Lodge

"2 spots opened up for March 15-20. Guests selling at reduced rate.
Contact the office to confirm 250.674.3707"

DO IT! SKI POW NOW OR FOREVER BE PRICED OUT!!!"

[LeeLau]

March 1, 2019. March storms! Approx 12 new at the lodge but it had come in as low density snow and finally switched to prevailing SW'ers

Shar and I had scoped out the French Connection/Norquay zone in Little Baldur from the flight in. The slopes were all NW and NE'ers; the winds should have loaded more snow in and conditions from the previous days should have meant right-side up snow with decent bonding.

Only one way to find out really so off we went to put in a skin track over to Little Baldur. No wind and milder temps of -13 greeted us on the skin track as did clear skies.







We started off by gutting French Connection. With the windslab triggered by Gav in Jungle Ass Couloir still fresh in my mind I gave the top convexity a good few ski cuts. No dinner-plating so off we all went into the baby's breath fairy dust quadruple overhead blower.\







With new confidence we then knocked off Norquay proper all the way past the lower cutblocks to the road then went for another pass at French Connection hitting a skiers right line. Low density top to bottom runs made for acceptable conditions.










Running out of time we called it day at a civilized time of 4.30 knowing we had built a good skintrack and scoped out more lines for tomorrow's mission. Besides more triple overhead brownies with whipped cream awaited at the lodge

[LeeLau]

March 2, 2019. Skin track now in and just 5cms of new snow so the laps cruised by.

We banged out another 4 laps adding to the 3 from yesterday all in the same Norquay/French Connection zone.



There's more up there for the taking but we ran out of daylight and time but felt happy to take advantage of 45 deg stable low density perfectly spaced tree steep shots. All runs were in the 400- 500m range and easily cycled through from the one skintrack we set.

Above average for sure. As were the last evening's multiple chocolate toffee pudding seconds and thirds.

www.solmountain.com

[LeeLau]

Flew out to Revy. Took a break to let my feet out ski boots and have an afternoon nap. Then met some friends from Spain we met first when we were up north in Skeena Cat Ski (Spanish skiers!!! Exotic). We hit it off with them so much that we made sure to visit them when we visited Madrid, Segovia and NavaCerrada area.


With sun in the forecast we thought Rogers Pass and specifically the Illecillewaet would be a good introduction since we could go as far as their Tapas filled legs could take them, or just lap the lower trees. Most opted to climb to 2430m. A mere 1200m climb on day one of touring. Johnny Smoke joined us on this tour.

What’s impressive is that, for some of them, this doubled the amount of elevation they had previously ever climbed. Not bad for a bunch of desk-jockeys fighting jet-lag!!

The Spaniards were – Luis Miguel, Christian, Miguelo, Paco, Antonio, Fritz, Dirk and Miguel. Our destination today was Perley Rock.

[LeeLau]

RMR slack walks using the lifts for a quick tour then hot laps. Needed new snow badly. All the storm systems missed Revy that week

[LeeLau]

Snow drought continues so we take the Spaniards to Rogers Pass again for a plesant ramble. Up we go 1000m elevation to the toe of the Asulkan Glacier then down working ribs of decent snow


Snow had windslab, sastrugi and was pretty tracked out after months of dry spell. But it was windless and clear. Worked NE aspects down to the triangle moraine and out

[LeeLau]

Last couple of days at RMR as it finally snowed again

First day was just 11cms reported so we took a 800m backbowl run. Spaniard lactic leg explosions on skin out so dragged him out just before dark

[LeeLau]

2d day had 5cms new. The backbowls were doubling new snow totals due to windloading. Spaniard general exhaustion so we did mellow sub100m skins into N and Greeley bowls using mostly lifts


As the day wore on the legs got more tired so less for the 2d.and 3d laps. Snow preserved beautifully