Valhalla Mountain Touring Feb 4 - 11 , 2024

[LeeLau]

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!!!

[teamdirt]

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

[MarsB]

Nice Mang!

[Dromond]

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

[LeeLau]

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

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 together

[LeeLau]

-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 day

[teamdirt]

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

[LeeLau]

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

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

[LeeLau]

-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!

[LeeLau]

- 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.

[LeeLau]

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.