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Ipsoot Peak 25 May 2016

2016-05-27T15:29:00+0000

Just over 15km down Ruthford FSR to branch 550, it's quite overgrown at the start, if you go pass it your soon come to a bridge. Followed 550 to it's end then headed up thru the cut block, trending to our left we soon found alder but were able to go up and around most of it. Easier bushwacking, soon we hit snow and came out of the trees, up the snow slope we took a short break to decide the route to take, we decided to take the slope to our right (south). Contoured around the rock to get on the snowfield, had to drop down slightly, we could see down the valley and across to Sootip. Still 1 1/2 km to the peak across the snow.

Intro to Ski Mountaineering CWMS & BCMC

2016-02-16T07:13:00+0000

A short video I put together of the Ski Mountaineering course offered to us at a discount in early February. We went up Saturday, and after waiting in the lift line for what seemed like forever, we finally go up to disease ridge to set up camp. With tons of fresh powder and blue skies, we spent the majority of that day skiing after we set up our camps. Sunday greeted us with high winds, fog, rain, and freezing levels of 3500m. This day was spent learning mountaineering skills on a small cliff band near camp. After getting soaked and dealing with snow constantly sticking to our skins and skis, we finally packed up and headed down to the parking lot. We didn't have ideal conditions, and I would have liked to spend more time working with ropes/crampons/ice axes on steeper slopes or cliffs, but I still learned a lot! I haven't taken any other mountaineering courses through CWMS, but I would suggest taking a general course and not the ski specific one, as I think the skiing took away from how much the guide could teach us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2GiSB6NPOI Follow me for more photos! :) Instagram Facebook

In Search of the Elusive Turn

2014-12-15T04:48:00+0000

I joined the "Beginner Friendly Backcountry Skiing (Baker)" trip scheduled for Dec13th, looking forward to an easy day and hopefully at least enough snow for a few decent turns, we were not disappointed. We skied/toured in an area bordering the Mount Baker Ski area, not far from the Baker Lodge, run by the Mountaineers. The existing snow that had been pounded by recent warm, wet stormy weather was transformed into a well consolidated and bonded firm crusty layer dusted with a few centimeters of fluffy snow.This stuff was perfectly suited for getting in our turns so we could, on the way back, dodge the numerous rocks, holes, and people between us and the parking lot.