A little bit of guiding

 This winter I have four weeks of guiding work out of a lodge north of Pemberton. I am up here now doing my first week and so far the skiing has been excellent and the weather perfect.  This lodge sits in the Chilcotin mountains, a range that is east of the coast mountains.  There is a large variety of terrain available from mellow glades to steep alpine shots, enough variety to keep it interesting and safe for the clients. Lars, the lead guide has grown up in this area and has skied here since he was a little kid, he is a great lead guide to learn this zone through. Check it out WhitecapAlpine

 This week of work is giving me a bit of time to edit the latest adventures. I really enjoy the footage of canoeing across towards Hat peak.

Backcountry as it is

Here is my latest movie. I have been procrastinating on it since it does not excite me too much. I enjoy the footage but it seems the same recipe as the last. It’s about time I finished it since the footage is feeling outdated by my recent adventures.

enjoy

A daydream come true

 During the summer months I spend a lot of time driving north of Revelstoke. The road we use is a paved road that travels beside the Columbia river for 150 km before it turns to dirt road. The whole time we are driving on the East Side;the Selkirks, and we are offered amazing views of the West side, The Monashees. So we all daydream about how one day we could canoe across and tour up one of these beauties.

 Well yesterday we finally did. A daydream come true. Aaron, Ian and myself canoed across the lake and toured up towards Hat Peak. From the road the bottom bit has always looked challenging but from a skinning point of view it all unfolded perfectly. Tight hemlock forest quickly opened up into large Cedar groves and then soon enough we were working our way up an open avi path and into the alpine.

 The tour into the alpine worked out beautifully, from a distance it all appeared large and forbidding but as we got closer it grew smaller and very manageable. Small pieces of terrain linked together to bring us higher and higher, till soon enough we were boot packing up the final pitch to the ridge. I had hopes that we would be able to summit and ski off Hat  peak but when we crested the ridge it was obvious that the last 200 feet was beyond our levels. And  not skiable.

So we turned our tips down and skied 7700 feet to the lake. I am going to have to do some research but I think that is the longest decent I have done around Revelstoke.  We skied from 9600 feet down to 1875 feet, and almost all of it was great skiing, the first few hundred feet was a little hard and the last 300 feet was a little bushy but all in all incredible descent.

In 2004 Aaron, Ian and myself  ski traversed the entire northern Monashees in 2004, a 21 day, 100 000 foot  untraversed mountain range. Since that trip none of us have stood on top of a summit in the northern monashees. So it was great to stand near a summit and gaze at the entire traverse we had done. To stand there the three of us and reminisce about that incredible trip we were on years ago. Fantastic.