A couple of days on Mt-Macdonald

Yesterday we decided to   try and ski the Herdman on Mt-Macdonald. Last year we ended up skiing a  line on climbers left that was exciting and unknown, but we had never skied the herdman proper. The herdman is a 4000 + foot run that slams its way from the ridge down to the valley floor.SFD, straight f$#@ing down. A fine line.

We toured up Railroad ridge, the golden side of the pass, which was an easy up that gained us elevation quickly.   The tour wrapped up the ridge, past a couple of massive white pines, and deposited us quickly above a 2000 foot treed chute into  avalanche creek. The chute was decent but  slightly crusty due to the solar aspect of the line.

Up Avalanche creek, under a glacier, where a couple of dramatic ice falls occurred and up to the top of the Herdman. From there we stared 4000 feet straight down. We had great turns in the chute and then some serious wind slammed snow for the middle and a great finish.

The best part of our finish was looking up, way up Mt-Tupper and watching some friends ski a wild line.

Wicked line boys! The chute continues behind the cliff to  a high col, chute is call Single Bench. A better photo from Douglas.

And today we attempted the #10 couloir, all was well up the 2700 feet to the choke but from there we had to cross over the gully. Sloughs continually run down this gully, the upper rock faces always drop snow down the chute. I had hoped that the overcast skies would keep the sloughing to a minimum but the snow kept flying past us as we waited. Initially it seemed  like a highway that had occasional semi trucks flying past, but then as we waited there was more traffic and some fairly large sloughs flew past us. Staring up  I was teased with the possibility but we listened to the mountains and skied home.

Ursus Minor NE-NW

Finally after having to recreate the whole movie on Frank’s computer I have it done.

Mt-Begbie

 Every year I try to climb and ski Mt-Begbie, the Revelstoke classic. This peak adorns many businesses, our newspaper, it is the famous mountain around town. So naturally it is always great to summit and ski it. Its a 7000 foot run and the moment you step out of your car you can see the summit, straight up 7000 feet.

There is a large slope climb to the upper left col (red line), which is always very intimidating. I have often had sled tracks that go up to the col and allow for some great boot packing; so I hoped that we would also have that today. Well we arrived at the upper benches in time to watch a sledder high mark up to the col. It was great to watch him pin it up the slope and arch his way back down.

I have always imagined that a 500lb machine must really dig into the snow layers and be a large impact on the slope. But when we were boot packing up his track he was only digging in 25 cms, meanwhile we were boot packing up to 50-60 cm deep. Penetrating far deeper into the snow pack. So I wonder which would be more likely to hit the weak spot?

 Well my computer is fucking around and I cannot export my movies again…. this macbook seems to have issues… I am going to borrow my friends computer tonight and get both movies out. There is some great footage on my latest and some more great footage from yesterday.