Slack country

Well the new snow from the last few days has pushed the values into the critical range and stuff was touchy today. Super touchy. So we searched out some powder skiing amongst the trees off RMR. The skiing was epic, deep and fast but radar was set to high danger. So we had some great turns but always wary of any change in terrain. Anything slightly convex and unsupported would slide and propagate a bit.  The trees were pretty good, 1000-2000 feet of good fall line with pillows all around. Daffys and 30 cm crown lines were the flavour of the day.

Begbie as fast as I could

All day yesterday I kept thinking, that if the skin track was in, I should attempt a speed ski of Mt-Begbie; not a speed ski as in skiing with a little kite, but a fast as I can up and down speed ski. I have no idea what my previous record was but I felt that I could set a new one that would be pretty fast.

So with ski crampons on for some of the woods and my fast set up; Dynafit TLT5’s(next years boot), seven summit ski and titanium dynafit bindings, I began running uphill.  All went really well,  our skin track was windslabbed over in the alpine but the boot pack was still in up the ridge. In 2.5 hours I was on the summit and ready to ski down. Wicked turns down the NE face, through the cliff band and out. back to the truck. 2 hours 55 minutes round trip.  7100 feet. It felt great, I could probable take off 10 minutes but pretty happy to have broken 3 hrs.

Begbie Tilley combo

Mt-Begbie is Revelstokes signature mountain, well for some, for others it is the Revelstoke Mountain resort. Anyhow behind begbie sits a sharks fin of a peak that slices the sky line, Mt- Tilley. I have summitted Tilley but it was many years ago and a huge effort.

Jeff suggested we try and summit both peaks in a day, which would also be a huge effort and a great link up. We headed up Mt-Begbie, leaving the trailhead at 7 and summitting by 12.

The climb up Begbie is always super fun, and I love heading up into this little chimney that pokes you out onto the summit ridge. Here’s Jeff pulling out of the chimney.We skied down the south ridge  and onto the NW Glacier. As always a great descent; it has not snowed in a week but the snow is still nice and shreddable. From there we skied down into Wap creek, we helped out some sledders who needed a knife to cut their belt off and replace it. Then we started heading up the south face of Tilley, I was apprehensive that this approach would work. Yet it worked out perfectly, a great ridge had us touring almost to the summit, with a little rock move to summit this 8691 foot mountain.

This is not a great photo of the mountain, it was taken in late may a few years ago. But it is the north side that hosts a few great lines, lines that will wait till another day since we skied back down the south and headed around Begbie and back to the truck