Kootenay Cold Smoke Powder Festival

I traveled down to Nelson with Tracey to help organize a randonnee race at Whitewater. The Kootenay Cold Smoke Powder festival is a new backcountry festival that is being held Feb 23-25. Should be a great time; lots of experienced skiers sharing their love and knowledge of the mountains. I am running a few clinics as well as a slide show. Really looking forward to it as it will be my first slideshow and I hope I have enough to show and say to keep it interesting.

As for my trip down to Whitewater. I thought maybe I could squeeze in a 10 000 footer as well as organize a race. So I got up early and started touring up Whitewater, a fresh 25 cm covered everything and I enjoyed one nice run and then I directed my energy towards Ymir peak. The Whitewater classic. By 8.30 I was standing on the summit, I then turned my tips down and skied first choice. A fun little couloir that provided decent turns, and then followed with a couple of thousand feet of great skiing.

I met up with Rob from ROAM; an outdoor store helping out with the festival. We went for a great tour and managed to figure out a good race course that will be challenging, aesthetic and also provide the racer with some decent skiing.

I never managed my ten thousand footer but here is Rob enjoying some Kootenay Cold Smoke.