Suffering through

The last three days were all about suffering through, wishing that there is light at the end of the tunnel. they were not like last week…

The options in terms of safe skiing, and good skiing became very limited. On thursday it looked like the temperatures were going to rise but only in the afternoon.

So I had dreams of skiing the burnt trees off Corbins pass. I headed there early and broke trail up 3000ft, knowing my boys were following I figured I would pull in a quick south lap before we headed higher and down the north side. My first run was fast and fun, but quite warm, very coastal type powder. I hooked back into the skin track and skinned up to the boys. Already the temperatures were rising but I had hopes of cooler snow. We broke trail up to the ridge and decided that it was warm and tough going so perhaps another south lap. By then it had gotten real warm, still fun though. Then skinning back up the dreaded “clumping” began. The snow started sticking to all sides of my skis, its one of the worst things. I can handle deep trail breaking but 10 lbs of snow stuck to the bottom, is extremely frustrating. I swore and yelled my way up that track and finally wrapped down to the boys, by then they were ready to go. Which I completely understood. I ended up spending hours struggling up and down the mountain side. Finally 12950ft in I left.

With hopes of higher snow I drove up to the pass and found that the only permit areas that were open did not allow for alpine access. So i put in a track up to the top of Grizzly shoulder and skied back to the bottom. I quickly realized that the bottom half was too warm to be considered powder skiing, so I stayed up high and did 1000ft laps of west facing steep trees, which were super fun. An all day suffer fest and 13500ft later I got back to the truck.

Yesterday I based my decisions off the permit areas that would be “potentially” open, which made me waste at least an hour. By the time the zones were posted it was 725am, they didn’t open loop brook so I ended up touring up the Asulkan, which I should have done an hour earlier; since it required no permits. I broke trail in and up to just below the cabin and ended up lapping the Tree triangle. Which was great skiing, just very stormy and lonely. These are not the days I was dreaming of when I set out to try the is month of madness. Although I knew that I would have some I hope that they are almost over. It snowed so much during the day that I swear it took me as long to break trail out as it did coming in. Super frustrating… and a below par day 9720ft….not happy with that but…what can I do…

Now I am taking today off since it rained so hard and I needed some family time and relax time… it does look like the good weather is coming… ohhhhhh yahhhhhh…. I hope that next week I can send some great lines through the mountains…I have some dreams for sure…

warm and wet

It warmed up a tonne today, freezing levels went to tree line. It made for a severely challenging day. I broke trail for 3300ft in 30+cms of snow and had a nice fast run before it warmed up. By the second lap the snow had changed to glop. aron and Joey joined me for the second and then left when they realized how much it had changed .Then on the way up the skin track my skis started clumping, like mad. It was harder than when i had broken trail. If there is anything that can crush me on a skin track it is heavy skis, skis with inches of snow stuck to them. Somehow I managed to dig deep and force out a few shitty runs.  I continued to pound it till 5pm, a 10 hr day for 12 950 ft…hard earned.

17%

Taking a day off so early into this goal felt a little counter intuitive…. like I should be out there pounding skin track, but I know that mentally it made sense. I need to keep my inspiration and psych on this goal and knowing that days off are just around the corner helps motivate on a daily basis. It still felt early but I know my body liked it, as well as my mind.

I got to a few of my chores and then went cross-country skiing for an hour, real mellow. Some hot tub time, a house visit by my physio, which included some acupuncture and then a nice glory bowl for dinner.

I like the four and one schedule because it is quick and to the point. The first day goes by as first days do, and then by the second you can already see the fourth day. On the third, day no matter how hard it is you know that the next day is your night off day, so it can’t be that bad. and the fourth day you know it will end so its ok, no matter what.

Its all about staying in the trees right now and that’s all I can do. Luckily there are lots of great places to do that. On tuesday Mcgill shoulder was incredible, run after run of fast and light powder skiing. A little windy and stormy but soooo good.

I was lapping some great 1800-2200 ft west facing runs, fast and wicked skiing.

Looking at the weather it seems like there will be at least 4 more days of powder skiing, temps warming but freezing levels only going up to 3600ft so the skiing at 7000ft should be epic. Time will tell and I will be out there for sure.

All photos by Bruno Long Courtesy of SUUNTO.