Skiing Rules' ongoing TR's and observations from High Boy friends

[Bronco]

Oh to be 20 again, Walker. Keep it coming.

[skiing rules]

New years Eve was really fun, pretty much all of the snowpine staff went down to the peruvian and got pretty schwilly. The place was packed and I met some cool people, it was a pretty crazy night. Afterwards we went to the fort, which is the employee housing at the peruvian. It was pretty wild especially after living at the snowpine. It made me appreciate the snowpine more in some ways and also wish it was more like the Pdog. The next day I had to work early, then I slept in late. when I woke up the skies had cleared and it was an awesome bluebird day so mike and I toured up Davenports. We got a late start because we were both pretty worn out. We left around 4:30 and clicked in on the skinner directly across the road from the snowpine and started going up. It was a super nice evening with no wind whatsoever and temps in the low 20's. There were a few clouds and the lighting was pretty amazing the whole time we skinned up. We didn't make it to the top before dark but we made it up 3/4 of the way and still got around 1200' vert of awesome pow skiing; a great way to start the year. The snow was consolidated, cold, dry powder, about boot deep--hero snow.

The next day I tried the same tour to ski an area of the face that was still untracked, but the skinner was a little firmer and I kept sliding backwards on it. Skinning can be pretty frustrating, especially on a steep, icy track with a lot of switchbacks. I skied from about 3/4 again. Mike and I went out again at 4:30 when he got off work and we headed up the summer road to take the skinner up patsy marley ridge to ski back into the resort. The skin up patsy was much better with only a few sketchy areas. It got dark on us again so we skied from a notch in the ridge below the main summit for about 1500' vert of pow. The snow was fantastic, more boot deep hero pow to the parking lot.

Yesterday we finally got the mountain back from the holiday crowds so mike and I lapped collins for a couple runs up to the the backside for some great chowder with untracked areas mixed in, then we went out the catherines area gate on supreme. We skied a NE facing area adjacent to rocky point. The run was pretty short but the snow was good powder with a quick booter to get back on the ridge. After that we hiked up the tuscarora boot pack and stayed on the ridge up to Mt. wolverine. That being my first serious bootpack after a lot of skinning I realized quickly that I would way rather boot straight up something than zigzag skin up the same face. Not having the extra weight of skis on my feet was so relieving it was easy to keep a fast pace the whole way. We skied wolverine bowl which was a little windblown at the top, but still excellent turning. The snow on the upper portion was about 6" of dust on a kind of weird foamy feeling layer which made for kind of interesting skiing, still fun turning. after the bowl we dropped in from the ridge connecting wolverine and millicent down into the twin lakes area. We didn't know what we were above but we were able to get to a location where we found a clean chute to the lower apron. The snow for the first turn was firm, but down a little lower it turned into pow. Stability was good, all we noticed was sloughing, which was pretty substantial at times. There is so much terrain in the area we skied yesterday it was really neat just scoping all the areas we are planning on hitting soon, and there are a lot of them. Everything up here is so easy to access; I can take 50 steps out the front door and be on the skinner up to flagstaff ridge. The BC here is awesome. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera either of the last two days even though it would have been a great day for photos, I really wish I had some pics from yesterday, it was definitely my favorite day of bc skiing so far.

Good news for today though, Mike is letting me have a pair of Garmont Megarides that are a size too big for him, but exactly my size, so I'm really happy to have a touring boot to use. They are so much lighter than my langes and they have a vibram sole and walk mode. I'm planning on getting a dedicated touring setup just because the bg's with dukes are so heavy, its not a practical backcountry rig for approaches longer than about 45 minutes. I'm thinking Salomon guns with freeride pluses, or a ski with used dynafits if I can find a deal. Here are some pics of the new years day tour up Davenports.

[skiing rules]

The mission





the trailhead from the door at the snowpine, EASY!







Grizzly Gulch and Honeycomb cliffs looking pretty ripe







The area we were planning on skiing





superior with alpenglow and really neat light, the pic doesn't do it justice, but thats the case with every other pic too





Superior sunset





We had to stop had a few hundred feet below the summit





The descent, untracked areas were down on the right side of the pic, where we skied.







fabulous evening for skiing in LCC







Point-and-shoot blurry pic of mike skiing by me just above the road. Quality is horrendous, but should give an idea what the snow was like.

[skiing rules]

Blacky- I will be at the Snowpine until about April 11th when the staff moves out, then I'm going to probably get a job at the Peruvian for another few weeks until they start closing up too.

[EastCoaster]

So excited to get out there in a couple weeks.



What kind of skins are you using?

[carvebeast]

@EastCoaster 233155 wrote:So excited to get out there in a couple weeks.



What kind of skins are you using?





about 3 weeks away for me as well!! sick pics, keep em comin!

[skiing rules]

I use BD ascension skins. I'm getting the at boots baked tomorrow so it will be nice to try them out and have a much easier stride for skinning.

Today Kate and I skied a backside run and a castle run. The snow wasn't great in either areas. Then we went out the catherines gate and skied a run next to rocky point. the snow was wind effected but still powdery and soft the whole way down.



Rocky Point. The cliffs are a lot bigger than the pic makes them look







Next we hiked up tuscarora.



Tuscarora







There is a steep skinner up the ridge as well as a bootpack. It was easiest just shouldering the skis and taking the bootpack. It takes about 15 or 20 minutes. From the top of tuscarora we took the ridge up to mt. Wolverine and skied wolverine bowl.



Supreme Area at Alta from near the top of wolverine. The lift goes above the cliffs on the 3rd ridge back.





The Wolverine Cirque. Its a crazy area, it could use more snow then its good to go.





Towards Superior from the top of wolverine.







NE from wolverine. Twin Lakes pass is the low point on the ridge on the left side of the pic. Honeycomb Cliffs is the peak above the pass on the same ridgeline and also starts honeycomb canyon.







Wolverine bowl. We skied down and cut back to the ridge and skinned up Millicent which is the peak in the upper left of the pic





The skin up millicent was super easy and pretty enjoyable. It took maybe 8 mins to skin up and I knew the area we were going to ski from the summit was going to be good. I saw it the other day and knew I needed to ski it soon



Brighton! from milly top







The face we skied down millicent, from the top. The snow looked wind affected and not too promising, but surprisingly the snow was light and soft making for great turning. It is definitely a new go-to area.





The face from the bottom.





The whole line we skied. Starts at the top of millicent and goes down into the flats. The pitch flattened a little and dropped down to the skinner for a final steep where the snow was the best we skied all day. It was N facing and low enough that it was shaded all day and protected from the wind.







We skinned back up twin lakes pass and up the ridge towards honeycomb cliffs a little ways. I had to get back for work so we didn't get up very high, but we still got to ski down the cat skiing area in Grizzly gulch. The area is W facing and it had surprisingly good snow, light and wind protected. The Gulch has probably 4 cat track crossings that are really fun to jump off and land in pow. No pics of the area today because I was in a big hurry to get back for work. Heres a pic of grizz gulch from the other day.







Tomorrow we will either tour white pine or go back over twin lakes pass and ski a fun looking N facing gully we saw the other day. All of the resorts are so close together up here, skinning back up to twin lakes pass today we could see the millicent lift, the summit lift at soli, and most of LCC.

[EastCoaster]

So glad you are getting outside the gates- all of that looks incredible. I'm still not familiar enough with the BC terrain to know exactly where you are in most of those pics.



Is this right:

[skiing rules]

EC- you got it right. There is a lot of terrain and it is confusing at times. we'll check it out when you get here and you will figure out the area. Each aspect of the same mountain looks different so that makes it more confusing. The side of millicent you see from brighton ski area and BCC is totally different than what we see from Alta and LCC, and its like that for every mountain. From the summit chair of solitude you would be able to see most of what we skied yesterday.

[EastCoaster]

@skiing rules 233510 wrote:EC- you got it right. There is a lot of terrain and it is confusing at times. we'll check it out when you get here and you will figure out the area. Each aspect of the same mountain looks different so that makes it more confusing. The side of millicent you see from brighton ski area and BCC is totally different than what we see from Alta and LCC, and its like that for every mountain. From the summit chair of solitude you would be able to see most of what we skied yesterday.



I didn't understand it at all until I did the Fantasy bootpack, which immediately opened my mind to how all of the areas connect. It's really amazing how close the resorts actually are.