Work Practium March 14-22 2008

I am a luck man I just got off tour doing a practicum with CMH doing snow safety most of the week. As you all know snow pack is a mess in many places this winter. Well that surface hoar that we got on Feb 26 and March 10 is really acting up. We dug many pits and look and may different aspects and the conclusion was that it is scary and it is very reactive even though it is down 60-80cm. We have had many skier triggered avalanche and the two biggest ones were triggered from a ridge top on 5 degree slope triggering the slope below and fracturing all over the ridge. In the Bugaboos they had a size three skier triggered and it remote triggered another avalanche 1750m away. Basically there is no real safe spot you should feel 100% out there, but my advice is if you are going out and you find that surface hoar layer where you want to ski don’t ski it.

I am really thankful that I had this opportunity to ski with CMH and the learning opportunities that I had on the practicum were great.

Bugaboos to Rogers boys – I think (I know) we made a good decision on the trip it would have been totally crazy to be doing the traverse at the time we had planed to go. I am really looking forward to the Coast trip.

Talk soon

Photoshop Fun

Was just spending some time playing with photoshop. Some of the stuff you can do is so cool.

Wapta March 8 2008

"MISSON INCOMPLEATE"

The original plan was to ski the Wapta in a day from Bow out Sherbrook Lake. We started in the early morning and were off to a great start we skied to the Bow hut in 2hrs and continued up to St. Nicholas - Olive col in another 1.5hrs in white out condition this is where we decide that descending to the Balfour Hut would but a bad idea because of the visibility and once we committed to the decent we would have to finish the tour and in the condition that we present at that time it would have been a very long day and a good chance on having to spend the night.
The decision was to climb Olive peak. We ascend Olive peak with limited visibility it was not until we reached the summit that we got our first view of the Wapta Icefeild it was great. We made a quick move back down the mountain and had good intentions to go for another peak but after a few 360 off the wind lip we head back to the Bow hut for some coffee.
In total we still skied 26Km.

Another good day in the mountains

Moose Mt March 7 2008

T-shirts, Shorts, Hot sun that was our climbing day in a nut shell. I spent the day climbing with Ross, Chad, Joel, Blake at moose mt.
We climbed some great climbs and and got a little sun tan. This is a great place for some early season climbing. As fun as it was I still have to keep my focus and keep skiing in my mind and tomorrow we are off to ski.

Chow

Rogers Pass Feb 28-29 2008

An interesting couple of days in the Pass. I would have to say that I was glad to hang out with Heather and have a few beers with lots of great friends because the skiing was not stellar!
As usual the scenery was great and the Pass was very quite both days we broke trail right from the parking lot and almost having the valley to ourselves except one other party both days. Trail breaking made for a lot of work for so few turns, but we have to remember that there is a lot more to ski touring than great turns. We were supposed to do one more day of touring but due to a road closure and the High, High, Considerable avalanche forecast we decide to drive home and chill out.