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Frank

Revelstoke Mountain Resort 2.26.10

Posted by Frank – March 11, 2010

From Roger’s Pass, Brittany and I made our way down to the town of Revelstoke. Meanwhile our friends Jon and Susan headed our way from Pemberton, so we’d be a foursome for Revelstoke. Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) opened just recently, in December 2007, and boasts North America’s biggest vertical drop at 5,620′. A number of additional lifts and other developments are currently planned which will make RMR North America’s largest ski area.

The current “feel” at RMR is definitely one of a work in progress. Ever been in a half finished house sporting insulation and unfinished subfloors? That’s what RMR feels like right now- a work in progress. The trail layout is really strange, but with more lifts, some of the many traverses currently necessary to navigate the resort may be a thing of the past.

Without a guide, the 4 of us were left finding our own way around in the fog and light snow that was falling. We found some fun areas, but also found some heinous creek gullies funneling us to the other lifts. On to the pics…

Susan and I checking things out:
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Brittany at the top of a short hike:
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Brittany:
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Sweet visibility in the ping pong ball:
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Jon:
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One thing for sure at RMR is that they had fun naming things, with chairs called The Stoke and The Ripper. But I liked this trial name best of all:
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While RMR may boast a lot of vertical, the bottom half of the mountain was thin and icy, and not worth skiing. We had to ski this pitch right under the gondola, which was humorously dangerous and difficult given the icy condition it was in:
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Originally, we planned to ski RMR another day, or go sled skiing with Jon and Susan. Avalanche conditions were pretty bad, however, and the ski area wasn’t skiing that well. Perhaps most importantly, Brittany and I had been hitting it pretty hard, always skiing and driving without a single day off. So we adjusted our plans and left Revelstoke a day early so we could hit up some hot springs and ski an unplanned day at Whitewater outside Nelson. Jon and Susan went to check out the sled access skiing and reported back that even approaching low angled slopes would cause them to avalanche on the surface hoar layer that is plaguing the area this season. Meanwhile, Brittany and I were enjoying our sightseeing tour. Our route required a ferry across Arrow Lake:
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It was a beautiful day:
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We had lunch in the scenic town of New Denver, which sits at the base of some nice looking peaks:
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We stopped at the Ainsworth Hot Springs, which were notable for the caves you could walk through.
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Eventually, we rolled into the picturesque town of Nelson, more on that later…
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Other Montana-Canada Road Trip Blog Posts
Road Trip Update
Itinerary
Bridger Bowl
Whitefish
Fernie
Kicking Horse
Roger’s Pass

Roger’s Pass 2.25.10

Posted by Frank – March 10, 2010

In 1995, Christian Begin released his award winning movie, “Locomotion”. A ski movie with an actual storyline, Locomotion told the tale of Roger’s Pass and the terrible toll it took on the men who built it. In 1871 Canadian Prime Minister John Macdonald promised the people of British Columbia that a transcontinental railway would be built within 10 years, as an incentive for the people of B.C to join the new Canadian Union. Without a railway linking B.C to the rest of Canada, there was strong talk of B.C joining the U.S.A. Unfortunately for Americans who wish they could live in B.C, Roger’s Pass was discovered and the railway was built, though not without the loss of many lives due to avalanches that plagued the route. 58 men were killed in one avalanche alone, on March 4, 1910. Begin’s movie tells the history of this pass, and features the skiing that is now world famous at Roger’s Pass.

Today, Roger’s Pass is a huge destination for ski touring. Several areas of the pass are permanently closed for highway crews to study snowpit data and for avalanche blasting. Other areas need a permit at the Roger’s Pass Centre, and may be closed due to avalanche control work. We arrived at Roger’s Pass with a few inches of new snow, fog, falling snow, and high avalanche danger due to several buried surface hoar layers. Meanwhile, just prior to our arrival, daytime highs had been hitting the low 50’s even at the tops of the highest peaks in the area. Reports of avalanches on these buried layers were everywhere, with some slides occurring even on low angled slopes.

With that in mind we discussed our options with the friendly rangers at the Centre, and they eventually steered us to Loop Creek and the Bonney trees, which were less crusty due to their northern aspects, and popular enough that some of the snowpack weaknesses would be less of a concern than other areas.

Our views looked like this for much of the day:
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It was a pity not to be able to see these huge mountains and their tremendous relief (ski descents of 5-6,000′ are common), but we continued up through the fog and occasionally saw some enticing terrain:
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Gap jump, anyone?
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We also passed some of the old railroad towers, since replaced with a tunnel. 90 degree pillow lines, oh yeah!
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We reached treeline and that was the end of the road for us, as the visibility was no where near good enough to continue onward. the snow quality had improved greatly as we headed up, and we were now set to ski well over a foot of fluffy fresh snow. Brittany:
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Frank:
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We stumbled into this clearing, which was steep and filled with pillow after pillow after pillow, all around 5′ high. While the photo does it no justice, this 1000′ of skiing was my favorite of the whole trip.
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While we had planned on skiing Roger’s Pass for at least a couple of days, the avalanche and weather conditions kind of forced our hand a little, and this would be the only day we skied Roger’s. Still, Roger’s Pass remains as one of the epicenters of North American skiing, and we were grateful to experience it, if only for a day. Next stop, the 2 year old resort of Revelstoke…

Other Montana-Canada Road Trip Blog Posts
Road Trip Update
Itinerary
Bridger Bowl
Whitefish
Fernie
Kicking Horse

Scarp’s To Peeler 3.6.10

Posted by Frank – March 7, 2010

We’ll get back to our TR’s from our big road trip soon, but for today, here’s a TR from yesterday’s long local adventure. Things are really shaping up here, with a fairly deep and stable snowpack starting to allow some bigger descents. We headed up the Red Lady hike but instead of dropping in there, we headed out for a nice ridgewalk towards Irwin:
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Pete had been in the area a few days ago and suggested we ski a face off of Scarp’s Ridge. I knew the face he was talking about from other trips to the area, and it had always looked like a good one so that’s what we were aiming for. It was pretty steep and it rolled over, so it was hard to tell if we were in the right spot or not, but we gave it a go regardless. I dropped in first:
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TR: Whitefish, MT 2.21.10-2.22.10

Posted by Frank – March 5, 2010

After our excellent day at Bridger Bowl, we got in the car and went straight to Whitefish, a tiring five and a half hour drive after a day of skiing, but necessary to get another day of skiing in. Whitefish is known for being cloudy, but our two days there featured a complete lack of clouds, perfect for checking out the nearby peaks of Glacier National Park.

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The Road Trip is Over

Posted by Frank – March 3, 2010

14erskiers are back home in Crested Butte. We hope to be getting up some trip reports soon.

After Kicking horse we headed to Roger’s Pass. It was cloudy and snowy, which limited our choices, as did the avalanche conditions. A number of buried surface hoar layers have made much of interior B.C. super touchy right now. We were still able to find some good snow, but it wasn’t the Roger’s Pass experience we were hoping for. Revelstoke was interesting and fun at times. We decided to take a day off and hit Ainsworth hot springs on our way to Nelson and an unscheduled day at Whitewater. Awesome slackcountry day there, followed by a rough day at Red Mountain. Keep checking in, we’ll get more up soon.

Trip Update 2.24.10

Posted by Frank – February 24, 2010

We’re having a great time on our roadtrip up north, despite the lack of snow and abundance of the white stuff back in CO.

Bridger Bowl was great, we went for a long tour to the south and got up close and personal with the huge slide on Saddle peak from last week. From there, we went up to Whitefish and had a good time there- it’s a big mountain with lots of little zones worth checking out. We actually had blue skies which is rare for the area, and we were able to check out the peaks of Glacier National Park. Fernie was a bit wind hammered, but some locals showed us around and we toured ’til our legs were about to fall off. Now we’re in Golden, BC and had another great day, this time at Kicking Horse. The backcountry right out of the area here is as good as anywhere I’ve seen. Kicking Horse has been super impressive, and we’d like to come back here for another visit. Tomorrow, we’re off to Roger’s Pass, followed by Revelstoke. We’ll get some TR’s up when we can…

Sweet Valentine Pow 2.14.10

Posted by Frank – February 17, 2010

After our epic and incredibly deep day the day before, we headed back out to a slightly different zone on Sunday to find some more powder. While the snow had set up considerably overnight, it was still a great day. On the way up, I had a bit of a lead on the others, so I just had to hit this little pillow zone:

It was fun but short, and we went up to the top where things looked very good indeed:

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Palatial Accommodations In The White Room 2.13.10

Posted by Frank – February 16, 2010

Days as deep as this one are hard to come by. They might come once or twice a year in Colorado, and only in a few select spots. Utah might get as many as half a dozen days like this in a good year, and the heavy snows of Tahoe may never get like this, with the high water content and winds that are typical of that area. It takes a rare combination of no wind, light snow, no settling, and especially it takes A LOT of snow. Brittany and I were joined by Chris Webster and Pam Rice from Boulder, usual suspects Tom Runcie, Rob Dickinson, and Sydney Fuller, plus Tom’s friend Jeff, also from Boulder. Thankfully there was plenty to go around…

Photo Webster:
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A Skiing History Lesson

Posted by Frank – February 11, 2010

Skiing has been around for thousands of years, and despite all the talk of “progression” from the pros skiers, the truth is that people have been getting after it for a long, long time. Check out this great rant by Mike Douglas if you don’t believe me:

Another Poverty Gulch Day 2.9.10

Posted by Frank – February 10, 2010

Zach needed to get some epic turns on his birthday, and I needed to keep breaking in my new snowmobile, so off to this year’s standby we went. It was a beautiful day with clouds and some sun, and I think we got a few nice photos. Off to the photos…
Lap One, Zach getting some airtime:

The snow was quality:

Mineral Point was putting on a show:

More Zach airtime:

Zach took my camera and got a couple nice shots of me as well:

Another great day, Happy Birthday Zach!