powder

Powder Day

Posted on by Smoke

Lucked out with a sunny one today. Only about 20cms in the past 24 hours, and the wind came up and pushed it around. Oh, and no-one at the hill either.

This is inbounds at Apex at about 11am.

Just some nice boot top to knee deep pow lying around. Nothing crazy deep, but really nice. This is up on an exposed south slope so we’re not sinking in so much. It’s deeper down in the shade, but then you don’t get the sunshine/blue sky shots.

The possessor of this fine smile is one of my ski buddies from the ’80s. It was a serendipitous moment running into her at the ticket window this morning, as she’s been living in Colorado for a long time. I haven’t seen Chandra in at least 6 years.

If you think you can keep up, look for her in Leadville. She’s easy to find there, she’s the girl…

This last one is more like the depth we were skiing all day. Last run of the day, still in bounds, still massively untracked.

Good thing we’re having a drought or this would probably be skiied out.

Big Powder Thursday

Posted on by Smoke

Yet another reason to love living in the Okanagan.

Powder skiing. There’s five decent ski hills within easy day trip distance; Silver Star, Big White, Apex, Crystal, and Baldy. I usually ski Apex, as my family has a place there, but with the ability to hit any of the hills as the conditions permit I thought I’d check out Baldy last week.

The main thing with Baldy isn’t the amount of snow it gets (it’s on the edge of a desert). It’s not the quality of the snow (did I mention it’s on the edge of a desert? What snow it gets is good and dry). It’s not the terrain (pretty mellow and flat, although with beautifully spaced trees for glade skiing). Nope, the thing with Baldy is that it’s closed from Monday to Wednesday every week. So Thursdays can be pretty good. This week they had 18cm over the three days, then a nice and fat 20cm dump at -10C on Thursday morning.

That was 38cm fresh untracked for us to play in.

I was supposed to be going with a friend from vancouver who showed up unexpectedly the other day, but predictably he got stuck at work and couldn’t get out. I did manage to hook up with our friends Gary and Stash, but they are ust learning to play in the snow and I didn’t bother taking any embarasing pics of them. Well, to be more accurate, it was a powder day and you know what that does to friendships.

Instead I just hit the lift and immediately hooked up with all the core South Okanagan powder hounds that converged for the event. We even managed to do a “hike” (about two minutes) for some bonus vertical but with thigh deep coverage over the whole mountain there wasn’t much point in this exercise.

Our local guide from Oliver was throwing us into the stashes every single run. Here he is in some of the windblown at the top (it was deeper in the trees, but I wasn’t gonna get any shots in there. Too busy rippin’ it….).

Here’s a good one of Wendell’s helmet and left hand. He just stuck a small cliff and is just cutting Niki off in the background.

This would be the aftermath of that encounter.

This would be Wade(?) slipping over to heelside on the same run.

And this is another Apex girly (didn’t catch the name) with that signature Apex style of quiet domination on the slopes.

A quick lunch at the bar had me in the longest lineup of the day. There was effectively none at the lift. It took me about 2 minutes to get a beer inside though.

Check that report…..

The skies cleared for the afternoon laps.

This is really good coverage for January up here. This sign is at about 7000′.

Last run, and some great light as we head off for one more. It was still deep right to 3:30 PM. That nice lit up snowfield in the background is where most of the pics are from.

First Day of Skiing

Posted on by Smoke

Oh, and did I mention? It’s the GRAND OPENING OF THE NEW REVELSTOKE MOUNTAIN RESORT!

Sorry, didn’t mean to yeall. I got excited. Wouldn’t you if you showed up at 7 am to THIS?

I was there for two days and hardly took any pics. We were too busy skiing to have time to take the camera out. All I got were some lame shots of the (yawn) opening ceremonies.

Some seriously dull speeches there. They had a captive audience, so I guess showmanship wasn’t really high on the agenda. And I quote “In 1891, the banks of the region…….,” at which point I promptly tuned out. Check out the 2000 ‘Stoked skiers rapt with attention…

After a while, they finally got down to business.

I hooked up with a solid crew that incluced the NRG boys, John from Oso Negro, and couple of bros (Matty Shred and another guy whose name I immediatley forgot) that were supposed to be working putting the final touches on the maps around the resort. They did manage to find time around 11:30 for a quick nut tightening.

This hill is going to be a force in the skiing universe. As you can see from the images, it was storming heavily on the opener. Even though the locals were shredding hard during the week leading up to the opening day, there was 30 – 50 cm of freshies everywhere on the hill, even directly under the chair. With 2000 people there, I expected more of a lineup on the quad, but several thigh buring runs later I was completely spent. I went too hard out of the gate for sure, but 20 000′ by lunch is still pretty solid. I guess when the lift system puts you up almost 5000′ in 12 minutes pacing becomes more important.

I ended up staying an extra night in town. It was all Dave’s fault for putting that drink in my hand. Whatareyagonnadoeh?

With some more sensible pacing, we hit the hill for 32000′ on Sunday, and it wa a repeat of the previous. Thigh deep in the trees, knee deep under the lift. I spent the day charging with the NRG boys again, and their pal Peter who produces one fine magazine of mountain culture out of the Kootenays.

Here’s a couple of lame shots of Jorge…

..and Skinny on our favourite run that we were referring to as “The Funnel”.

You can bet that I’ll be back here soon.