British Columbia Ski Trip 2006

I recently returned from an amazing 4 day trip to Britsh Columbia to ski with my cousin Megan and her husband Mike who live in Vancouver. Lucky for me, he quit his job not long ago when the law partners he toiled for could not understand that he did not want to work 100 hours a week like they do. The fact that this winter has been one of the best ones in 15 years has not exactly been a motivating factor for hustling back into the workforce either. The result of this perfect storm is that he's had more than his share backcountry ski days this season and has witnessed the changing conditions from week to week. This is important when trying to properly evaluate avalanche risk. He knows where all the good snow is, too.
I arrived on a Wenesday night to a rainstorm that is typical for this time of year. We planned on heading up to Blackcomb/Whistler the next morning before departing on an overnight backcountry ski trip the following day. Megan secured a slopeside condo for the night at the Aspens at Blackcomb. We were stoked to see they had 2 saunas and it was ski in/ski out.
The drive up to Blackcomb/Whistler is about 116 km which takes about 1.5 hours in good conditions. They're in the process of widening the mostly 2 lane highway for the 2010 Winter Olympics which is an amazing feat of engineering in many places along the rugged highway. We stopped off near Whistler to pick up one of their friends who happens to be a ski instructor on the weekends. One of the things that makes skiing an unfamiliar mountian extremely enjoyable is skiing it with somebody who really knows it.
Whistler/Blackcomb is really two massive mountians separated by a drainage and linked together where the bases meet at the bottom of the drainage. There's a separate base along the road before the village called The Creek. The sheer size of the combined mountians makes it feel like a European resort; much more so than any other place I've been in North America. The snow was uncharacteristically light and fluffy. Usually the snow is much like what is typical of the Sierras, which is affectionately known as "Sierra cement".
The four of us enjoyed an excellent day and received about 2 inches of new snow over the course of the afternoon. We finished the day by skiing the Peak to Creek Run--the longest continuous run in North America. Yeah, it's a thigh burner.
After Happy Hour we were fired up for a sauna session.We were disappointed to learn that the saunas they had advertised as being on premise were in fact hot tubs. However, we made the best of it and consoled ourselves with a six-pack and a hot soak.
Whistler night life is fairly renowned as far as ski towns are concerned. The whole town is a flowing, master-planned community. There's no shortage of restaurants, pubs, clubs, and shopping of every kind all within easy walking distance of eachother. Since we were planning on an early start for the backcountry the next day, we opted for an evening stroll rather than a raging night on the town.
The next morning the weather was clear and calm, so it was apparent we were going to have a bluebird day. We packed up and headed two hours north east to the drainage below Mt. Duke and Vantage Peak. The scenery along the way is absoultely stunning. Once again I was reminded of Switzerland, but with a more remote feeling. Lakes, glaciers, glacial cut peaks, forests and rivers were everywhere you looked. We pulled off the road at one of the numerous old logging roads and got our gear together. Our plan was to ski up the drainage about 7 miles and gain about 3,500 vertical feet and set up camp below the saddle between Mt. Duke and Vantage Peak. I lathered on the sunblock and busted out my sun hat and Mike said, "you're not from around here are you?"
The ski in was marvelous; nothing but calm, blue skies the entire way and the same light, fluffy snow that we had at Whistler--just more of it and not another soul within miles to track it up! We reached our camp spot about 2p with plenty of sunshine left in the afternoon. Mike offered to set up camp, so Megan and I wasted no time heading higher for some late afternoon turns!
Some of the nice things about winter camping include: no bugs, no carnivores, you can always make your tent area flat, and you can carve just about anything out of the snow; in this case a table, benches and a sunken vestibule for storing boots and packs. Whether or not these conveniences offset the bitter cold once the sun goes down is debatable, but it's a debate best left until you're huddled in your sleeping bag crammed in the tent.
When we got back from skiing it was happy hour, so I broke out what has to be the best thing to make an appearance on the camping scene since gore-tex; a 2-litre bag of red wine. We had soup with our wine and Mike made an amazing pesto pasta dish that rivaled anything you'd find at your favorite Italian restaurant. Drinking the wine before it turned to ice proved to be quite a challenge--fortunately we were all up for it. Finally, the sun was down, the wine was gone and all the tall tales had been told, so it was time to settle in for what turned out to be an uneventful clear, calm and cold night.
Not long after dawn broke Mike hopped out of the tent and made us each a mug of hot chocolate. In case you haven't noticed this is the kind of person you want on your trip. Not only did he willingly carry the heaviest pack; he set up camp, cooked dinner, brought us hot chocolate before the sun was up and made breakfast as well. A real renaissance guy if there ever was one.
Once mid-morning rolled around it was clear that we were going to get a bit of weather before the day was through. We were planning on summiting and skiing Vantage Peak, but we determined the hike may not be worth it in the heavy wind that was sure to be on the ridge--besides the snow on all the easily accessible leeward, north facing chutes coming off the saddle right before our eyes was way too tempting to ignore.
We skinned up to the saddle and peered toward the north east at Mathier Peak and the many glaciers that made their home on the mountian. I learned that all of that terrain was accessible from the next drainage over if you were committed to a multi-day trip.
After marveling at the sublime nature of it all, it was time for some well earned turns! We headed over to the chutes and enjoyed about a foot of fresh Utah-style powder on top of a solid winter base--pure bliss! I took a tumble in the fluff towards the bottom and got back up and fell again for no good reason. After I pulled myself up a second time I noticed my ski had come off. Upon further inspection I was horrified to see that the rivets that secure the toepiece of my binding had been sheared off; rendering my binding useless. Immedlately I began to calculate how long it might take to hike through thigh deep snow to the car 7 miles and 4,000 vertical feet below-not a pleasant scenario any way I sliced it. Of course, Mike had a plan. Afterall, he'd dealt with this particular problem at least 300 times just this season. ;-) I gave him the duct tape I had in my pack and he gave me his fatboy skis and instructed Megan and I to go ski while he tried to fix my binding. Solid. He headed back to camp while Megan and I took another run on a different aspect of the mountian. The conditions were not as good as the first run, but that's like saying chocolate syrup is not as good as a chocolate bar.
When we returned to camp I could see the binding would require both of our strength to fix, so he cranked down on the toe piece while I did laps around it with the duct tape. To my surprise it looked like it might work just well enough for me to survival ski out of there. Fortunately that turned out to be the case. The obvious moral of that story is never leave the house without duct tape. Ever. Megan and I attempted to thaw the cheese and sausage that was to be our lunch under our armpits (yes it was wrapped in plastic) while Mike took another run. When he returned it was beginning to snow lightly, so we rolled up camp and enjoyed the kind of ski that makes you want to come back for more all the way back to the car.
The drive back to Vancouver was pleasant and mostly peaceful--in between Tool songs anyhow. That evening we met a couple of Meg and Mike's friends at a Belgian tapas place called Stella's on the east side of town. I was a little disappointed in their beer selection at first--Corona, Labatt, a few Belgian beers on tap. Then the bartender passed me the "special" beer menu chock full of all the beers you should see in a Belgian beer hall. All of the sudden I could see why the restaurant had been receiving accolades around town.
No trip would be complete without a little reminder of just how small a world it is that we all share. I was sitting at the bar when I noticed this guy that looked more familiar with each step coming my way. He introdced himself and remembered my name, and then it all came back to me: he helped my wife and I organize and entertain our wedding guests in Mexico 2 years ago. He was there in Vancouver visiting his new girlfriend, probably the flavor of the month. He is quite the character, but that's a whole nother story.