Friday, February 22, 2008

North, we want COLD and SNOW!

What can we do? Sunshine and above freezing temperature from Alaska down to California!!!!


Initially it wasn't that bad... Roger's Pass has plenty of amazing terrain which is fun to discover on a clear day. We went to Avalanche Crest again and we had to open the skin track! We did the worst job ever: making it really steep, having a guy falling in every switchback and then going the wrong way! In the end most of the run was good and going the wrong way up gave us some warm light on the way down.

On the next day we were looking for some North-East aspect for more - not that fresh anymore - powder! So we started in Loop Brook parking lot, skin up Lilly Col and ski down in Asulkan valley! The views were AMAZING, the sun was WARM and the sky was DEEP BLUE. So nice that we had a two hours break at the top... eating and posing! :-) Unfortunately the snow wasn't that deep and also crusty on some western aspects!


Since about mid-January we were waiting a big storm to ski at Kicking Horse. Of course we missed a bunch... being in Nelson, Kootenay Pass, Utah, Red or Roger's Pass. We wanted to drive up north pretty soon, so we decided to check it out anyway!

Kicking Horse is full of steep chutes and couloirs which is great! There is also plenty of slackcountry right outside the resort. A resort for strong and knowledgeable skier for sure! Unfortunately without a recent storm the terrain was a little bit intimidating and the snow in the backcountry not that great. So we stick to the moguls and the few groomers... skiing switch, training at beacon searching and having fun.


Kicking horse is also one of these resorts where you need to use about 3 different lifts to access some runs. So if one of your favourite run is one of those... you end up spending a lot of time on the chairlift! Some more chairlifts wouldn't hurt !!


I also trained to ski with only one ski after my binding ripped off again. I am now quite good at it, but there is something wrong with that ski and it is going back to the factory (thanks to Karhu customer service)!


With the warm weather we guessed that our best bet is to go up north... More driving, but the road between Banff and Jasper is one of the most beautiful in the world specially under full moon!


We woke up in Jasper... and we will be skiing around before heading to Prince George, Mackenzie, Smithers and Terrace! We would greatly appreciate any advices about the backcountry skiing here as we don't have any clues!

We have to leave... free food at the Astoria Hotel sponsored by the Canadian Avalanche Center! :-)

Alexis

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

heille ma gang de snow cahsers!

Je vais fort probablement etre en alaska a partir du 10 mars!!! je serai a Anchorage la semaine du 30 mars... Moi j'amène mes skis, mais j'ai pas d'amis...

JP

Anonymous said...

Je commence à avoir hate que vous trouviez d'la neige aussi... j'veux pu voir vos deux raies de grêlons. Bonne chance dans le nord gang d'enfouarés!

JS

Comodore Marchette said...

Il va falloir mettre un Parental Advisory sur ce site là si ça continue... ou du moins un avertissement disant de ne pas consulter sur les heures de repas.

On peut presque voir les WillNots!

Anonymous said...

Nice post!
Looks like it's getting harder to find good snow, but still apparently lots of fun times abound. [By the way, the Snowchasers_3 image is awesome.]
Paul