Desert Ski Club Trip to 49 Degrees North

It was a fine feeling jumping on the bus at 5pm on a Friday and embarking on a Desert Ski Club weekend trip to 49 Degrees North. Lots of familiar faces, some lovely wine, tasty snacks to imbibe, and after a 4 hour bus ride, we were moving into out hotel rooms in Colville.

I always thoroughly enjoy a day or two visit at 49 Degrees. It’s inevitably quiet (lift lines do not happen), invariably has a worthy base, and on most visits, good snow too. This weekend was no exception. There’d been little fresh in a week or two, but when we arrived Saturday morning, it was already snowing. Conditions were already decent, and we roamed around trees and steeps as the snow improved continually throughout the day, with 3 or so inches of creamy blower.

Sunday wasn’t far from a repeat. Intermittent snow showers, incredibly heavy at times, meant variable visibility, especially in East Basin. But if you stuck to the west side and lapped Chair 4, there was some fantastic skiing to be had. The Cyc Glades were soft, suckering us in many times to pick new lines through the widely spaced woods (pics here).

With a Northern Lights Chocolate Dunkel or two to relax with at the end of the day, friendly locals and live music in the Boomtown Bar, it’s hard to fault this couple of days. I just hope 49 Degrees North remains unknown for a few more years. Selfish, I know, but its a gem I’d hate to see disappear in a tsunami of development and a plagues of Lexuses. Fortunately, I suspect the latter is somewhat unlikely.

2 Days: 7400m, 7100m

Season Totals: 25 days, 191,400 vertical metres. 4 powder days

Low snow, big fun at Panorama

The Panorama ‘doughnut’ effect is in strong play this year. While everywhere around has decent snow, Panorama was hurting a little. We left Kicking Horse with a tad of trepidation for our ski bases. But really, we had little to fear. They make a lot of snow, I suspect they groom their slopes well in summer, and up high there was enough snow to cover rocks and trees on all but the steepest terrain.

 

It was worth lapping the Champagne Express first thing to warm up, and lay rails in the fresh ‘roid. As the sun came up and licked the slopes with its rays, all sorts of options appeared. A descent of Taynton Bowl was a bit messy at first with soggy snow on th entrance, but once in, the bumps were pretty nice. Run of the weekend was undoubtedly Stumbocks, a superb single diamond bump run which never seemed to end, and held good forgiving snow on perfectly formed bumps.

We had to bail around 2pm on Sunday to drive home. After a day skiing bumps all over the mountain, it probably wasn’t a bad thing. This remains a mountain that, when the snow is falling, has enough terrain and variety to keep an advanced skier happy for a long time. And even when the snow gods aren’t smiling on the area, there’s still a good time to be had. Especially if you like bumps.

2 Days: 8100m, 7200m

Season Totals: 23 days, 176,900 vertical metres. 4 powder days

Kicking Horse by day, Sleeping Horse at night!!

I knew 5 years between visits to Kicking Horse was too long. A couple of top-to-bottom warm-ups, scoping out lines for later exploration, refreshed my memory of the epic terrain. Conditions were much better than my first trip here years ago though (it was opening weekend), and it was instantly noticeable how good the mid-mountain groomers were. Long, rolling, pitching wonders, they begged for high speed, especially as you had every run to your self.

What followed was two days of picking lines off CPR Ridge and dropping into Fuse Bowl. The north facing steeps were in excellent condition. It just took a little caution on the traverses to enter the chutes – ‘thar be rocks’. And twigs. And roots. Nothing nasty – my skis even escaped with only a few scratches from the whole trip. On the way down to the gondola, we alternated between enticing, soft bumps and high speed ripping. It was a helluva lot of fun.(pics here).

These were the two days I really fell in love with my new Salomon Lords I demo-ed them at Whistler twice before buying, and really enjoyed them, but there was really only fairly hardpacked groomers and a few minor off-trail excursions that could be used to test tem on. So I gambled a little bit, and got first payback at Schweitzer a few weeks ago on a powder day. No surprise they excelled in those conditions.

On the steep chutes off CPR Ridge though, you need a trusty friend strapped to your feet. One that’s going to sink an edge on 45%,firm snow, and be as stable and solid as a rock when you  jump turns in highly unpredictable conditions. The Lords did all this, while retaining their lightness and snappiness in the turns. It was almost as good as having my trusty IM 82s on. I need to demo the new model of those.

The other massive change in five years was that a really pleasant base village has emerged from the parking lots of old. Good quality condos and lodges, a few decent places to eat, and even a friendly pub made the mountain base a great place to stay. Ok – it would’ve been better if the condo hot tubs had worked. Or they had wireless Internet (note to Kicking Horse – this is the 21st Century). And actually, if there had been a few more people around. Everywhere was deserted by 7pm – in mid-week in early February. With a deep base and good weather and conditions. It was all a bit weird.

But finally – note to self – get back there next year if the snow falls. There’s still plenty of chutes to explore. And it’s so near Revelstoke.

2 days: 7500m, 9100m

Season Totals: 21 days, 161,600 vertical metres. 4 powder days

Cautious cruising at Revelstoke

After 3 days sat in a hotel room in Revelstoke with a dodgy back, cabin fever set in. Everyone else was skiing, the conditions were great and the weather clear and cold.  I’d recovered enough to not need good old Vicodin anymore, so as we were moving on that day to Kicking Horse, I geared up about 9.30am and drove to the ski hill.

My first two runs were cautious groomers. Of course at Revelstoke this means 1500m vertical, black groomers. And these are worthy of their black status. All the way down. With no pain being experienced, and fun starting to set in, I radio-ed the others and startled them with my weather report from the top while they were having lunch.

The afternoon was spent having a little tour from everyone of the terrain off the Ripper chair, which I hadn’t been able to explore in December. I stuck to groomers, but still had a fine time.

One day I’ll get to Revelstoke on a deep powder day in mid-winter. When it’s finished. If all goes to plan, this will be the finest ski hill in North America. One day.

8500m

Season Totals: 19 days, 145,000 vertical metres. 4 powder days

Sun and hardpack at Hood Meadows

The January doldrums were firmly established by mid January, with no snow falling in the Pacific Northwest for well over a week. So we merged with the Yakima telepod, rented a luxurious house in Hood River between 9 of us, and headed up to Hood Meadows for the weekend.

There were some pretty slick but enjoyable groomers to be had on Saturday, but venturing off groomed was something to approach with extreme caution. The solid conditions meant Heather Canyon was closed due to the severe potential for death slides from any little slip. Meadows isn’t quite the same place without Heather Canyon. Still, a sunny, cool day on Mt Hood isn’t exactly a regular mid-winter occurrence, so we cruised around and soaked in the magnificent volcanic landscape that extended as far as the eye could see.

My niggly back pain from Saturday took on more serious proportions on Sunday. A repeat of Saturday’s fairly average conditions weren’t enough to entice me to suffer any discomfort, so I relaxed in our rented mansion while the others returned to Meadow’s sun-kissed slopes. In reality, this really wasn’t a bad weekend to take a day off.

And we had our usual fun quota on Saturday night in Hood River. There’s some fine, hoppy beers at Horsefeathers!

Saturday: 7700m

Season Totals: 18 days, 136,500 vertical metres. 4 powder days

Weekend at Silver

The big storms and bitter weather of December and early January were abating, and it was hard to find anywhere that looked too promising for the weekend. Best of the lot was Silver, where the forecast had temps below freezing (just) and maybe a bit of new snow. Armed with a last minute booking at the Baymont for a suite , Emily, Kathy, Jan and me  jumped in our truck and headed to Idaho for some sliding down Silver’s exciting slopes.

The most treacherous terrain encountered all weekend was the Baymont parking lot. It was literally a sheet of thick, slick ice – maneuvering the truck into a free space was difficult, walking in ski boots incredibly dangerous.

The skiing in comparison was pretty fine all weekend, on a deep base and softening conditions. A few inches of new sludge that fell Saturday night was even quite fun to carve as long as you kept your speed up. The usual suspects – North Face Glades, South of the Border, Meadows, Terrible Edith Glades – were the places to be all weekend, along with the single black diamond runs to the base of Chair 4. And in typical Silver style, the trails were deserted, and lift lines remain a problem for other ski hills to manage.

Evenings were quiet. The best food was at the Wah Hing on Kellogg’s main street. Wah Hing serves reliable, tasty and freshly prepared Chinese food at bargain prices. Combine dinner at the Wah Hing with a beer at the Jack Ass Saloon a couple of doors away, and the 10 minute walk into town from the gondola base is well worth the effort.

2 days – 7,700m; 6,800m

Season Totals: 17 days, 128,700 vertical metres. 4 powder days