On December 20 my dad, my dog and I left our house on our two beat-up snowmobiles. We sledded up the Birkenhead Service road for about 20 kilometres. It took us an hour and a bit to arrive at our destination after needing to U-turn. We stopped at a small clearing around the road where we would make our camp. We dumped most of our gear and hiked uphill for an hour. My dad was amazed at how hard the trail braking was, but that usually leads to awesome skiing.
On the way up we saw sings of instability on the trees. The danger rating was a 3, or considerable. We saw that the buried facets were causing snow to fall off of trees. This meant it could also slide on bigger slopes. At one point, when we were on a flat plain, my dad heard the snow settle aka a whoomp. That is another sign of instability. So we stayed on a low angle slope in the trees. That day the skiing was not worth the work, but learning about the snow was. We then set up our camp, our tent and a basic snow-shelve kitchen.
The next day we rose with stiff backs and cold hands. After breakfast we set out and hiked uphill for about 5 hours. We didn’t see observe any signs of instability, but I did fall into a tree well. The tree was not visible and my dad had passed over it before me. Even though I was upright and safe, it took me 10 minutes to get out. Every time I pushed on the snow it sank down 2 feet.
We ended our ascent on a ridge and prepared for our ski. Were had discussed where we would ski and where we would avoid due to the possibility of an avalanche. The top pitch was in the treeline. The snow was amazing! I was expecting deep snow because I saw how hard the trail breaking was, but I wasn’t expecting too be that great. It was the deepest snow I have ever skied in. I needed to stop often because I couldn’t see anything, the white room. Every turn I felt like I would disappear into the powder. My shouts of joy and laughter mixed with my dads as we descended. It was so awesome! Once we reached a slope with denser trees and a steeper angle we stopped. Telling me to wait my dad skied down. Soon, he called me to follow as he took photos of me. The coverage wasn’t the best so we were wary of the trees and logs, but the pillows were incredible. As the angle mellowed out we stopped and put our skins on. My dad couldn’t believe how great the skiing was. Later my dad told my sister that if this run was on Whistler Blackcomb it would be the most popular run. Why? It is a perfect run, 38 degrees, perfectly spaced trees. Then walking uphill, we reached our mornings up-track and joined it. We climbed to the top of the steeper pitch and traversed back towards our camp and around a bump. This way we would be able to ski steeper for longer.
That pitch was just as good skiing, but we were worried because the snow was shallow and unconsolidated. We managed to avoid the tree wells but had some trouble with fallen trees. After meeting up with our up track we reached our camp for another night in the cold. The next day we would head to our house to grab my younger sister because she wanted to sleep in a snow cave. Since the snow was not deep enough to just make a snow cave we piled snow around our camp into what we hoped was a big enough mound.
After that we ate a freeze dried meal and went to sleep. We arose even more stiff and cold than the previous morning. We decided that we would get my sister before we went skiing. The sled ride out took an hour and a half. We tried to dry some of our clothing and packed some more food. We left once more and arrived at our camp just before four. Since we no longer had time to ski we started digging out the mound. Over two hours it became a snow cave and our shelter for the night. It seemed surprisingly big. That night I was a little worried about the cave collapsing, but everything held. In the morning we started up our trail.
I broke trail and saw that 15 centimetres of new snow had fallen since we had been up the trail. I hiked at what I thought was a good pace, but my dad kept yelling at me to slow down. I find that whenever I am at the beginning of a group, I just want to go as fast as I can to reach the top quickly. However I continually stopped and waited. Eventually I walked slower and stayed with my sister and dad. Near the top of the ridge we had skied down 2 days before, I couldn’t see our tracks. However I could feel them, whenever I went of them, the trail breaking became more difficult because I would sink into the snow farther. We reached the top of our climb and had a break. My sister was very excited for the ski because she had worked for it. The skiing was again incredible. The lighting was worse, making it difficult to see the terrain through goggles. My sister loved it. At the sleds once more, we were all fairly tired. We packed up and headed out with one more successful trip in the bag.