Sharing Ski Touring

This winter I have been training with the Pemberton Canoe Club because I paddle dragon boat in the spring, like being pushed in the gym and love the current coach, Marie. Yesterday, I got to take her into the backcountry and show her my main sport. Being relatively new to BC (from Québec) she enjoys skiing and wanted to try ski touring as she has heard about a lot of people in the Sea to Sky Corridor doing it. After learning about my passion and that I go ski touring regularly, she asked if we could take her out one day. Because of her constant positive attitude and her enthusiasm I was excited to go out with her.

It happened to be the perfect day because both of us needed to be back in the village for 3pm. We decided to go to the musical bumps as you can turn around at any point and get out pretty easily. In the morning, the Whistler gondola was having some troubles and the line took a lot longer than we thought it would. When we arrived at the top, we skied down to Peak Express and were glad that we were wearing extra puffy jackets as it was cold and windy. Traversing to the base of Flute, we taught Marie how the tiny bindings worked and how the transceiver signal can be checked.

She caught on fast and soon we were zooming up the groomed road. As we made our way up, we covered our faces with our hands to block the wind from our exposed flesh. We had already seen about 30 people and at Flute summit my dad chatted to an old coworker.

Tightening our boots and putting our skins away, we were stoked about the beautiful weather, not a cloud in the sky. Going to the immediate backcountry off of Whistler Blackcomb is always weird. With so many tracks, it’s awesome that there are so many people getting out there, but then the skiing isn’t as good. Even though there wasn’t totally fresh tracks, I did feel that I was getting good training because of how cold it was with the wind. At the col between Flute and Oboe my dad set up a simple beacon search for Marie.

The concepts can be hard to grasp, but the exercise didn’t take long. Starting up the second hill, I was still wearing more layers than I usually do when skiing in bounds, but I was a good temperature.

The skiing on the far side of Oboe was better as Flute as there were less tracks. The snow wasn’t deep, but it was soft on top. Lately, I’ve been hearing so many people talking about how they can’t wait for winter to be over, but I would love it to snow another metre and therefore have rad powder. However, today I was also thinking about trips I am excited to do in the coming months, like the Spearhead Traverse which is awesome in spring conditions. My dad has a week off at the end of March and we are brainstorming places to go. My dad suggested a traverse from Mt. Currie to Harrison Hot Springs and I agreed that it sounds incredible. In the meantime, we were still enjoying a great time on Oboe. At the col between Oboe and Cowboy Ridge we had a snack and drank some gatorade and tea.

Being no longer in the wind, we could take a layer off and the sun felt amazing on my face. While on this slope the temperature varied a bit, when there was no wind it was quite hot with all the clothes I had on, but with the wind I was cold. I was surprised how unaffected the snow seemed to be from the wind, not significant at all, even though the winds seemed to be quite constant.

There were tracks going everywhere, but we made our way up towards the second highest part of the ridge. At our high point, Marie talked about how she will miss the mountains if/when she returns out East. I was glad that we could take her out to experience the mountains in a deeper way than most temporary residents of the corridor can.

Looking at the time, we decided that we would go down and out via the Singing Pass. The skiing down Cowboy Ridge was the best of the day, though we had to readjust our path as we found out the sun had made the snow sticky on the South facing slopes. It was fast moving and fun once we found the softer snow.

At the bottom of the run, we put our helmets on and prepared for the 8 kilometre ski out. The trail was fast at the top, and though some shuffling is always required, it was in pretty good shape. There were only about three icy corners and the rest was just hard packed snow. Some parts of the trail are always so amusing, but I was sobered up at one point where I almost wiped out going fast, we were still in the backcountry and if one of us hurt ourselves, it could take a while to get out. Reaching the village with just enough time to spare, I was happy I could share how incredible the mountains can be, even if your only there for a few hours. When I later asked Marie what she thought about it she said “It was awesome because I was pushing my boundaries. I felt that I was living my best life. It was hard going up, but on the way down I forgot about everything.” Knowing that I could make her feel like that is amazing. I hope that in reading this people are inspired to go find that feeling themselves.