Monday, April 2, 2012

Still More Winter

Finally, a day without precipitation. The local ski hill has recorded 136 cm in the past 7 days, almost 40 cm of that in the past two days. Overnight, the sky cleared and the temperature fell, all positive signs for a good day ski touring.

Normally, we would allow 24 hours following a big storm system before pushing into more serious terrain to allow the snow to settle and stability to improve. But, when you only have 24 hours - the next storm is forecast for tomorrow - and the weather has been very poor for a solid week, and only slightly less poor for the preceding three, you sometimes break some of your own rules.

Our destination was one of our favorites, the upper basin of Kutetl Creek, which, with long runs from alpine to tree-line, evocatively burnt timber, and great fall lines rarely delivers a substandard day. There are multiple routes into Kutetl, but none are exempt from avalanche hazard, although some are less exposed than others. We immediately ruled out the "death traverse" which takes a high line through the guts of avalanche terrain, and also the ridge route, which, while avoiding most of the avalanche exposure involves boot-packing up a steep, corniced and wind-rolled ridge, and opted for the low route climbing up from the bottom of Five Mile Creek valley. The low route is also a good option when you expect the ski down to be good, which we did.

We had a phenomenal day. Our first run down a NE aspect, ranks as one of the best of the season on deep, dry powder. While none of the others were quite as spectacular as our first run, we racked up runs on NE, E, NW and SW aspects, covered 12 km of ground, built four up-tracks, none of which we reused, and gained 1800 metres over the day.

Another great day to be out in the BC backcountry. 

Building a trail in upper Five Mile



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