One of the riding goals for this season is the "chute cliff" at Castle. Both times I went there last year, I was drawn to this line. From far away it looks pretty cool - drop into a chute and straightline it out. I'd scoped out it a little closer the 2nd time I was there last winter, but ending up backing away from it - that's why it's on the list of goals for this year.I ended up riding solo this time, so I had plenty of free time for a closer inspection of the chute cliff. I took some video from various angles and hiked up the chute from the bottom as high as I could. The line is definitely doable - it just needs more snow than there is at the moment. There's maybe 6 inches of coverage on the rocks at the top of the chute. Being a north facing line, it should fill in quite nicely later in the year with the famous Castle winds. The chute is quite tight too - making the drop more intimidating.
There's also a much more agressive line I looked at to the one side of the chute. If they get another one of those meter of fresh in 2-3 days, I'll take a closer look at it....
Spent most of the day over in the "secret" trees. They're pretty tight in some places as you'll see in the video below, but I think that riding super tight stuff just makes you that much stronger in the normal trees. The snow when the trees opened up was incredible. Lots of face shots and pretty much completely untracked. Virtually zero lift lines, but 2 chair rides required. Was taking about 40 minutes per lap and that gets you about 5 minutes of great tree riding.
Took one trip up the new chair on Haig mountain. It's the access point to the new backcountry area, but you need to sign out with a buddy, beacon, probe, etc. to get into it. I had none of the above and the terrain under the chair is all groomer/beginner stuff.
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For the last couple weeks I've been under the weather, so there's been no updates because there's been no riding. I'm too stubborn to go to the doctor, but I think I've had 3 seperate and distinct illnesses - or one very nasty and lengthy one - maybe just the flu?
I've missed a couple good powder days at nearby resorts for sure, plus numerous sled days too - it did get me thinking though:
2 years, 11 days of heli, 9 days of cat, and 1 mountain sled (with truck deck and racking) and I've spent around 30K.
Last year I found this lifetime unlimited snowcat pass for 30K The price is now up to 50K, but that's still a fairly good deal - assuming you could take 4 months off work, live in Whistler and ride every day.
There's supposed to be a big storm is coming in and I'm going to Castle this Friday regardless how I feel.
I did manage to get the CFR snowboard rack all mounted up on the sled, so sooner or later....
I've missed a couple good powder days at nearby resorts for sure, plus numerous sled days too - it did get me thinking though:
2 years, 11 days of heli, 9 days of cat, and 1 mountain sled (with truck deck and racking) and I've spent around 30K.
Last year I found this lifetime unlimited snowcat pass for 30K The price is now up to 50K, but that's still a fairly good deal - assuming you could take 4 months off work, live in Whistler and ride every day.
There's supposed to be a big storm is coming in and I'm going to Castle this Friday regardless how I feel.
I did manage to get the CFR snowboard rack all mounted up on the sled, so sooner or later....
Through the biglines forum, I found an opening with an advanced group of skiers from Colorado for 4 days at White Grizzly. If you've read my previous rants, you'll know that group skill/conditioning is paramount in my opinion. Looking forward to this one as they all know each other and are insistent on their skills. They'd better be, or I'll pull a Bertuzzi.... j/k kidding Mike!
This brings my cat/heli days for this winter up to 10 - 2 at Valhalla, 4 at White Grizzly and 4 at Mica Heli. All conveniently about a month apart. Just a few days short of the number I had last year. The Mica group includes a pro snowboarder from Italy and a "competitive" triathlete. Whatever that means. When I booked I told them I was completely flexible on schedule, but wanted to be put with a capable expert group.
I finally bit the bullet and ordered up a Prior Khbyer split board too - in a 160 flavour with the airforce graphics (surprise, surprise) Now to see if I can find some people to split with?
Got the phone call that my snowboard racking is in from CFR, so I'll need to get that installed before the weekend. There's some snow in the forecast, so I want to be ready to go if mother nature cooperates.
Stumbled across this cat/heli auction site last week from a link from HeliCat, so it must be legit, but just not up and running yet? Maybe there'll be some deals to be had?
Guess I'm not the only one who wanted a data logging altimeter/heart rate monitor? Pricing is a bit steep at about $600 Cdn, but it seems like a very capable unit. I spent a lot more than that on a watch just because it could display local and Zulu time concurrently (pilot toys, eh?), so keep an eye out for a review on the suunto shortly. I think there should be some good information to extract that'll help with training.
Also found this article from the wire in the local newspaper - there's been talk of a trip to Powder King this year since Peter G. moved to Prince George. Supposed to be legendary, but it's a hell of a drive. Anyhow, the article is proof that you should be prepared before you venture in the backcountry. How many of you have a fire source with you if you're not smokers? Go add some waterproof matches to your pack right now! A $600 watch with a compass wouldn't hurt either....
This brings my cat/heli days for this winter up to 10 - 2 at Valhalla, 4 at White Grizzly and 4 at Mica Heli. All conveniently about a month apart. Just a few days short of the number I had last year. The Mica group includes a pro snowboarder from Italy and a "competitive" triathlete. Whatever that means. When I booked I told them I was completely flexible on schedule, but wanted to be put with a capable expert group.
I finally bit the bullet and ordered up a Prior Khbyer split board too - in a 160 flavour with the airforce graphics (surprise, surprise) Now to see if I can find some people to split with?
Got the phone call that my snowboard racking is in from CFR, so I'll need to get that installed before the weekend. There's some snow in the forecast, so I want to be ready to go if mother nature cooperates.
Stumbled across this cat/heli auction site last week from a link from HeliCat, so it must be legit, but just not up and running yet? Maybe there'll be some deals to be had?
Guess I'm not the only one who wanted a data logging altimeter/heart rate monitor? Pricing is a bit steep at about $600 Cdn, but it seems like a very capable unit. I spent a lot more than that on a watch just because it could display local and Zulu time concurrently (pilot toys, eh?), so keep an eye out for a review on the suunto shortly. I think there should be some good information to extract that'll help with training.
Also found this article from the wire in the local newspaper - there's been talk of a trip to Powder King this year since Peter G. moved to Prince George. Supposed to be legendary, but it's a hell of a drive. Anyhow, the article is proof that you should be prepared before you venture in the backcountry. How many of you have a fire source with you if you're not smokers? Go add some waterproof matches to your pack right now! A $600 watch with a compass wouldn't hurt either....
Since I have a grand total of 1 day of mountain sled experience, I wanted to get out a ride some without worrying about doubling or snowboarding. I hooked up with some locals at the sled shop and we ended up going to a place called "mariahs" which is about 30 miles west of Browning, MT near Glacier National park. There wasn't a lot of snow as it's still pretty early in the year, but not too bad overall.
A short video, showing the parking area, the trail ride up, some high mark action and my only snowboard turns of the day... which I had to hike for!
It was another learning experience to say the least. The nice thing was having experienced sledders along for pointers. Having someone else to help dig out the sled when you get stuck for being dumb helps too.
I did learn that sledders and snowboarder/skiers are looking for different types of mountain terrain. I was very grateful for the help and I still have lots more to learn, but at some point I'll need to set off on my own to find suitable terrain. The sledders seem to like bowls. No trees or cliffs, pin it, climb as high as you can, then turn around and come back down. One of the sledders suggested doubling up then hopping off at the turn and snowboarding back down. Um, no thanks. Not what I'm looking for. The more agressive sledders will repeat this same theme in areas with trees and other types of exposure. Certainly more interesting to ride down as a snowboarder, but I'm not wanting to climb that type of stuff with my sled. I quickly learned that my sled couldn't climb that with me going solo, let alone doubling someone. I'd need a crazy 300HP turbo Yamaha like Ryan had and the balls to drive it.
Suffice to say, the terrain can still be a bowl, but it needs to be a bowl with a ridge or shallow type of terrain that can be climbed, followed by steeper more interesting stuff to ride down. Basically the same configuration as a cat ski operation. This is going to take some exploring and once I have a few days of riding in the local area, I'm going to take a flight and scope out suitable terrain from the air.
A short video, showing the parking area, the trail ride up, some high mark action and my only snowboard turns of the day... which I had to hike for!
It was another learning experience to say the least. The nice thing was having experienced sledders along for pointers. Having someone else to help dig out the sled when you get stuck for being dumb helps too.
I did learn that sledders and snowboarder/skiers are looking for different types of mountain terrain. I was very grateful for the help and I still have lots more to learn, but at some point I'll need to set off on my own to find suitable terrain. The sledders seem to like bowls. No trees or cliffs, pin it, climb as high as you can, then turn around and come back down. One of the sledders suggested doubling up then hopping off at the turn and snowboarding back down. Um, no thanks. Not what I'm looking for. The more agressive sledders will repeat this same theme in areas with trees and other types of exposure. Certainly more interesting to ride down as a snowboarder, but I'm not wanting to climb that type of stuff with my sled. I quickly learned that my sled couldn't climb that with me going solo, let alone doubling someone. I'd need a crazy 300HP turbo Yamaha like Ryan had and the balls to drive it.
Suffice to say, the terrain can still be a bowl, but it needs to be a bowl with a ridge or shallow type of terrain that can be climbed, followed by steeper more interesting stuff to ride down. Basically the same configuration as a cat ski operation. This is going to take some exploring and once I have a few days of riding in the local area, I'm going to take a flight and scope out suitable terrain from the air.
Kristjan, Connor and I spent the night in Golden on Friday so that we could get an early start on Saturday. Based on the quoted opening times from the Kicking Horse site, we got there about 8:15 - supposedly 15 minutes before we could trade our Snowmax cards for lift tickets and 45 minutes before the lifts were to open.
Turns out we were late. There was already a line up for the ticket window (all 2 of them) and the gondola started running very shortly too. Stood in the ticket line for 20 to 30 minutes before an employee started manually punching the Snowmax cards. Meanwhile they couldn't even find Kristjan's card. Once we were ticketed up, it was only a 45 minute wait to grab a ride in the gondola. For some reason they had neither of their base chairs running. So the only way up was in the gondola. It's a very poor setup, but luckily the terrain and snow was amazing.
I didn't even take a camera as I wanted to test out the new camcorder/helmet cam setup. Overall I was fairly impressed with it and I'm sure the next few times will yield better results. The first person helmet cam perspective grows old pretty quick, so shooting more third person is my goal for next time out.
I've put together about 4 minutes of video. Nothing fancy at all - just trimmed out the junk, clipped the audio, inserted some tunes and it runs in chronological order.
Sunday night I went to see the new Warren Miller movie - Off the Grid. I'm not a big fan of their stuff, but the hype around here was the fact that they'd come to Castle last spring to film. Supposedly they liked it so much, they produced a 12 minute promo called the Secret Castle. I had high hopes. I should have known better.
From what I can figure out, Travel Alberta spent some money to bribe them into coming. Pretty normal, I'm sure most resorts do the same. The crew showed up, the weather tanked and the story goes that the pros went home. So they called on some local riders. I think the film crew probably went home too. Anyhow, there was some inbounds footage - pretty weak stuff, small airs, lame powder riding shots (it was late season), then the big hype was the first decent of Haig Mountain (which is where the new chair goes - but nowhere near the top where this was filmed from) Anyhow, they finally drop these 3 skiers and 1 boarder off on the top of Haig. They hype it up, 45 degree pitch, cliff bands, etc. etc. First guy down drops a 10-15 footer at the first cliff band, then finds a path to ride through the 2nd band, then that's it. One of the skiers drops a 30 to 40 footer at the bottom of the run, blows the landing, and they hype it up as being a 60 footer or something. Cue up some night footage with them doing freestyle tricks over a burning fire and it's a wrap?
I stuck around and watched the actual movie - the Secret Castle doesn't even seem like it was shot/edited by the Warren Miller folks as it had a whole different feel to it. Must have been a paid placement thing? The actual movie has 0% Castle content. It did have some good footage from Kicking Horse, Chatter Creek, Chugach Powder and Points North Heli though.
Turns out we were late. There was already a line up for the ticket window (all 2 of them) and the gondola started running very shortly too. Stood in the ticket line for 20 to 30 minutes before an employee started manually punching the Snowmax cards. Meanwhile they couldn't even find Kristjan's card. Once we were ticketed up, it was only a 45 minute wait to grab a ride in the gondola. For some reason they had neither of their base chairs running. So the only way up was in the gondola. It's a very poor setup, but luckily the terrain and snow was amazing.
I didn't even take a camera as I wanted to test out the new camcorder/helmet cam setup. Overall I was fairly impressed with it and I'm sure the next few times will yield better results. The first person helmet cam perspective grows old pretty quick, so shooting more third person is my goal for next time out.
I've put together about 4 minutes of video. Nothing fancy at all - just trimmed out the junk, clipped the audio, inserted some tunes and it runs in chronological order.
Sunday night I went to see the new Warren Miller movie - Off the Grid. I'm not a big fan of their stuff, but the hype around here was the fact that they'd come to Castle last spring to film. Supposedly they liked it so much, they produced a 12 minute promo called the Secret Castle. I had high hopes. I should have known better.
From what I can figure out, Travel Alberta spent some money to bribe them into coming. Pretty normal, I'm sure most resorts do the same. The crew showed up, the weather tanked and the story goes that the pros went home. So they called on some local riders. I think the film crew probably went home too. Anyhow, there was some inbounds footage - pretty weak stuff, small airs, lame powder riding shots (it was late season), then the big hype was the first decent of Haig Mountain (which is where the new chair goes - but nowhere near the top where this was filmed from) Anyhow, they finally drop these 3 skiers and 1 boarder off on the top of Haig. They hype it up, 45 degree pitch, cliff bands, etc. etc. First guy down drops a 10-15 footer at the first cliff band, then finds a path to ride through the 2nd band, then that's it. One of the skiers drops a 30 to 40 footer at the bottom of the run, blows the landing, and they hype it up as being a 60 footer or something. Cue up some night footage with them doing freestyle tricks over a burning fire and it's a wrap?
I stuck around and watched the actual movie - the Secret Castle doesn't even seem like it was shot/edited by the Warren Miller folks as it had a whole different feel to it. Must have been a paid placement thing? The actual movie has 0% Castle content. It did have some good footage from Kicking Horse, Chatter Creek, Chugach Powder and Points North Heli though.
So there's a law here that offroad vehicles (like sleds) require registration (license plate) and liability insurance. Collision and comprehensive (fire, theft, vandalism, etc) is optional, but a good idea. So I call to get some insurance... and the discussion goes something like this:
"oh we need your driving history".
Um, what? This is my first sled, I don't have a driving history.
"no, no your driving history for vehicles".
Um, what the hell for?
"So we can rate your insurance"
Um, ok, here you go.
"oooh, your accident disqualifies you from the group rate, but we have this other coverage available"
Um, what the hell does an accident in a car have to do with riding a sled?
"It's just how we rate the risk"
Um, yeah, ok, listen, I've flown airplanes for over 2 years now, haven't crashed once, perfect insurance record.
"Sir, what does that have to do with anything?"
About as much as my driving history in a car has to do with insuring a sled!
After a fair bit of me being an irate customer, we finally made some progress. $600 year with a $500 deductible. No doubt if I ever have to make a claim, they'll still find a way to fuck me over. I hate insurance companies. The good news is that the sled is legal and insured.
The bad news is that this won't be a sled weekend. Both Castle and Kicking Horse are opening up tomorrow. Kristjan, Connor and I are spending the night in Golden tonight and will hit up Kicking Horse first thing. Depending on conditions, we might do the same thing on Sunday too. Failing that I might head to Castle too.
I'm also going to take the new helmet cam setup along and give it a field test before my return/exchange window expires.
"oh we need your driving history".
Um, what? This is my first sled, I don't have a driving history.
"no, no your driving history for vehicles".
Um, what the hell for?
"So we can rate your insurance"
Um, ok, here you go.
"oooh, your accident disqualifies you from the group rate, but we have this other coverage available"
Um, what the hell does an accident in a car have to do with riding a sled?
"It's just how we rate the risk"
Um, yeah, ok, listen, I've flown airplanes for over 2 years now, haven't crashed once, perfect insurance record.
"Sir, what does that have to do with anything?"
About as much as my driving history in a car has to do with insuring a sled!
After a fair bit of me being an irate customer, we finally made some progress. $600 year with a $500 deductible. No doubt if I ever have to make a claim, they'll still find a way to fuck me over. I hate insurance companies. The good news is that the sled is legal and insured.
The bad news is that this won't be a sled weekend. Both Castle and Kicking Horse are opening up tomorrow. Kristjan, Connor and I are spending the night in Golden tonight and will hit up Kicking Horse first thing. Depending on conditions, we might do the same thing on Sunday too. Failing that I might head to Castle too.
I'm also going to take the new helmet cam setup along and give it a field test before my return/exchange window expires.
