Spent the 22nd and 24th up at Castle, left the split at home and rode the lifts. Red chair was closed on the 22nd due to 135 km/h winds. Had almost 50cm new in the past 48. Enjoyed some great tree powder on the lower slopes. Had to push a bit of bush at the bottom, but it was worth it. Came up again on the 24th to find the red chair open, just barely - wind was howling. A reported 15cm overnight again, but it was definitely more due to the wind deposits.

The 24th marked the 4th or 5th time I'd hauled the new SLR up with me. It was the first time that light conditions justified taking it out. With the fresh pow, no one wanted to waste time in the morning stopping for pics. Last couple runs, I did bring it out though. Learned that riding with a front pack is awkward, but doable, just have to scale down the aggressive riding a bit. Also learned that a 70-300 is really big lens. It's not the point and shoot one, so it'll take some planning. I think it'll be great for touring days when the pace is a bit slower. The high speed shutter is amazing - the million monkeys on a million typewriters theory holds - take lots of pictures and a few are bound to turn out great.

I was stoked to get a few turns in before the Chatter trip. Everyone is really excited to go - only a few more days!



And the full size version of shot #2. I'm usually smiling when riding powder, but here you can see the effort I'm putting into the slash....


Hope you all find a foot of fresh under the trees (or in them!)

They were only opening the Huckleberry chair on Haig Ridge, so why pay for a lift ticket to ride the crud? David and Adam got their splitboards last week, so we headed out early to get some turns. Geared up in the parking lot and skinned 1/2 way up the run when patrol stopped and chatted us up. You should really have a lift ticket for liability. Ok, sorry. Got our balls busted a bit out avi conditions, but I think that was a function of not having a lift ticket. (Avalanche.ca was reporting moderate up to the treeline and considerable in the alpine - 2 out of 5 and 3 out of 5 respectively.)

At the top of the chair we stopped and rested/chatted for a bit. Another patroller stopped by and was super intrigued with the splitboard. Gave him the quick demo. It's amazing how many snowboarders don't have a clue what they're all about.

Skinned up Haig Ridge a bit further, dug a pit, climbed a bit higher and strapped in. The rain crust was definitely weaker than it had been the week before. Being on a ridge, in the trees, with minimal load on top of the crust, we pushed on. Strapped in and gave the honors to David as it was his first time out on the splitty. Had some great turns on the way down, I'd say best snow of the season so far. The famous wind sift had worked it's magic again. Rode down the run and back to the parking lot.

It was a short day with only 1700 feet, but you can never complain about good snow and more touring partners! They both seemed really stoked on getting out more often. I was really impressed with the uphill pace too. Turns out Adam is a (part time) runner, so I may have found a partner in crime for the 24 hour race My schedule won't allow me to get there this year, but it's on the list for next winter. Just gives that much more time to train.....

The first time by yourself is something you'll always remember. It's been 3+ years since I flew solo, this past weekend, I decided to splitboard solo. Peter was enjoying a day of rest and I didn't know that my other touring partners had finally gotten their boards. Anyway, with visions of crossing the 10K goal off the list, I set the alarm for early. Didn't sleep very well as I kept going through the rain that had fallen during the week. If I was going to cross the goal off the list, I wanted it to be memorable. Hit the snooze button, then turned off the alarm and slept. Woke up, decided I could probably still easily squeeze out 5K and headed out to Castle. Probably should have stayed in bed, but the lungs and legs can always use the workout.

I left the sled at home and started from the parking lot. I steamed up to the top of Haig chair and chatted with a couple members of patrol. Turns out earlier in the week (pre-rain), they'd been blasting and had set off a huge avalanche that took out a lot of infrastructure up top. Rumors are now swirling as to whether they'll even be able to open that chair this season.

Chat over, I proceeded up what was left of the skin track that Peter and I had laid down last Sunday. In some places, I could have used crampons! The bottomless pow from last week had been replaced with a massive rain crust. This was lightly dusted in most places with 2 to 4 inches of fresh. In some places the wind had blown this away, but in others it was 8 to 10 inches deep. Made some interesting turns, sometimes ice, sometimes pow, you never knew until you committed and found myself at the top of the chair quite quickly.

Chatted up some folks who were making laps on the lower portion (full on ice - kudos to anyone earning their turns for that junk). Climbed again topping out a bit higher than the previous climb. Decided to ride fall line and took the long traverse back to the parking lot. Suunto said 3K. GPS said 4K (wtf? I brought along my Garmin GPS watch. It was buried in a pocket, and later said "signal poor", but that's a huge variance in altitude. It seems to have recorded the trail just fine - http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4579760) Briefly debated having lunch and making another lap for 5K vs going home. Went home. Felt strong, didn't have enough daylight for 10K, but could have easily done 5 or 6K.

Even with the shape I'm in, I'm starting to think that Greg Hill is superhuman. Sorta like those Kenyan runners. Some people are just genetically gifted. I'll never run a sub 7:00/mile marathon and I'll don't think I'll bang out Mr. Hill's 2,000 feet/hour skin pace either. Slow and steady though.

With a long time friend now living close by I finally have a reliable touring partner. We loaded up the sled and the split boards and headed to Castle. We weren't really too sure what to expect since they're not open yet and their snow reports are updated every day yet. Left home with blue bird in full effect, closer we got, the grayer it got. By the time we hit the parking lot, it was dumping. I'd lugged along the new Nikon D40 with a (relatively) big 70-300 lens. Snapped a couple quick shots in the parking lot and decided with the low vis there wasn't much point in hauling the extra weight up hill. Learned again that sledding isn't as easy as it looks. We didn't spend enough time looking for the cat track network to get us up to the top of Haig ridge, so we climbed as high as we could, parked the sled and set off splitting. Peter just picked up his split board late last season and hadn't gotten around to picking up poles yet. So we were sharing a set. Didn't suck as bad as it sounds, but it was still less than ideal.

It's still early season, but the higher we got, the deeper the snow got (obviously, eh?) Near the top of our climb (About 6,600 ft) we found the depth to be over 2 feet. This would normally have been tons of snow to ride on and would have made for some epic turns, however the heavy snowfall and low vis kept us to the trees on the way down. 2 feet was not enough to consistently cover the alders and dead fall. There were a few tumbles by the hand of the hidden snow snakes, but some amazing turns nonetheless. We stopped after single lap of about 1,200 feet climbed and headed home. Stoke was high, motivation for next time even higher.