Feb 06th 2010 Black Queen

Under sunny skies we toured up to the top of white queen by 10:00 AM and switched to ski mode and then worked our way out to the farthest point along the ridge and dropped in for a great fall line 2000' descent.

This aspect of Black Queen is a solid north aspect and heavily treed so the snow was still dry and was about 12cm on top of a very consolidated layer – so the skiing was not classified as "epic" but given that it has not snowed a significant amount in over THREE WEEKS. It was pretty good skiing with some great turns and some good powder stashes to be found. There were still slot of logs and boulders that made great pillow drops – more snow will cover these completely and make the skiing a bit safer.

At the bottom of 5mile drainage we switched over and climbed back up and skied out the east side of White Queen and found a 1cm sun crust in open areas and good powder snow in the trees.

Overall not a bad day but just now up to the usually Kootenay standards – hopefully this changes soon!

A cloud bank rolls in over 5 mile basin

Some good snow still on north aspects

Ymir peak in the background on a warm sunny day