Whitewater Backcountry Conditions
The Backcountry Skiing Canada crew ventured out into the Whitewater backcountry the past three days starting on Friday Dec 13th through to Sunday Dec 15th covering a variety of routes and aspects. On Friday we awoke early for a pre-work ‘dawn patrol’ of Evening Ridge and found the snow to be fast and variable. Plenty of hazards existed ranging from alder, tree stumps, fallen trees, buried baby trees, creeks, holes and frozen ski and skin tracks. It was precipitating a nasty little mist that quickly placed a little zipper crust on everything but luckily it stopped before the crust could gain any real thickness and pose real problems.
The skiing was not great and I would give this route a few more weeks to fill in. It was not quite survival skiing but it certainly wasn’t that great either. Each turn had to be methodically calculated to avoid obstacles and keep your speed in check. There was little flow to the run and we opted to call it an early morning after just one lap.
Complete route info, maps and other stats can be found on our Suunto Moves Count page thanks to the Suunto Ambit 2 GPS technology. (It took some time to find a satellite so you will notice tracking does not start until a good ways up evening Ridge.)
Take two
On saturday we caught the mid morning Silver King Chair for a 900’ boost to make our skin up to the ridge that much easier, then we dropped into 5 mile. We descended Acidophilus which is a short shot that places you smack in the middle of 5 mile but we opted to end the run short at just 250 of skiing in order to keep our elevation for the climb back up 5 mile proper. Ascending 300m we stopped in some trees and skied back down one of the finger runs to valley bottom. Due to time constraints we skinned back up Acidophilus to the ridge where we began. After a short 10 min walk further up the ridge we switched over and skied down Goat Slide which would take us back to the boundary of Whitewater and into the lodge for some warmth and food.
Over all the skiing was good. There was 10cm on top of a consolidated wind slab but we didn’t see anything moving and it provided for fast skiing. If we could have had more visibility things would have been even better.
Have a closer look at the route and a heap of stats on our Suunto Moves Count page thanks to the Suunto Ambit 2 GPS technology.
Take three
On Sunday with a varied crew we once again headed into 5 mile for the same tri-factor that we skied the day before. This day the visibility was much worse but thankfully we had our tracks from the previous day to guide us. The snow report claimed 2 cm over night but thanks to the power of the winds over night snow transport had made it more like 5cm and in the trees it could have been even 10cm. The skiing was pretty darn good and coverage was excellent. So good was the skiing that we went back and did an extra 5 mile lap before calling it a morning and returning back to the Whitewater lodge by skinning up Acidophilus to the ridge.
If you are heading out into the Whitewater backcountry anytime soon, be aware of early season obstacles as the snow pack is still fairly shallow in places. 5 mile would be an ideal place to ski as the coverage is more than adequate should your skill set and avi conditions permit.
Enjoy.
