You probably know this but 2nd to 3rd night
after the full moon is best for maximizing sun & moon light. Moon rises later and later as it leaves full. Get yourself a powerful headlamp, they're expensive but are way better than stumbling around with a Tikka or something of that nature. Have used a powerful biking headlamp (700 lumens) for years but it's getting old now (battery and weight), the technology has improved significantly. Petzl makes the Ultra Rush, it's hyper expensive though and now seems a bit dated but it is a Petzl, which equates to bomber! Get one with a long cord that allows you to stash the battery in your jacket pocket. Shizzle freezes on your head and batt performance will be significantly reduced.
Just discovered Fenix Lighting out the the USA. They are making some cool rigs, check out the latest rig
here. @ 1750 lumens!!! Overkill yes but anyway, it looks like it's on par with other high-end rigs (750 lumens at 4 hours burn time) and it's pretty darn cheap. MEC just got them in stock
here. Only $179.00 includes batts. I'm picking one up Kyle, I'll let you know how it performs. Pretty cool that it's using 18650 rechargeable batteries, unlike the biking and Petzl lamps which are super-duper proprietary and very expensive. Just picked up the Fenix (CL30R) lantern and am pretty stoked on it. It's 150 bones but so far its quality is showing well. Much better than the cheaper models out there, you get what you pay for.
Benefits of skiing at night:
- You'll have the whole place to yourself, wherever that may be.
- If you're after a gnarly line, it can be less scary cause you can't really see much, ha! Can kinda bite if you here a sluff coming down though and you can't see it, always entertaining.
- Helps to make you a good navigator. If you can safely navigate at night, you can navigate any situation. Good to have a GPS of course but also crucial to know how to use a map and compass. Often, the map is the #1 tool for keeping track of where you are in the big picture and of course, the GPS speeds up the locating process. Lots more to that topic but generally speaking here.
- There is nothing like ripping a killer line down the alpine with your friends under a full moon. Everyone should do it at least once in their lives!
- No sunscreen needed.
- Less water needed.
- Night skiing is good training for traversing. Often in the spring when most people are doing traverses, the sun is a big factor on where and when you can go or when you'll have to stop and wait. Teams are often shut down during the heat of the day. If you have night skills (which you'll need the practice to be able to do this safely) then you can plan your traverse to be ascending or descending certain slopes at night when things are frozen.
- Forces you to look, listen and feel the snow underfoot more. This seems a bit out there but it works. In daylight, we often focus on the surrounding features more, sometimes missing the crucial beta right at our feet.
- You'll have no problem parking cause the lot will be empty.
- Your beer won't get cooked by the sun!
- You won't have ski-mo racers yelling "Track!" to you while just going up Griz Shoulder, ha!
- There's more but I gotta run...more beer I mean...
-Douglas
