Backcountry tour

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We had no ski school last week as it was US Presidents Week (traditionally pretty busy in Whistler). Instead the various groups had avalanche and first aid training. Obviously we had our AST1 course first over the weekend so it was a fairly quiet week for me with just 2 days of first aid on Wednesday and Thursday and a leisurely ski on Tuesday to keep my hand in. Despite some pretty disgusting photos of burns, spider bites and injuries caused at the Pamplona Bull Running, the first aid course was really good and I'm now qualified to administer CPR to adults, children and infants...

Come Friday evening we all trekked over to Lyndsay's garage to pick up the gear we'd need for the weekend. Just a small matter of touring skis, skins, rucksack, share of tent (although Kerry and I cheated and got Jack to be a hero and take the whole thing for the three of us), sleeping bag and mat, fuel, share of communal food, mug, bowl, utensils, shovel, probe and transceiver... and that's before packing our personal gear, lunches and water! All in all the pack was probably less than 20kg but it certainly throws your balance out when you get on your skis.

Saturday was another early start - 8am meet at the bottom of the Whistler Gondola in preparation for heading out of bounds. Unfortunately things didn't go quite according to plan as Dan found out that his binding wouldn't adjust large enough to fit his boot. Not entirely surprising as he'd ended up with a pair of women's skis despite being well over 6ft with feet to match... I guess that's what happens when you get drunk and turn up late to the handout and have to take the equipment that's left! Anyway, having already swapped skis with Matt the night before (who had found himself with very pretty pair of black and gold women's K2 Phat Luvs!) I generously offered to swap (a decision that would haunt me later)... But to no avail - still too small. So Paul (Alltracks owner) had to run home and collect his touring skis to lend to Dan. Rather him than me, knowing what he gets up to on the slopes!

Finally we set off and loaded up on the gondola. Normally each car takes 8 people but we had to limit ourselves to 4 in order to fit the baggage in! Cue lots of comments from the day skiers about how we didn't need to pack the whole house, that we were planning a big picnic, etc, etc. A theme that would repeat itself all the time we were inside the ski area boundary... But it was a beautiful day so I couldn't get too annoyed with them. After all, they'd be on busy slopes with the rest of the general public all day 😊

Skiing with the pack on was interesting, but not impossible once we worked out where our new centre of mass was. So a short ski down to the bottom of the Peak Chair, up to the top and ski down a fairly easy green towards Symphony Bowl. To get a bit of extra practice in before leaving the ski area, our group (the "leisurely" group, consisting of me, Kerry, Maria, Chris, Matt and James) opted to go for another run down a bit of piste so we headed to Symphony Chair. Of course the ulterior motive was to avoid a bit of trekking uphill and to let the fast group ahead of us to break trail and make camp 😉 That didn't work too well as we still got to the start of the uphill section before them! So we took our time putting the skins on the skis and switching to "touring" setting (where the heel of the binding can lift up to make walking easier), filling water bottles from (not yellow) snow, taking on some calories and taking off some clothes... The macho group were by this time ahead of us on the track up to Flute Summit so off we set. It was actually surprisingly easy to trek uphill with the equipment we had, rather than the hard slog of last weekend. And with the sun shining and the beautiful view I really enjoyed myself. I even got to the top ahead of most of our group, lending weight to my illness excuse of last week!

Once at the top we ducked the rope and ventured outside the ski area boundary... This is the point at which ski patrol will charge for rescue, it's less accessible for them so not as easy and of course it's not pisted. Having not had snow for a good few weeks, the first bit of the ski down into the bowl was quite tracked out, but still challenging for someone who's not used to off piste and who's carrying a 20kg backpack, i.e. me... And apparently the other two girls as we all managed to fall over on our first turn in the powder! Most amusing trying to get up again in soft snow with the backpack - rather like a tortoise must feel when upended. It was a pretty gentle slope though so we got the hang of it and got to the place we were to camp for the night in time for lunch.

After getting some more much needed calories on board, we set about putting tents up and organising our campsite. Even though I really wanted to sleep in some kind of igloo/snow cave, I still had to have a back-up plan in case it wasn't possible so helped Kerry and Jack put up the tent. One of our guides, Alex, headed off to dig the "toilet", whilst another, Jen, started melting snow on the stove to fill water bottles. Two of the biggest challenges at this point were to stay well hydrated and to eat enough to stay warm, even though it was only about minus 5 degrees.

The afternoon's activities were varied. Those with too much energy went on a long trek to ski into Oboe Bowl on the other side of the ridge we camped below (the shoulder between Flute and Oboe Bowls). Those with slightly less energy went up the hill at the back of our camp to either build a kicker or put in a few leisurely turns. And those of us who wanted to avoid sleeping in tents set about building a snow cave 😊 Which ended up being just Chris and me. Jen gave us some advice on how to construct our home for the night, given the thickness of the snowpack and the type of snow around (not very thick and not very strong) and then left us to start digging! First off we had to find a suitable spot so off we trekked with our probes to find an area with sufficiently thick snow to give us the right building conditions. Not the easiest task - we tried about half a dozen sites before hitting the right spot, which happened to be the other side of the kitchen and trees to the rest of the camp. We marked out the blueprint with ski poles, skis and probes and set to work. Three hours later and we had our masterpiece... a trench 3m long by about 1m wide and nearly 2m deep, with 2 alcoves set about 50cm above the bottom of the trench (to allow the cold air to sink away from where we were to sleep). Of course I'd merrily dug myself into the snow with little thought about how I'd get out - thankfully Chris had had the foresight to build a staircase at his end!

By the time we finished digging the other groups were heading back into camp so the tourists started arriving to take a look. The common question was whether we were seriously intending to sleep there... well of course! We hadn't spent 3 hours digging a hole for nothing. And apparently it was going to be warmer there than in a tent as the snow temperature is just below freezing rather than the air temperature which was to be lower still. A theory to be tested. Obviously our labours had inspired others to get digging so when we headed into the main camp there was a dinner table all ready for 19 of us to sit around. Not the most symmetrical of designs but it did the job if anyone actually wanted to sit on the snow for any length of time! As the sun set, our guides started on "dinner". I use the term loosely - this was hardly haute cuisine. Pringles, fig rolls and cream cheese on tortillas as appetizers, followed by a variety of freeze dried meals in foil pouches to which one only needed to add water and hug them for 15 minutes. I had some kind of Thai beef thing. It was edible but I wouldn't rush to buy more! Dessert was 2-bite chocolate brownies and hot chocolate/coffee. The hot chocolate was definitely a favourite... until Tim, the third of our guides, mistakenly topped up the pot with a sachet of tomato soup rather than the normal ingredient. Ugh!

So. Dinner over, stars are out... and it's only 6.30pm! Now what? Well, there's not a huge amount to do in the middle of a snowy valley once it gets dark. We stood around chatting for a bit, drank a bit of whisky (the poles were a definite hit - thanks T.com!), laughed at Dan's attempt at a snow cave (more like a snow tunnel) before the boys caved it in, and sat around telling bad jokes. Sometime during the evening Kerry and I decided we'd have to brave the toilet facilities. Off we set across the snow, headlamps on, following the skin tracks that promised to take us to the appropriately marked tree... Partway down the trail was the shovel that signified "vacant" so Kerry took that and set off further into the trees. Then a scream. She'd managed to fall into a tree well! For those of you unfamiliar with tree wells, they're remarkably difficult to extract oneself from. It's basically an area of very soft snow surrounding the tree trunk, but looks just like the firmer snow further away. A bit like quicksand in that the more you struggle, the deeper you dig yourself. Anyway, I move to try to help her out, only to fall into one myself, right up to my hip. Oops. Thankfully only my right leg was buried and I escaped eventually, as did Kerry. Not a hazard one normally associates with having a pee.

By 9.30pm people had started to get themselves into sleeping bags to keep warm so Chris and I headed to our abode. Much hilarity ensued as we tried to get ourselves into sleeping bags and then into the alcoves and on top of the therma-rest mats. When we built the place, we'd hit a very convenient weak layer which formed the base of our sleeping alcoves (the famous December 6th layer!). It had seemed to be pretty level but apparently not! My alcove sloped slightly towards the back wall which wasn't too bad (although I had a minor claustrophobic moment during the night when I woke to find my nose millimetres from the ice), but Chris was on the opposite side so kept trying to slide out and onto the floor 😊 So some minor repairs were needed to flatten down the platform - more amusement value as he didn't bother getting out of his sleeping bag to do this, so ended up resembling a rather energetic slug stuffed into an ice wall!

Sleep finally came, although I was distracted for a while by the view of the stars from our "ceiling window" - amazing how many there are once you're away from light pollution. I have to say that it wasn't the most comfortable night I've ever had. It wasn't so much the cold (I was actually reasonably warm) but the lack of space to move around - any slight movement meant that I wasn't entirely on top of the therma-rest and so got a cold knee/elbow/foot/etc. From speaking to the others on Sunday morning I don't think those in tents fared any better, and Chris and I certainly had a more unique experience so worth all the hard work! We worked out on Sunday night that we must have shifted about a ton of snow between us...

Sunday morning dawns and Jen sounds the wake-up call (i.e. leans into the trench and shouts at us!). Yet more fun and games getting out of the alcoves - Chris went for the direct approach and simply rolled out, launching himself onto the floor, still tucked up in sleeping bag. I learnt from his mistake and saved my knees! Breakfast was oatmeal and more hot chocolate (not tainted this time), then more skiing for those who wanted to do it, or a fairly lazy morning around camp. Of course, having dug an enormous hole in the snow, we had to then fill it in again 😞 It wasn't so much to prevent someone falling in, rather to stop them trying to use it. The structure is only stable for a couple of days and there would be no way for anyone to tell when it was built and therefore how safe it was.

Come lunchtime, the snow started to fall... slowly at first but getting more and more blizzard-like. As we got ourselves ready to start the trek, Callum discovered that one of his bindings had broken. Callum being Callum, he was all for calling in a helicopter to pick him up! Our guides were less keen... so they managed to attach his boot to his binding with some kind of cable tie to allow him to trek to the top and back into the ski area, where he'd be picked up on a snowmobile to take him down again. Once again the trek up wasn't too bad, even in the blizzard, but then we reached the top and prepared to ski down... Which is where I stopped enjoying myself.

To cut a long story short, I had to ski down with pack on through chopped up soft snow on fairly steep terrain without being able to see where I was going. Once at the bottom of Symphony Bowl we had to go through a tree run (not something I find easy on my own skis with no pack). I hit a bump and my binding decided to go "touring" on me, firing me out of the front of the ski whereupon I landed full weight on my knee on the ski (I should have kept the K2s after all...). At this precise moment, Alison skied by having been on her avalanche course! Probably only the fourth time I've seen her since she got here and she picks the moment of my sense of humour failure 😞 More skiing on piste in complete white-out conditions when I didn't know which way was up, let alone where my weight should be on my ski. Basically a very long and exhausting slog to get home. Callum and I are still arguing about who had the more horrible trip back - him with broken binding up then wild snowmobile ride down, or me off piste... I still say I'd take his version!

On balance I did enjoy the trip (well, right up to the ski down on Sunday!), but it probably would have been better to do after I'd had some more experience of off piste skiing. Would I do it again? Not sure - ask me when I've recovered some more!!

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Photos

Refilling water bottles
James and Kerry

Nearly there!
L-R: Maria, Chris and Kerry