So this is the view of Squamish from the trail up Paul Ridge. The snow was a few days old, but it had been cold so it stayed nice and fluffy, which is rare around here. The weather forecast on the Canadian Avalanche Association bulletin had called for the mercury to ``gather itself in a ball at the bottom of the thermometer and sulk as temperatures reach a high of -20°.'' But we figured we were all hard-core like and could handle the cold.
And cold it most certainly was. We left Vancouver by the dawn's early light at 7:15, and wer skiing by 9:15. This is maybe 30 minutes into the ski, and the beard is already starting to frost over. But more on that later...
My brother Oliver did cross-country ski racing at McGill. Here he's demonstrating the classic diagonal stride in heavy tele gear. Uphill. Go, Oliver!
Ross is my Australian roommate. He was curious about this whole cold weather thing. He also now is the proud owner of a digital camera, which spurred me to finally get my act together and throw a web page together again.
We dug a snow pit to 5-6 feet, which was about half-way to ground. This spot was in the shade, and facing the same way we skied. It looked absolutely bomber, with steadily increasing hardness all the way down, and not a layer in sight. This is me doing the shovel test. The column crumbled on a series of increasing loads, but there were no fracture layers that I could find. We also did a Rutchblock, but other than surface sluff, I could not get it to fail, at all. Then we skied 100 yards over, and there was another guy digging a pit on the sunnier side of the ridge, and getting all sorts of layers and buried hoar, and easy releases 30cm down. So we went back to ski the shady side of the ridge.
So this is me tele-ing down the ridge. I distinctly remember feeling the plume hit my chin at one point, but even in these photos it looks pretty impressive :)
And this is Oliver shredding the same slope. He had heard that to ski powder, you have to lean back
Way back
OK, not quite that far back...
Oliver's photo page has pictures of me wiping out in spectacular fashion, just to balance things out :)
Ross was quite impressed with the beard icicles. This is about half-way through the day, before our second run down the ridge. I have no idea why hats always end up turning until they are almost sideways on me. I must be screwed up in the head, or something.
Nice moonrise behind us as we start skiing out.
Ross wasn't sure if the light was getting yellow at the end of the day, or if it was just his goggles.
As I said, Ross was quite impressed by the beard icicles. The ski out in the fading light seems to have gotten some nice cheek hoar going on, too.