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#1
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BC Selkirk Mountains trip report 3/21/05
A while ago I mentioned here that I was doing a BC Snowcat Snowboarding
trip. Here are the details- First of all, as you know the NW was taking a beating with little snowfall this winter. Snow was always forecast 7-10 days out, but never seemed to come. Well, sure enough before our trip the same forecast was there, but we lucked out and they got dumped on for several days...before and during our trip. It was great! We traveled from the states to Spokane and took a 3 hour shuttle to Nelson, BC which is a great town. I'd recommend this place for outdoor activities and nightlife all year long. It seems like there is always something going on here. Good bars, music, people, art, whatever. We boarded two local days at Whitewater Resort which was a blast. Fresh snow and no lines. I have never boarded such diverse terrain on a resort with only 2 chairlifts! We pretty much stayed on one of their lifts for 2 days and had a very wide array of groomers, trees, boulders, steeps, traverse-to, hike-to, you name it. The place really had a lot to offer including fantastic made to order food at cheap prices. But those were just warmup days. BTW, we planned on one day at Red Mountain but it was closed due to the poor snow season. Next we took a 4 day trip up to Baldface Lodge (www.baldface.net) and had an amazing time. Great guides, lodge, staff, terrain...you name it. The operation was very snowboard friendly. Fully stocked shop to wax/tune your own gear, drying room for all your wet gear at the end of each day, great meals, snacks, bar and hot tubs. Day one it snowed, hard, all day. They gave us a solid avalanche transceiver training followed by a full day of boarding. You run with 12 riders per cat and two guides. Baldface only has 2 cats, but is supposed to expand to 3 next year. Our cat had 9 people. My group of 5 plus 4 guys from Calgary. 6 boarders, 3 skiers (guides were on skis). Day two was a blue bird sunny day. Great for pictures and visibility. Day 3 and 4 were a mix of snow and sun. The snow was deep and the steeps had started to stabilize for us. All the runs were epic untracked powder, but the steep trees and open alpine terrain we hit on Day 4 were unbelievable. Wow. I had zero complaints. A few of the boarders who were not used to powder complained about some of the runouts at the bottoms of the runs. Since the snow was deep, if you couldn't keep your speed in the flats or fell a lot, you'd get pretty tired. By day 2 and 3 everyone had gotten used to it. Best suggestion I could give is a freshly waxed board and lots of practice in other trees before you get here. Get used to powder, get used to holding your speed and not falling on rolling flats. All in all, though, nobody minded since the tops of the runs were all fantastic. When there was a run-out, it was just to get back to the cat road. Again, most advanced riders wouldn't blink an eye at it. Great fun. Some sweet jumps all over the place. Big powder hits off logs and boulders. Some really BIG jumps that we didn't hit, but should have since the landings were so soft. In short, I took a lot of jumps and every one I hit I wished I would have hit harder. The landing were that friendly! Its tough to look for all the possibilities, though, since you get so entranced by all the powder. I'd recommend the town of Nelson and I'd highly recommend Baldface Lodge. This was the best snowboarding trip I've ever been on. Another cat operation, Valhalla, also runs day or extended trips out of Nelson. There are of course heli and many other operations to be found. Best research I found was an article in the Snowboard Journal last year. Here's a couple photos of me from day 2. We hit steeper runs and bigger airs but day 2 had Baldface's photographer Dave joining us for a few runs, and he took the best pictures of the trip; http://tinypic.com/2iucf4 http://tinypic.com/2iucgh We lucked out with fresh snow, but, they have so much terrain and so few riders, it sounds like they find fresh tracks weeks after a storm. Locals were grumbling about the conditions before we got there, however, when I looked in the guest book people were still writing accolades about the guide's abilities to find fresh tracks so long after fresh snow. So, assuming that there can't be a season worse than this year for the NW, I think you're fine with these guys any time you go. We lucked out and I don't think my board bottomed out once on the steeps...lots and lots of fresh powder. I left a lot out, so, if you have any specific questions, ask away. -todd |
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#2
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Nice! Thanks for the write-up.
"todd" wrote in message oups.com... A while ago I mentioned here that I was doing a BC Snowcat Snowboarding trip. Here are the details- First of all, as you know the NW was taking a beating with little snowfall this winter. Snow was always forecast 7-10 days out, but never seemed to come. Well, sure enough before our trip the same forecast was there, but we lucked out and they got dumped on for several days...before and during our trip. It was great! We traveled from the states to Spokane and took a 3 hour shuttle to Nelson, BC which is a great town. I'd recommend this place for outdoor activities and nightlife all year long. It seems like there is always something going on here. Good bars, music, people, art, whatever. We boarded two local days at Whitewater Resort which was a blast. Fresh snow and no lines. I have never boarded such diverse terrain on a resort with only 2 chairlifts! We pretty much stayed on one of their lifts for 2 days and had a very wide array of groomers, trees, boulders, steeps, traverse-to, hike-to, you name it. The place really had a lot to offer including fantastic made to order food at cheap prices. But those were just warmup days. BTW, we planned on one day at Red Mountain but it was closed due to the poor snow season. Next we took a 4 day trip up to Baldface Lodge (www.baldface.net) and had an amazing time. Great guides, lodge, staff, terrain...you name it. The operation was very snowboard friendly. Fully stocked shop to wax/tune your own gear, drying room for all your wet gear at the end of each day, great meals, snacks, bar and hot tubs. Day one it snowed, hard, all day. They gave us a solid avalanche transceiver training followed by a full day of boarding. You run with 12 riders per cat and two guides. Baldface only has 2 cats, but is supposed to expand to 3 next year. Our cat had 9 people. My group of 5 plus 4 guys from Calgary. 6 boarders, 3 skiers (guides were on skis). Day two was a blue bird sunny day. Great for pictures and visibility. Day 3 and 4 were a mix of snow and sun. The snow was deep and the steeps had started to stabilize for us. All the runs were epic untracked powder, but the steep trees and open alpine terrain we hit on Day 4 were unbelievable. Wow. I had zero complaints. A few of the boarders who were not used to powder complained about some of the runouts at the bottoms of the runs. Since the snow was deep, if you couldn't keep your speed in the flats or fell a lot, you'd get pretty tired. By day 2 and 3 everyone had gotten used to it. Best suggestion I could give is a freshly waxed board and lots of practice in other trees before you get here. Get used to powder, get used to holding your speed and not falling on rolling flats. All in all, though, nobody minded since the tops of the runs were all fantastic. When there was a run-out, it was just to get back to the cat road. Again, most advanced riders wouldn't blink an eye at it. Great fun. Some sweet jumps all over the place. Big powder hits off logs and boulders. Some really BIG jumps that we didn't hit, but should have since the landings were so soft. In short, I took a lot of jumps and every one I hit I wished I would have hit harder. The landing were that friendly! Its tough to look for all the possibilities, though, since you get so entranced by all the powder. I'd recommend the town of Nelson and I'd highly recommend Baldface Lodge. This was the best snowboarding trip I've ever been on. Another cat operation, Valhalla, also runs day or extended trips out of Nelson. There are of course heli and many other operations to be found. Best research I found was an article in the Snowboard Journal last year. Here's a couple photos of me from day 2. We hit steeper runs and bigger airs but day 2 had Baldface's photographer Dave joining us for a few runs, and he took the best pictures of the trip; http://tinypic.com/2iucf4 http://tinypic.com/2iucgh We lucked out with fresh snow, but, they have so much terrain and so few riders, it sounds like they find fresh tracks weeks after a storm. Locals were grumbling about the conditions before we got there, however, when I looked in the guest book people were still writing accolades about the guide's abilities to find fresh tracks so long after fresh snow. So, assuming that there can't be a season worse than this year for the NW, I think you're fine with these guys any time you go. We lucked out and I don't think my board bottomed out once on the steeps...lots and lots of fresh powder. I left a lot out, so, if you have any specific questions, ask away. -todd |
#3
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todd wrote:
A while ago I mentioned here that I was doing a BC Snowcat Snowboarding trip. Here are the details- Thank you for the report and photos. That's what I want to do, but I want some powder experience first, which I cannot get locally. Hopefully that will happen in a couple of days when I'm in CO. Dean |
#4
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Dean wrote:
Thank you for the report and photos. That's what I want to do but I want some powder experience first, which I cannot get locally. Hopefully that will happen in a couple of days when I'm in CO. Dean Glad it was helpful. Going to CO? You'll find powder! Just head into the trees.... Or Vail's back bowls after 11:00 when they soften up. Or anytime if you luck into fresh snow! Have a great trip, -todd |
#5
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Todd
What pitch were the steeps that you were riding? Also was it all open faces and stuff, or did you have chutes and cliffs to navigate around? - Dave. -- The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky. http://www.vpas.org/ - Snowboarding the worlds pow pow - Securing your e-mail The Snowboard FAQ lives here - http://rssFAQ.org/ |
#6
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Switters wrote:
Todd What pitch were the steeps that you were riding? Also was it all open faces and stuff, or did you have chutes and cliffs to navigate around? - Dave. Dave, ...don't have the actual angles. The average pitch was as shown in the first picture I posted (with mountains in background). The tops of some runs were steeper than that when we dropped in. The last day at least half the runs were steep enough to probably cause half the group to side slip a bit before committing. We had a couple runs in particular where the guides cautioned that some may want to sit this one out. One was a steep treed run called "Confirmation" that was allegedly Craig Kelly's favorite. The other was an open alpine (avove the tree line) run that was just fantastic...several hundred yards of open terrain before hitting avalanche thinned trees. We would hit more open fields towards the bottom of runs than we did near the tops. There seemed to be a good bit of open terrain around that I think we were kept off of due to avalanche risk. Didn't hit them the day it was snowing, and if other groups reported cracks, settlings, or poor snow profiles, we would avoid similar slopes. I certainly saw many open faces from the ridge lines that we could have hit conditions permitting. There would be some cliffs to navigate around. Didn't see any chutes in our drive-to terrain, but did see some easily reachable by hike-to (up the ridge line from where the cat drops you off). Regarding the cliffs, since it was guided skiing, the guides would warn us when to stay near their tracks vs. other times when we could branch farther out. I got the feeling that because it took some of our cat a while to adjust they toned down some of the extreme runs a bit. That is one downside of the cat skiing - unless you fill up the cat with you and 11 other crazies, you are somewhat limited to the guides assessment of everyone's abilities. But as I noted they do caution people when to sit one out and there were some great "jump off into powder cliffs" we'd pass that they hit on other days. I didn't finish a single run without a smile on my face. -todd |
#7
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On Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:17:52 GMT, "todd" allegedly
wrote: I didn't finish a single run without a smile on my face. Can't ask for more than that! Thanks for the extra info, it sounds good. - Dave. -- The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky. http://www.vpas.org/ - Snowboarding the worlds pow pow - Securing your e-mail The Snowboard FAQ lives here - http://rssFAQ.org/ |
#8
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Switters wrote:
On Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:17:52 GMT, "todd" allegedly wrote: I didn't finish a single run without a smile on my face. Can't ask for more than that! Thanks for the extra info, it sounds good. Except for the part where I wasn't there. Sounds like you had a great time, Todd. Neil |
#9
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FYI - Snowboarder magazine article from the week after our trip (same
lodge); http://snowboardermag.com/columns/baldface/ |
#10
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been there four times, missed this year (did a heli in valdez instead).
i will make it next season for sure. the first year i went we had to travel by water then up by truck, no lodge then. i was fortunate to meet and ride will Kelly that year. it is a great place. love confirmation and cheeky monkey. paula and jeff are the best. |
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