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BC Selkirk Mountains trip report 3/21/05



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 31st 05, 04:02 PM
todd
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Default 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

Ads
  #2  
Old March 31st 05, 04:51 PM
Chris J.
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Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old March 31st 05, 10:09 PM
Dean
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Default

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  
Old April 1st 05, 01:42 AM
todd
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Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old April 1st 05, 11:43 AM
Switters
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Default

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  
Old April 1st 05, 01:17 PM
todd
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Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old April 4th 05, 08:30 AM
Switters
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Default

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  
Old April 4th 05, 02:15 PM
Neil Gendzwill
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Default

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  
Old April 12th 05, 04:03 PM
todd
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Default

FYI - Snowboarder magazine article from the week after our trip (same
lodge);

http://snowboardermag.com/columns/baldface/

  #10  
Old April 13th 05, 12:15 AM
bud
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Default

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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