The French Files, Part 1

Winter finally came to end for me kicking and screaming…it held on for dear life as long as I could let it (or as long as my cool work opportunities could let it!). The season came to a close with helping to administer the AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guides Exam. We ran this program in a new venue: Hatcher Pass and Girdwood Alaska. I would show you all the cool places we went, and fun videos of the candidates working hard and skiing really cool things, but 10 days of long hours and hard work led me to be the biggest bumbly ever on the plane flight home. I didn’t realize my pack was open under my seat on my first flight back from AK, but my camera, ipod and altimeter watch all fell out. Ouch, that is a huge loss, can you say take a match to $1000 dollars? Well, you can’t dwell on that stuff to long, its only money and material goods. Lucky for me, I have great jobs and am not in dire straights financially while I live my dreams. Really, LUCKY ME!

So I got ‘home’ to Squamish for about a day, and then had to go to some meetings for the Backcountry Lodge owners of British Columbia in Penticton, so I got to actually rock climb for a day in Skaha! So psyched to be on the rock again, even got to almost onsight an 11d on the first day, except the baby butt smooth and WET rock at the chains sent me for my first big whipper of the season! Good times.

We returned home to Squamish and basically packed for the next adventure. 5 weeks in France! Clipping bolts, drinking red wine, eating soft cheeses. Holiday!

We started our journey in the Gorges Du Tarn, an area in the Midi-Pyrennes in southern France. It seems that the Tarn is not quite on the radar for global/European tourists, but very much so for the French. No one really spoke a lick of English around there, and Jasmin was forced to open up the corners of her mind of grade school French, and did pretty well. We found a ‘gite’ or room for rent adjacent to someone’s house – very common here, and very practical. We had a small two story place, with a kitchenette, couch, bedroom, washroom, walking distance to everything in the small town of La Malene, all for 32€/night! We stayed in the gorges for 10 days getting hopelessly pumped as we opened up our climbing season.

The gorge is filled with small, old style towns, including monestaries and castles up to 1500 years old. Quite scenic with all the old places and architecture and very green. Trails everywhere for walking, and over 2000 climbing routes in the 3 small river valley’s of the region. What more could a climber want? It was also quite wet; we had rain every single day, but luck for us the rock dries fast and most cliffs are steep enough that they stay dry in all but the heaviest downpours. That is what else a climber could want!

The limestone of the gorges is all a bit overhanging and extremely pocketed. It tends to be sharp, so our skin, baby soft from ski gloves, took a beating. But the 25-30m overhanging routes whipped us into shape pretty quick, and by the end of our stay I had already sent a slew of 5.12s, so the head was back in it. Good thing, because the next leg of our journey has taken us to the classic Verdon Gorge, for some committing 1000’ foot long multi pitch old school style routes…but more about that next time. Enjoy some photos from the first part of our trip.

The town of La Malene

Jasmin climbs 'C-100 Francs'

Guide's Course Video Wrap-up

Okay, all I have time for is to post the link for this video I just made of the AMGA course I taught last week. Enjoy!



Now I gotta get set for a few more days of ski touring in the Chugach, based out of Valdez.

The Final Stretch

The 10 day ski mountaineering guide course actually culminates with a 3 day mini-exam, so that candidates are then tested and certified to an assistant guide level. Over these 3 days, we take a close look at how they perform in 9 different areas:

1. Risk Management
2. Client care
3. Technical Systems
4. Application
5. Terrain Assessment
6. Movement Skills
7. Mountain Sense
8. Professionalism
9. Instructional Technique

As examiners, we give the candidates an objective, and then they make the appropriate plans to try and accomplish that objective. For these 3 days we based ourselves out of Keith's Hut in the Cerise Creek drainage off of the Duffy Lake Highway. If you haven't been to the Duffy, you are missing out. Basically, it is like the Rogers Pass of the Coast Range. Road side access to 5,000 vertical feet of relief, with chutes, glaciers, summits and pillow lines every where you look. Typically, it has a deep coastal snowpack as well. We never got any of our 3m + probes to hit the ground once at and above treeline. I was speculating that up high on the glaciers, the snowpack was at least 4 meters deep.

The first day's objective was to tour in to Keith's Hut, get settled and then take us on a quick powder skiing tour near the hut.

Day two was to try and summit Mt Matier and ski the Anniversary Glacier and some other smaller summits in the area.

Day three was to ski the Twin One glacier and ski out from the Hut.

Here are a few photos of the days to give you an idea of what we were up to. Right now I am trying to edit a video that will showcase what the candidates do during these exams.

Touring for Powder below Joffree Peak

Can you find the skiers? White out turns on the Anniversary Glacier

Danny shows us his Alpine Guide rope coiling prowess

White out peak scrambling. Rime doesn't ski so well, let's leave the skis behind for the summit of Hartzell.

Touring below the west buttress of Mt. Matier

Matt thinks another day might be appropriate for the NW face of Matier.

The first group makes its way to the Anniversary Glacier

Danny trying not to lose it with another night of tour plans.

Burning the Candle from Both Ends

Sometimes that is what the guide certification process is about. The alarm goes off at 5:45 am, coffee maker is turned on, weather is checked, bag is packed, lunch made, thermos filled. Skins? Check. Ski boots? Check. Gloves, hat, goggles, sunglasses, warm hat, gore-tex....check check check. And then the candidates show up at my house at 6:55am for the morning guide's meeting and briefing. We discuss the overnight changes in the weather and snowpack, the anticipated hazards associated with our day, and then review our plans. We pile out of the house and head up to the hills for more ski touring fun.

That is how every day has started for me lately, and they haven't been finishing until around 7pm at night, when the tours are done, the candidates debriefed, weather and snowpack discussed and plans finalized for tomorrow. Then its dry out my gear, unpack, eat dinner and go to sleep. Repeat the whole process the next day.

But we have fun out there everyday, because after all it is ski touring/mountaineering, and we are climbing peaks and skiing mostly powder. This week has been a blitzkreig of spring storms, that are seeming more like December than April. Low freezing levels on the coast of BC, has resulted in over 120cms of cold smoke at Whistler this week. It just doesn't stop...which isn't necessarily that great if you want to do some ski mountaineering! The last few days have been spent going over short roping and glacier travel, and attempted ski of Cayoosh on the Duffey Lake Road, tree skiing on Chief Pascale on the Duffy, and some more touring in the Blackcomb Backcountry.

Here are some shots to give you some visuals of what we have been doing this week.

Snowpack evaluation on Chief Pascale

Short Roping up Disease Ridge at Blackcomb

Disease Ridge

More Disease Ridge

Coming around to Blackcomb Peak

The Ringer

Well, it's not quite like going through the ringer, but some folks might say that going through your training and examinations to becoming a certified guide is a tough (both physically and mentally) endeavor. Right now I am in the middle of teaching the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) Ski Mountaineering Guides Course based near Whistler, British Columbia. This program entails candidates learning and showing proficiency in various ski guiding techniques, including, but not limited to, snowpack assessment, crevasse rescue, skinning, short roping, downhill guiding...you get the point, a wide variety of backcountry skiing skills. It takes years of personal experience and prerequisite course work such as avalanche training and wilderness first aid, to even get accepted to the program.

I have gone through the ringer. I have done all of my trainings and became certified in Alpine, Rock and Ski guiding, and it took me quite a few years to do so. On average, it takes most candidates tens of thousands of dollars to put them selves through the program and about 3 to 5 years to complete the entire certification process. In the end, it kind of adds up to a PhD in mountain travel. So if you ever wonder why you should hire a certified guide, it is because someone has put them through the ringer and checked to see if they have what it takes to travel with people safely in the mountains.

We have just finished the first few days of the program, and it was greeted by about 80cm of fresh snow in the Whistler region. Wet and wild to say the least. The first two days were in heavy snow and concentrated on technical skills, and not so much skiing and touring.

Day 1's first objective was avalanche beacon tests to see if candidates could find and extract 3 avalanche beacons buried about a meter deep in under 7 minutes. The second test was the construction of rescue sleds and subsequent lowering of a victim down a few sections of steep slopes.

Day 2 focused on crevasse rescue techniques.

Day 3 (today) was about getting out and touring and some rope work on steep technical ascents as well as guiding a few technical descents.

Here are some shots...I have to go to sleep to wake up and do it all again tomorrow! Everyday we meet at 7 am and our end of the day meetings have been finishing at 7pm...and then the students have to go do their homework assignments!

Find that beacon! Probing for a buried target.


Pete Keane bringing us up through rock steps on Blackcomb Peak


Rob Hess tells us how to guide between bites of PB & J on the summit of Blackcomb


Candidates lead us up through some glaciated alpine terrain on Decker Mt.


Ski descent of the 9th Hole on Decker. Can you say 40 degree blower pow?

Deep powder week

Well, it has been the driest winter in about 20 years, so 'they' say. Despite that, every single group that has been here this season (VMT) has skied untracked powder, I am not making that up. Sometimes it was settled out, and at the end of the day a bit moist, but there was always a place for every guest to get some untracked. 2 weeks ago was the deluge that my soul needed. 80cms in 6 days, and 4 of those days were the standard, ultra-light, champagne, make UT snow look heavy kind of days. Here is a link to a video from the group that came in that week.

Enjoy!

http://gallery.me.com/seanstaniforth#100081

Helmet Cam

Ok, finally got a helmet cam, but now my computer is too slow to deal with some HD video...you know what will be next then!

But for now here is a rough little vid to get you psyched on skiing powder again. We had a strong cold front blow through on Sunday night into Monday, and it dropped 30 to 40cms of good old fashioned Kootenay Cold Smoke.

Enjoy