Catching up: Italy

Well, it seems like my last post about April skiing in the coast range, roger' pass and Alaska disappeared into the matrix somewhere. And as winter is SOOOO far away on the calendar (but not in weather here on the coast!) I am going to move on to some posts about Italy!

This year Jas and I decided that our European travel itch would be scratched in northern Italy. Rumors from our ex-pat mountain guide friends that live in Chamonix told tale of great food, quiet crags, steep limestone with tufas and rest days on the beach. Did I mention the great food and tufas? Well, we pulled the pin and made plans to visit Castelbianco, Italy, a small town just inland from Albenga, located between Monaco and Finale Ligure. Rolling green hills, medieval villages, cherry trees, rivers, gelato, pizza, fresh herbs, the beach. This place has it all. And awesome crags with very few people. We were psyched. So we spent the next two weeks getting fit in this valley, mostly climbing at a few crags, and quickly tackling some harder projects after getting fit.

Jas had spent the previous month hitting the bouldering coop in Squamish and actually using the hangboard. Me? I just kept skiing 6 thousand foot days as I worked 33 days straight teaching and examining ski programs for the AMGA. So needless to say my arms were NOT fit. It felt pretty humbling to be flailing on 11+ for the first few days, when the memories of my last days on the rock in the fall were of firing a few 13s in a couple of tries. But by day 8 on the rock after 5 months of zero climbing and training I was back to sending 12+, so it felt good to be back in shape. Well, rather than chat too much, here are some photos to capture what life was like in the far eastern coastal corner of Italy. Did I mention huge blocks of Italian hard cheeses for just a few euro? And the gelato?

Enjoy

Castelbianco and the Terminal Crag...steep tufas!


Tolmachevo 7a, a brilliant route at Terminal.


Castelbianco


Approach to Erboisteria crag.


The old town of Finale Ligure

On one of our 'rest days' to the beach in Finale, we decided to do a 7-8 pitch seaside traverse we had heard tale of. A few hundred meters of 5.5-5.10a climbing about 10m above the sea sounded like a good idea to us! More on the feet then the arms, so it qualified as a rest day climb, especially since I just wore approach shoes for it.

Rapping in to the sea



Yeah, life is pretty good!

Next post: Arco!

Super Tour of the season?

It had to come to an end...the best season of powder skiing I have ever had at Valhalla Mountain Touring. Something like 80 of 90 days of the calendar winter with measurable precip. WOW...that just says to me, non stop blower pow with no weak layers. I have never skied so much deep powder over 35 degrees in my life. So many new lines opened up at the lodge, and so many runs skied in the best conditions ever.

But it had to end, and now I have been home on the coast for a week, and am in the midst of teaching a Ski Mountaineering Guides Course for the American Mountain Guides Association in the Coast Range of BC. Of course, I had to squeeze in 1 ski tour on my only day off for the next month - take that with a grain of salt, as my 32 work days will all be skiing!

I tried to rally Jason Kruk and T-Tony Touch...Jason was in with out hesitation as he spent most of the winter in Patagonia suffering, but Tones couldn't ditch on work...again. Oh well. Jason hatched the plan, a link up of 3 stellar North Faces in the Duffy Lake zone just north of Pemberton. The Duffy is like the Roger's Pass of the coast range, only just getting REALLY discovered in the last few years. Road side, big glaciated vert easy access is the name of the game.

This Trifecta includes the North Face of Matier, which I had skied once before (and guided in summer too many times to count!), the north face of Slalok (#1 on my skiing hit list on the Duffy) and the North Face of Taylor into Heart Strings (which I didn't really know about). On the map the stats are pretty sweet, about 9,500' of total ascent, tons of glaciers, and maybe 12-15km of mountain travel. All in a loop from the car, so no shuttling hassles. We were concerned it might be a long day, and I had to get home not too late, so Jason knocked on my door at 5am for the 1.5 hour drive from Squamish. In hindsight, we made a big mistake in the morning, as we got to the quality Mt. Currie coffee company about a half hour before they opened, and didn't want to waste any time, so we opted for the gas stations finest blend and baking. Little did we know how fast we were going to cruise the day.

The tour plan...too good to be true?

I wasn't too worried about the fitness aspect...I have been averaging 6,000' of vertical a day out touring for 6 of 7 days a week for about 2-3 months now, so I guess you can say my baseline fitness was doing alright. Add to the that the fact that I had just had 3 days off, which I haven't had since Dec 12th. Energy ready to burn! Jason, I wasn't to sure about...but I always know he can dig REALLY deep. Two years before we did the 50km, 7,500' vert Garibaldi Neve traverse in 9.5 hours, so I knew he was good for it.

Jason in front of the Matier Icefall with Slalok behind. Cold, stable weather and snow means we can sneak into the hills in the danger zones.

So at 6:50am we were off, head phones on for us both, (me with some awesome XX remixes), stripped down to some light clothes, charging ahead in the early dawn light. We opted for the direct and committing approach up from Joffree Lakes just to the climbers right of the icefall, with the confidence of a low avalanche danger and cool temps with no solar effect just yet. As we inched higher and higher the fresh snow got a little deeper, with about 10-15cms of new from the day before laying untouched by the wind on all elevations and aspects. It was going to be a good day!

By 11:15 am or so, we were on the summit of Matier, taking it all in. We had beat a group staying in the near by Keith's Hut to the summit, and had about 11 heli assisted ski tourers dropped in our zone.

Working our way up to Matier

************WARNING!!!! ELITIST TIRADE!!!!!!!! **********************
I have no problem with heli skiing and heli assisted touring...IN NON-ROAD ACCESSIBLE LOCATIONS!!!! We were on the summit of Matier before noon, with out starting in the dark, 5,500' up from the car. Do you really need to kill our winters anymore than burning the gas to drive up the highway by getting a helicopter to the top of a peak that is accessible EASILY under your own power from the car? I don't think so, and to further put my nose up in the air, I think we did DOUBLE the downhill vertical for the day than the heli-assisted ski tourers did!

Jason works his way along the exposed summit ridge of Matier

Back to our story...we dropped in on Matier in knee deep blower pow...epic big sluffing turns on 48 degree terrain. With gravity on our side, we blitzed down the Matier glacier to the flanks of Slalok.

Can you say psyched?????!!!!

YES!!!!

A quick 1500' climb got us to our next summit. I think it was about 1230pm. How was that possible? We were worried about getting this done before dark, and now we had 7000 grand in the bank, with 3,400' of blower pow at our ski tips! So, nothing to do but drop some more 45 degree pow! And for a LONG WAYS. Slalok is a skiers line, sustained and sweet for a long time. It's like an amazing heli ski line that you don't need a helicopter for!

Jason on the way up Slalok

Me engaging high gear off the summit of Slalok

Jason in the meat of the run down Slalok with the icefall in the background.

We stopped in the low elevation range of 5,000' or so right by Joffree Lake to take a second period break. With a 2,000'+ climb up Taylor to come, we decided to suck down the H2O and munch back the calories (I was fueled almost entirely by my mother in laws ridiculously good organic baked goods!). Feeling good, I just got in front and charged the trailbreaking at a 2,000' an hour pace that felt like I could do forever, and in a little over an hour, we were on the summit of Taylor. A beautiful skin across the broad craggy summit ridge had us looking down yet another sweet 45 degree north face. WOW, I didn't even know about this line before today, and it couldn't have been sweeter.

Jason in front of our run down Slalok, on the way up Taylor.

Having skied about 100 days this year, I let Jason go first on every run, as I almost always go first as the guide all season long. He was PSYCHED. But his legs started failing him a bit for non stop 40+ degree 1500' powder shots. So I teased him as any good friend would do about stopping in the middle of the run and we shouldered our skis for the 10 minute boot pack back to the ridge to drop into Heart Strings, another classic run, tucked into the cliffs and trees that would bring us back to our cars no sweat.

Jason looks for his line down the north face of Taylor

Dropping in on Heart Strings...another classic.

And at 3:48pm we were back at the car. To be honest, I felt like I could easily do another 3-4 grand of vertical...I was so invigorated from so much great skiing and feeling so fit from a long season in the hills; its great to feel that way, as those days are all too rare. I relished in the after glow of a safe and successful mission in the hills with a good friend, and we blitzed home down the highway to some quality tunes and a great dinner out with some awesome friends to celebrate my birthday (which was the next day!)

Thanks Jason for being a super psyched and motivated partner for big lines on the rock and the snow!

March Madness

Well, March is almost over, and here is a video I made in the beginning of the month, but I have been WAY too busy skiing powder to remember to post this one on the blog.

3-4m snowpack right now, no persistent weak layers, cold fluff everywhere from summits to valleys.

Enjoy the video!

The fun just continues

4 new ski runs in the last 2 days as my buddy Tony is here helping me 'hut keep' during a self guided week. Here is a video of a new line we skied today we named 'Fireball' because at the bottom of the run Tony reached into his pack and pulled out a flask of the hot cinnamon whiskey. Now that is class, and that is how runs get named! Enjoy, I know I did!!!!!!

And it just keeps going...

Still blower, still deep, still skiing steep with more bravado then normal.

Here is a quick vid from this afternoon...face shots and sluff management!!!

When it all comes together...

The snow pack, weather, time of year and people all aligned last week, and the result was maybe the best week of the last few years of ski touring here at Valhalla Mountain Touring.

I should have stopped to take more photos and pictures, but oh well, the skiing was just too good. Here is a quick taste of what we sampled.

Hope to ski with you here soon!

Young's Peak

Day 2 at Rogers Pass dawned clear again and even colder. -27c is not a friendly temperature for ski touring. The day before we did battle with the cold by skiing in the sun, and that was perfect. The problem is in the -20c range, that skins and ski wax don't really work that well. We left the car with the plan of going up the Asulkan Valley to take a peak at skiing the couloir Forever Young. Usually in Rogers Pass if the weather is good all of the big lines have a track or two in them, as it is home to some of the most accessible high quality ski touring in the world. However, it has really not stopped snowing for a month in BC, and these are the first few days of consecutive clear weather, and only a week or two ago was one of the largest avalanche cycles in a long time in BC. So for good reason people have been a little slower in getting to the big lines.

As we crawled our way up the deep Asulkan Valley, skinning uphill in down coats and face masks, we got to a view point of Forever Young, and instantly both Jasmin and myself knew today wasn't the day. Huge fracture lines were all over the basin, but the only piece of snow that hadn't slid yet was the one in the guts of Forever Young. After skiing a big line on Mt. Rogers the day before, I didn't feel the need to push it again today, even though plan B was still going to put us into some big terrain by going up and down the ultra classic 7 steps on Youngs Peak.

The couloir is dead center. Notice the 1.5 meter + fracture lines left of the chute and right of the bottom. Not today thanks!

I have tried 2 other times over the years to ski to the top of Young's Peak, but both times been thwarted, either by snow/bad vis or touchy avalanche danger. Jasmin on the other hand has been up there twice. So we pushed up and up and up until we reached the last steep step to gain the summit. Classicly, it is guarded by a 40 degree headwall, with some big runouts to the valley below. I mean 3000' of run out to the valley bottom. Fortunately the terrain does bench out below the headwall so you can convince yourself that you won't get flushed all the way out to the valley bottom.

Jas punches up the headwall

Jas felt the urge to put a track all the way to the summit, so I wasn't going to slow her down or get in her way. Fortunately for us, the summit headwall had an old avalanche crown, and then some more recent sluffs and debris, once again giving us the confidence to travel safely through the already slid terrain. Some steep skinning, some booting, then back to skins and we were pushing through to the summit with some more bluebird 360 views of the mightly Selkirks. I am truly convinced that there might not be anywhere in the world as good as this mountain range for ski touring, with its combo of snowpack and terrain. 6,000' lines in blower boot top powder from wild glaciated summits!!!

Last slope to the summit.

Jasmin contemplates the vastness of the Selkirks

Dropping from the summit...only 5400' to go

I think I see the highway...

1 more day of high pressure is in the forecast, but after almost 13,000' feet of skiing and 30km travelled in two days, we will see what we motivate for.