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2011-04-15-17 Mount Trophy

I think my brain has officially kicked off into full snow mode in anticipation for the coming season so I thought that I would finally post my final trip of last season. A buddy and I headed out for a three day/two night tour in April to Trophy Mountain just outside of Clearwater, BC. I just couldn't believe the snow and how the conditions were considering it was the middle of April. I kept pinching myself thinking...face shots....April.....hmmm....haha....okay! ha.....

The days were perfect with clouds but sunny skies around -5C during the days and around -15C at night so the snow was just perfect. In April I just couldn't believe it....La Nina seemed to take her time this year in the interior of BC but wow did she end strong. At my home mountain the snowpack at the end of the season had opened up so much terrain that we were just going off on everything. With that in mind all summer and with a couple of recent climbing trips to Glacier National Park to climb Mt. Abbott, Mt. Afton and Mt. Rogers it looks like the mountains could be promising this year as well.....they still have a ton of snow in them and wow I wish I would have hauled my board up last weekend.....ha....anyways....here it is.....enjoi


The gear minus clothes and food...


The chariot to get us to the trailhead...


The long but mellow tour in...


The approach to our playground for the weekend...


Scoping lines and setting plans for the next day. Mount Trophy is on the left and the goal was to summit it and check out the one line right down the middle that we thought might be possible. Unfortunately the next day the we woke up at 5AM to hit the trail but the whole mountain was socked in and we couldn't see a thing until 10AM so we had to change our plans.


Taking a look back at the landscape we decided that we would dig in just below the small knoll on the right hand side of the photo.


Skin tracks on an open landscape are a pretty simple thing but man they speak to what we are all addicted too.


Looking to the west from our campsite....


Making our way back to where we set up camp...


Home sweet home for the weekend....


Looking down the west facing ridge just below of camp. Due to the change in plans because of the conditions we ended up yoyoing this face all day Saturday.


Looking back at the camp....


Yaaa....pretty sure I might be visiting this area again.....


This has to be worth some points?


Cool but also kinda lame pic...shit I could have cross country snowboarded this...ha...


Ya...that is pretty much a full on perma grin at this point...


So much to check out...


Where to today?


A better look at Mt. Trophy...


Back at camp boiling water. One good thing that I learned on this trip was rather than a shovel blade beneath the stove a wood cutting board makes a pretty significant difference. Now if I had only remember the cutting board that would have helped....ha....


Yes...I know....Splitboard.com....not Skier.com.....but I had the camera and thought that this was actually a pretty cool pic...


My buddy taking a line...


The face we yoyoed all day Saturday and Sunday morning before we had to take off...


Ominous skies and glowing mountains...fortunately we didn't get much of a storm but we did have some pretty chilly temps at night....


This became our highway...super easy skinning to get back to the top of the ridge...


Gotta give props to the guys at Union Cycle here in Kelowna for hooking me up with a deck for the remainder of the season after they heard what had happened with a certain board that never arrived....detect a bit of bitterness there? ha....


Some lines....skis on the left....board on the right....


A couple of short lines on Sunday morning before we had to head back....


Definitely some lines on this face for future trips....this was to the east of our camp and was west facing...


Taking a couple pics of the sun going down at the end of day two...


Nothing like a bit of rum at the end of a good day....


Some blowing wind and a little bit of fresh but nothing too severe. My 3-season MEC Tarn 3 tent held up just fine with hardly any condensation inside.


This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning....too bad it didn't look the same the day before on Saturday morning....


Quite possibly the nastiest cup of coffee I have ever seen anyone drink....he was buzzing to say the least....


The idea here was to slash the top of this waterfall and send a cloud flying....well if anything flew it was my arms....wtf! super lame...ha....


Turns like this in April....ummhmmm! Such a sick trip! Had me buzzing for weeks and what a way to round out a great season....

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2011-07-16 Mt. Abbott and Mt. Afton

And here is some separate stoke that isn't splitboarding but it almost feels just as good....these pics are from two recent trips up to Roger's Pass in Glacier National Park in between Revelstoke and Golden. The first trip was up Mt. Abbott (8,085 ft) and Mt. Afton (8,374 ft) and the second most recent trip was up Mt. Rogers (10,397 ft). I'll save the description on these pics as this is starting to turn into an essay and these pics aren't exactly splitboarding but I thought that people might be stoked on these....





























































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2011-08-20-21 Mt. Rogers

This is from just this past weekend and this was a really sick climb that included some glacier travel and some snow covered ridge walking.

















































































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So it has been a good summer so far and things are looking up....lots of snow in the mountains yet so let's just hope it builds into an even better year than last!

Looks like a couple good trips that you got in Brett.Seems like your assembling gear for multiday tours in the future

Ya, definitely wanting to get out for more multi-day trips this year. It was so nice not having to hit the exit when the snow was so good and there was so much terrain to explore.

I'm considering doing one of the traverse's in the spring this year or maybe just finding a playground to set up camp beneath and explore all the lines/features. Finding people to commit to a trip like that seems to be the trickiest thing though...interested? If so it would be in the spring when things are a bit warmer and the days are longer...

i ve been collecting gear for multiday trips the last couple of years so we will have to plan a few sessions in the spring.

Nice work dude!