tseeb
Well-known member
After dropping Tony Crocker at airport in Kelowna at 5 AM, I returned to motel and showered and packed, then after picking up breakfast at A&W (they are all over the place here) drive-thru , I was on the road at 6:30 AM. I arrived Sun Peaks before 8:45 and used $26 ticket I had purchased using Liftopia with discounts I got on Black Friday. I had a short wait before loading 2,000+ vertical Sunburst Express covered chair that did not open until 9. I could have loaded nearby 1,500+ vertical Sundance Express that opens earlier (and closes later), but wanted a better warm-up run before joining 9:15 Mountain Host tour of advanced runs. I don't really remember what I skied, but it was groomed, in the sun and skied well.
The advanced tour went back up Sunburst and took a warm-up on Spillway, then went up slow-speed Elevation and Crystal chairs to ski a groomed double diamond Headwall run.
From the map it looks like it was Green Door and it was groomed to get ready for upcoming speed skiing contest where I heard record speed is 174 kph. I was surprised how much colder in was at 6,000+ top with overcast compared to sunny 4,000' base an hour earlier. Tour took us out Sunnyside where I found a couple of powder turns, then next lap we went partway up Gil's Hike towards not running T-bar where there was some more untracked that skied well even though S-facing and new snow at least a couple of days old. Both times we got back to top of mountain riding the upper half of Burfield chair which has the longest chair spacing I have ever seen. I later timed it at 32 seconds which means a chair passes station every 16 seconds, much longer than usual. I also heard that getting on a mid-station on a powder day can take 20 minutes as they do not leave any open chairs at bottom, but did see and later experience having people fill partially occupied chairs at mid-station.
The tour continued into Upper Other Way where there was some untracked on edges and hosts showed us the return from Gil's area. Tour ended about noon. After a quick lunch, I did two laps into the Gil's area.
First, I did a boot pack to Inner Gil's, then next run I followed uphill traverse, then skated before hiking further out. Both runs had some good turns in a little untracked and a lot of soft snow, but open area ended too quickly into tight trees then I had a long runout run with a little very slight uphill to get back to The Other Way.
I took Sundance once, skiing black Peek-A-Book that had small bumps before going to Morrisey side. I took two runs there; Midlife Crisis and Still Smokin',
which still had some corduroy at 2 pm as it required a very short push to get to top, then split and re-joined many times on way down. Next I skied Back In Time which was fairly flat at top before getting to a shady steeper pitch. At the bottom it crosses a creek on a flat bridge, then you have to remove skis to get to base of 22 minute 2900' vertical Burfield quad.
Riding it, I had plenty of time for a beer, then put tracks in a short, steep place above chair that did not have any before twice skiing run that was groomed for speed skiing. I finished my day with a lap down Exhibition and Broadway, then another ride up Sunburst and a run down Munro Ridge. I wanted to get to black Tighten Your Boits, but turned off onto blue Runaway Lane as I did not want to go past sign that said Burfield was closed and end up below my vehicle.
I quit about 3:45 with just under 30K vertical. I followed DanoT's advice and got a $4.50 slice of pizza in the village which was a good idea since my drive to Lillooet was about 2.5 hours and all I could handle after two long days of lift-served skiing and a lot of driving and eight days in a row of skiing.
I'm hoping somebody else is going to write-up the following as it may be a long time before I can:
Thu 2/18 Powder day at Apex with 8 cm new on top of 18 cm from Tues. Another 8-10 cm fell during day and most of the locals were gone before noon so we skied a lot of untracked. Skied with flyover and John from Seattle who also joined us at Mustang.
Fri 2/19 Short day at Big White. Rode 2400' vertical Gem Lake 4 times and got two runs on Cliff
Sat 2/20 to Mon 2/22 at Mustang Powder Cats. Average snow for there = incredible powder skiing
Tues 2/23 Revelstoke with four runs into the alpine plus one non-stop 4700' vertical run for a quick,late lunch and a 5620' vertical run to end day.
Note: Nearly 20 months later I noticed I had more pictures that never were posted so I added them.
The advanced tour went back up Sunburst and took a warm-up on Spillway, then went up slow-speed Elevation and Crystal chairs to ski a groomed double diamond Headwall run.
The tour continued into Upper Other Way where there was some untracked on edges and hosts showed us the return from Gil's area. Tour ended about noon. After a quick lunch, I did two laps into the Gil's area.
I took Sundance once, skiing black Peek-A-Book that had small bumps before going to Morrisey side. I took two runs there; Midlife Crisis and Still Smokin',
I quit about 3:45 with just under 30K vertical. I followed DanoT's advice and got a $4.50 slice of pizza in the village which was a good idea since my drive to Lillooet was about 2.5 hours and all I could handle after two long days of lift-served skiing and a lot of driving and eight days in a row of skiing.
I'm hoping somebody else is going to write-up the following as it may be a long time before I can:
Thu 2/18 Powder day at Apex with 8 cm new on top of 18 cm from Tues. Another 8-10 cm fell during day and most of the locals were gone before noon so we skied a lot of untracked. Skied with flyover and John from Seattle who also joined us at Mustang.
Fri 2/19 Short day at Big White. Rode 2400' vertical Gem Lake 4 times and got two runs on Cliff
Sat 2/20 to Mon 2/22 at Mustang Powder Cats. Average snow for there = incredible powder skiing
Tues 2/23 Revelstoke with four runs into the alpine plus one non-stop 4700' vertical run for a quick,late lunch and a 5620' vertical run to end day.
Note: Nearly 20 months later I noticed I had more pictures that never were posted so I added them.