I anticipated a subpar tour this season after only 16 inches of snow after the rain to the top of ski terrain in late January. However that rain layer was mostly buried at Fernie where we skied Sunday.
Monday did indeed fall into the subpar category but not for the expected reason. About 1/3 of Island Lake’s terrain (most of the alpine) was off limits due to snow instability. This surprised me because in 2003 a rain event a week before I arrived stabilized a snowpack that had been very dangerous, with snowboarder Craig Kelly’s death at a backcountry touring lodge a week before that.
Our lead guide Brandon explained the difference. Often as in 2003 temperatures will drop in the latter portion of a storm. As the rain turns to snow, the new wet snow will bond very well and the snow is very stable. If the storm is all rain, followed by a cold and dry period, the rain crust will form a weak layer upon which subsequent snow may slide. This was the scenario at the end of January 2024.
So the more restricted terrain available for skiing had mostly been tracked out during the prior tour which included warm sunny days Friday and Saturday. As the snow settles out it gets denser and so skis more like coastal snow, fine when it’s untracked but quite resistant when you ski in old tracks. Monday’s weather was thick overcast so I took few pictures.
After the first day transceiver drills we skied 9,700 vertical, about 5K of powder. The guides worked diligently to move between bits and pieces of less tracked snow.
So I was of course watching the weather forecasts. Deterministic models were predicting 3 inches of snow by Wednesday morning, our last day, but OpenSnow’s narrative B.C. forecaster thought the range was 3-7 inches in southeastern B.C. Due to models being poor at forecasting backcountry snowy microclimates I had some optimism we might be on the high end of that forecast.
On Tuesday morning Jason Crawford, former marketing director at Castle Mt. but now operations manager at Island Lake, dropped by to say hello as we were gearing up.
We were pleasantly surprised to see 3 inches new snow Tuesday morning. In the past I’ve observed that 6 inches will completely reset powder skiing in the backcountry, so the improvement from Monday was not unsurprising. Liz and tail guide Dave near the end of Big Woody:
Nice subalpine skiing on King’s Way:
Tuesday was heavy overcast but with short intense snow squalls.
This added up to another two inches of daytime snow.
Liz head planted once.
It was not much below freezing and the rain/snow line rose to about lodge elevation at the end of the day. However nearly all of our skiing was higher up. Island Lake grooms the road down to the Geisha Gully pickup to resort standard so people can bypass low elevation snow if they want. Here we are on the last pitch of Lower Valentine before the road bailout is available.
View up from the pickup on brighter Wednesday:
We skied 13,400 vertical, 9K of powder Tuesday.
Chef Ryan is in his second year of the special beef program. He is now dry aging it himself.
Our cat group used the Volant shot ski before I had the 49-day aged Angus ribeye for the third dinner.
It snowed another 2 inches of dense over Tuesday night. With 7 inches total, we could start off with runs like Sunnyside in good form.
Wednesday morning was still occasionally overcast.
Visibility improved to inspire more aggressive skiing.
By midday it was mostly sunny. Zoom view of our tracks on Sunnyside:
Temperatures rose into the 30’s. A Wednesday run on west facing Big Woody was still good but snow was a bit heavier than on Tuesday. The next run on southeast facing Enchanted Forest had much heavier snow than Tuesday, so the guides moved us to northeast facing for our final three runs.
At our next drop Face Shot Bowl, this is the view up to the still unstable highest part of it.
But the skiing below us is excellent.
The orange pole left of center warns of a limestone sinkhole below.
Liz and Dave:
Next run Geisha High Trees:
The final drop point for Benches was most scenic.
Last sunbeam on the snowcat:
Group picture:
We had a traverse just above tree line.
Here is where we are going to ski.
I was lucky to be in the rotation skiing first on this run, and so took pics of some others.
We still have more tree skiing ahead.
We also have a good view of some of Scot Schmidt’s favorite terrain from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
We skied 12,700 vertical Wednesday, finishing the tour on a very high note.
Monday did indeed fall into the subpar category but not for the expected reason. About 1/3 of Island Lake’s terrain (most of the alpine) was off limits due to snow instability. This surprised me because in 2003 a rain event a week before I arrived stabilized a snowpack that had been very dangerous, with snowboarder Craig Kelly’s death at a backcountry touring lodge a week before that.
Our lead guide Brandon explained the difference. Often as in 2003 temperatures will drop in the latter portion of a storm. As the rain turns to snow, the new wet snow will bond very well and the snow is very stable. If the storm is all rain, followed by a cold and dry period, the rain crust will form a weak layer upon which subsequent snow may slide. This was the scenario at the end of January 2024.
So the more restricted terrain available for skiing had mostly been tracked out during the prior tour which included warm sunny days Friday and Saturday. As the snow settles out it gets denser and so skis more like coastal snow, fine when it’s untracked but quite resistant when you ski in old tracks. Monday’s weather was thick overcast so I took few pictures.
After the first day transceiver drills we skied 9,700 vertical, about 5K of powder. The guides worked diligently to move between bits and pieces of less tracked snow.
So I was of course watching the weather forecasts. Deterministic models were predicting 3 inches of snow by Wednesday morning, our last day, but OpenSnow’s narrative B.C. forecaster thought the range was 3-7 inches in southeastern B.C. Due to models being poor at forecasting backcountry snowy microclimates I had some optimism we might be on the high end of that forecast.
On Tuesday morning Jason Crawford, former marketing director at Castle Mt. but now operations manager at Island Lake, dropped by to say hello as we were gearing up.
We were pleasantly surprised to see 3 inches new snow Tuesday morning. In the past I’ve observed that 6 inches will completely reset powder skiing in the backcountry, so the improvement from Monday was not unsurprising. Liz and tail guide Dave near the end of Big Woody:
Nice subalpine skiing on King’s Way:
Tuesday was heavy overcast but with short intense snow squalls.
This added up to another two inches of daytime snow.
Liz head planted once.
It was not much below freezing and the rain/snow line rose to about lodge elevation at the end of the day. However nearly all of our skiing was higher up. Island Lake grooms the road down to the Geisha Gully pickup to resort standard so people can bypass low elevation snow if they want. Here we are on the last pitch of Lower Valentine before the road bailout is available.
View up from the pickup on brighter Wednesday:
We skied 13,400 vertical, 9K of powder Tuesday.
Chef Ryan is in his second year of the special beef program. He is now dry aging it himself.
Our cat group used the Volant shot ski before I had the 49-day aged Angus ribeye for the third dinner.
It snowed another 2 inches of dense over Tuesday night. With 7 inches total, we could start off with runs like Sunnyside in good form.
Wednesday morning was still occasionally overcast.
Visibility improved to inspire more aggressive skiing.
By midday it was mostly sunny. Zoom view of our tracks on Sunnyside:
Temperatures rose into the 30’s. A Wednesday run on west facing Big Woody was still good but snow was a bit heavier than on Tuesday. The next run on southeast facing Enchanted Forest had much heavier snow than Tuesday, so the guides moved us to northeast facing for our final three runs.
At our next drop Face Shot Bowl, this is the view up to the still unstable highest part of it.
But the skiing below us is excellent.
The orange pole left of center warns of a limestone sinkhole below.
Liz and Dave:
Next run Geisha High Trees:
The final drop point for Benches was most scenic.
Last sunbeam on the snowcat:
Group picture:
We had a traverse just above tree line.
Here is where we are going to ski.
I was lucky to be in the rotation skiing first on this run, and so took pics of some others.
We still have more tree skiing ahead.
We also have a good view of some of Scot Schmidt’s favorite terrain from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
We skied 12,700 vertical Wednesday, finishing the tour on a very high note.
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