Back to the Books

By books I mean; a pack, skies, sunglasses and trail mix!

I'm back out at school now for my final three trips. Finally I will graduate in April. It's been tough - trying to cram four years of college into seven. But the end is finally in sight and there are no more exams, papers or long boring classes.

Just two and a half weeks spent out in the mountains sleeping in a tent!

These pictures are from my first trip which was a week of backcountry skiing based out of Revelstoke, BC. A great little ski town about 6 hours northeast of school in the Columbia Mountains. (Similar to the Canadian Rockies but they get more snow.)

We took day trips out, skinned up to usually about 6 - 7,000 feet and then skied back down!

Our first three days out were gorgeous. Warm and sunny but the conditions were not fabulous but still skiable. Usually the warm sun would melt a bit of the top layer of snow and then later in the afternoon when the sun would go behind the ridge it would freeze back up leaving a thin layer of crust, making it kind of tricky to turn.

We were guided during our trip by professional alpine touring guides. We had a lot of review of avalanche conditions and forecasting and how to travel in avalanche terrain. We all learned a ton and got lots of real experience with everything and it was fun to work with professional guides and see how they work and treat their clients/students.

This picture above is the snow surface, which has a thick layer of surface hoar that has formed on it. This is one of the biggest causes of avalanches. It is basically the same thing as dew forming on the snows surface. But then when it snows again on top of it, because the crystals are not formed together well, it becomes a weak layer underneath a new layer of snow. Then when something either natural, ie. wind, more snow, sun warming, or artificial: humans, snowmobiles, bombs, helicopters etc., add weight to the top layer, the weak layer cannot support it and so it slides: creating an avalanche. I think this stuff is cool!

We dug several snow pits during the week to look at the different layers in the snow and test how much pressure and weight it would take to disturb the weak layers and cause an avalanche.

Not a bad view for this test spot!

Goodness!

To find some powder tree runs we were supposed to drive about 16k up a logging road that hadn't been plowed in a month. We made it about 14k and then got stuck. It took us an hour to get both trucks dug out and turned around and out of the road.

Our guides were driving a Subaru Impreza and waited for us at the top. Yeah Subaru!

This is the "avalanche" that I set off with my skies as I came out of the woods. It's more just a small slab that let loose. It's probably about as wide as two pick-ups and about 60-65 degrees. And it just ran 15-18 feet until it hit the bench that I'm standing on to take this picture. So nothing epic or crazy but it was still cool to ski up and see the snow break away in a perfect crack and slide down in front of me. The debris, or pile of snow at the bottom that has slid turns into cement. Which is why it is very hard to dig yourself out if you are only partially buried.

This is where the skiing got incredible! This was super light, fluffy mountain powder and we were all able to get some first tracks in even with our group of 12. It was so great! I would we don't get snow like this back east, but I guess we do, just when I'm not there.

So this was my first course for the semester. One out of three. I passed!

Not a bad way to go, eh!