Rogers Pass ski touring: First turns of the year.

Rogers Pass Skiing

The Season started! We did this trip last year and it was good fun so why not again. The drive is quite long, about 8 hours but the snow is pretty good for this time of the year. We took two days off from work and went away for four days so we got quite a bit of skiing in.

At the gas station in Hope, winter is coming!

The normal route was closed due to extreme winter conditions (too much snow) so we had to take a detour via the Fraser Canyon. I haven't been this way but it was nice.

benz

We arrived in Revelstoke just before dawn.

There is an avalanche information centre so we went in and checked out the current conditions. They also use canons to maintain Rogers Pass (the highway), impressive. Andrew, Naomi and Frenchie are checking the bulletin.

We arrived at the parking lot and it snowed a lot. Luckily the skin in to the hut is only 30 min. so it wasn't a problem to do it in the dark. Good that Frenchie had his sick truck so we didn't get stuck.

There is a small shelter at the parking lot. Pretty handy to change cloth and put skins on, Frenchie, Kerstin, Sarah and Naomi.

And off we went in the dark. First time ski touring for Naomi.

As I mentioned before the hut is really close to the highway so we carried some extra stuff in like beers :-).

Sledneck in action. A happy man. What is a sledneck: A Redneck who has a sled. A sled is a snowmobile. Slednecks are pretty funny people, they drive a HUGE truck, have two sleds and throw their beer cans in the forest. So you want to know why Frenchie is a Sledneck: He has a truck and he used to do sled races. He doesn't throw beer cans into the forest and he doesn't race anymore so since he is a smart sledneck, there aren't too many of those. He actually converted to a hippie since he telemarks. I am pretty sure a couple of years down the road and he won't eat meat to impress a girl, he wouldn't be the first guy doing this (hi Ken).

Sarah and Andrew: Easter Egg hunt .

On the first day we did a small tour. We went up one valley and tried to find some pow. Since it was pretty warm and the snow cover wasn't amazing we turned around pretty soon, Frenchie, Naomi and Sarah.