Jay, Laura, Sarah, Kristen, Aimee, Bram and I went skiing on Nov 14th at Needle Peak. The conditions were way better than my last trip out here last February. We did a few laps on the backbowl, and ended up taking an “exciting” line far skiers left of normal west ridge descent. This left us far below the saltshed, so we made one final skin back up to the car. Click on the photos to see more photos from the trip.
It was a bit slippery getting up the Coquihalla. There was one truck off the road.
Beautiful early morning light. Unfortunately this was the nicest weather all day, it would soon cloud over and snow just as forecasted.
Kristen skinning along the west ridge of Needle peak
Aimee on the first run down into the bowl. It was still a bit rocky here.
Jay and Laura skinning up the backbowl
Sarah skinning up for another run down the backbowl. The conditions on this aspect was really good, knee deep powder.
Super excited to ski the trees… the last time Laura was here, she hit a tree on the way down and ended up with a concussion.
Kristen and some neat snow features.
Aimee getting some nice turns on the ridge
So we probably should have gone further straight and then right, but instead we dropped skiers left too early. Initially there was some good skiing on open patches, but then it started getting cliffy.
There were a lot of optional short drops to make, we were all pretty excited and giggly about this.
Sarah was especially happy
Aimee finding a nice line down through the dense trees
After this though, the descent involved, at least for me, lots of kickturns, slid slipping, christmas tree hugging, and log drops. Maybe with some more snow…
Jay at the open swath. Note the Great Bear tunnel, we were about 1.4km away from the saltshed.
Jay giving a Laura a knee across this gap in the snow.
It sure gets dark early in November. Aimee, Jay and Laura crossing above the culvert towards the car.