Scott, Sandra, Ben, Frances, and I skied around the Lizzie Creek area for six days over New Year’s, joining a large group of VOCers up there. The terrain was fantastically varied and kept us busy for a few days checking everything out. Plenty of snow, sunshine, friends, and good food made for an excellent trip.
Frances crossing the washout at the bottom of the Lizzie Creek road. It took us approximately 8-9 hours after the creek crossing to the hut. The road was slow going, with lots of alder. We arrived at the hut in the dark, after having to break trail and navigate through deadfall in the forest leading up to the gates of Shangri-La.
But as Scott can tell you, the efforts of the previous day were completely worth it. We skied some fantastic south facing sunny powder on below Anemone Peak.
Ben and Scott with sparkles of snow everywhere.
The snow was really good in the trees. We skied this south facing aspect early in the week, since it would become crusty with the week of sunshine. We can’t let good powder go to waste!
The snow was really good in the trees. We skied this south facing aspect early in the week, since it would become crusty with the week of sunshine. We can’t let good powder go to waste!
An evening look at Long Peak. Scott Sandra and I skied the main face right of centre a few days later. We tended to avoid north facing aspects on this trip, as it was too cold in the shade, and the snow was more wind affected. Nighttime temperatures were down to -20C, and it felt like that during the day too.
The next morning we skied up Long Lake, where Ben and I got in a few quick early morning turns, before making a cold trek through the natural freezer that is Long Lake.
We went across the lake, over towards the Crystal Tarns, and then down some amazing south facing trees.
If we didn’t have to climb back out, I’m sure we would have skied all the way down the road at Rogers Creek. Sandra picking a nice line through the shadows.
Another beautiful sunset skin up to finish off the day.
We finished with some great powder on the way back to the hut. The great thing about the location of the hut is that everything run basically goes back to the hut. But it does sit in a little cold valley.
Bluebird weather again the next morning, with Cloudraker dominating the skyline. Another trip perhaps. There was a large avalanche on the east face.
We spotted these two short south facing gullies northeast of Long Lake the previous day.
The snow was fantastic!
And then we skied back up to Arrowhead Lake and continued onwards to Heart Lake.
Sandra skinning up above Heart Lake. There’s alot of nice terrain around here.
Sandra skinning across the south face of Tabletop Mountain.
We skied off the south side of Tabletop, and then down open slopes to Heart Lake.
Sandra making it look easy in front of a crowd. We went back up for another lap afterwards because it was so much fun.
Sandra skiing back in the warm evening light. A great way to end the year.
Sunset on some of our tracks from the last two days, plus a few more from the 20+ VOCers up here.
On New Year’s Day, Scott Sandra and I skinned up towards Long Peak.
And then we skied down the northeast face of Long Peak. We had a fairly adventurous descent, since we didn’t really know exactly how far down we could ski before getting cliffed out. In the end, we traversed across the face and basically skied it from top right to bottom left. Scott and I continued up towards Arrowhead Mountain for another run in the late afternoon.
Skiing out through slide alder on the Lizzie Creek road. We finished the trip at the Skookumchuck hotsprings. If only every ski trip ended with a soak in hotsprings, with nanaimo bars and scotch.
Hello Rich – Great Shots! What lens do you normally shoot with? / Program do you do post production with?
Cheers!
Thanks!
My current camera is a Nikon D50, and my usual lens are the 18-55mm, and the Tokina 11-16mm. I tend to use the 18-55mm most of the time. Usually I do some basic exposure and white balance correction in Lightroom 2, but I rarely have time to do much more.
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