Dave, Jonathan, Des, Katie, Lea, Vince and I had a very pleasant day skiing Heartbreaker, a run located in the Joffre Lakes area on the Duffey Lake road. It’s actually called Heartstrings but the snow was terrible so we decided to re-name the run. Still a great day to be outside with a fun crew and relatively nice weather. Next time when the snow is better, it would be fun to link this up with some other skiing in the area for a bigger day.
Lea’s new pet. We parked at the plowed parking lot for Joffre Lakes, and continued across the frozen lakes. The weather was quite pleasant, with occasional breaks of sunshine.
On the way up above the upper lake. A nice pleasant ramp leads to the ridge to Heartstrings. A few other friends were trying to ski bigger lines on Matier, and we watched as they struggled up the steep slope above the upper Joffre Lake. Their progressed seemed slow, and we were nervous watching them bootpack up and across rocky steep slopes to access the Matier glacier.
Dave on the shortbootpack up to the ridge north of Taylor Peak.
Leah on the bootpack up. She now has this identical photo, taken by three different photographers.
The highlight of this run are the beautiful lichen covered towers at the top. It’s quite aesthetic skiing through them. We were hoping for better skiing conditions, but the recent outflow winds had hammered this slope.
Regrouping halfway down the run. The snow improved slightly here, but it was still highly variable.
Jonathan finds a patch of good snow. The skiing was simliar to playing minesweeper, there were patches of safe snow, and then there was explosive crust. Jonathan’s bright blue jacket and yellow pants make this otherwise boring photo look more interesting.
A tribute to Matt Gunn. We all need more lessons on how to perfect this shot! We were back at the car by 3:30pm, and headed down to the Pony, early enough to still order from their brunch menu. A great day out with a great crew!