Heli Trip and Ski Touring in Joffre Lakes

I've been looking forward to this!

I’ve wanted to do this for ages! Helicopter trip in to the back country!!!

My friend Stephen organised this for the Hiking Family (which is the name we’ve given to the hikers I’ve been going with all year). We headed to Squamish the night before and crashed at his place, great cooking and banter! Then at a leisurely 4:30am we headed to Pemberton Airport (more like airstrip) and Blackcomb Aviation.

That’s a Bell 407 if you’re wondering, and I know some of you are!

Now, when you’re getting out of, and back into a helicopter that’s landed/landing in a few feet of snow, firstly it’s not going to shut down, so the rotar blades will be moving at decapitating speeds. But it might go for full disembowlment as when it sinks into the snow, the edges of the rotars might get down to, and I quote, “waist height”. To get round this, you gather in a group on one side, and put your gear and one person retrieves the equipment on the other. You basically stay within 1ft of the skids or nose (never the tail) at all times. The heli will take off while your right next to it, and land right next to you. You’re under the moving rotar blades until it leaves. Great eh!?

OK, so in we jump, and out come the cameras… oh crap! I left my camera in my bag, just had my GoPro!

Fortunately, everyone else had their cameras…

Unfortunately, when we got to Keith’s Hut, we found it was full… we had left our tents in the car!! Bollocks. We had to take the heli down again, and that’s when it occured to me to use the GoPro

Still, no harm done. We were all pumped, and saw Trevor Linden in the waiting room… Harini and Christina had to promptly hide a cucumber that they were carrying around!

We decided the best thing was to leap in the car and go Ski Touring, so we just headed north to Joffre Lakes Provincial Park by road.

Once we got there we grabbed the skis (I had rented a pair of touring skis and skins from Escape Route in Squamish) and set off into a gorge to the east of Canyoosh Mountain… although none of us bothered to actually check the map I had bought!

Found touring skiing to be great fun, even though I wasn’t used to the skis or the boots, or the depth of pow that we were in (literally feet!). The girls very kindly took a few photos!

Unfortunately, my skiing left a lot to be desired and I kept forgetting to lock my boots in. Skiing with flexible ankles is tricky when you’re not expecting it.

There’s some awesome skiing photos out there of Mark and Stephen, but I’ll have to see if they want them up on here…

Anyway, that evening it didn’t make sense to camp in the snow, so we drove back to Squamish and set up at Paradise Valley, by the river! Such a great spot and completely free. Some friendly folks nearby lent us an axe and some firewood too. Great blazing fire going.

Mark chopping wood like a champ!

Hannah tried out a Military MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat) that we had bought from MealKitSupply.com at the Vancouver Outdoor & Adventure Show earlier that month. This is a complete meal, with a water activated heater pouch, that produces a hot meal in about 10 minutes with no need to carry a cooker. Everything is included:

• Vegetable Lasange
• Zapplesauce
• Fudge Brownie
• Wheat Snack Bread and Strawberry Jam
• Orange Electrolite Drink
• Cocoa
• Coffee
• Spoon
• Sugar
• Creamer
• Towelette
• Salt & Pepper & Tabasco

The MRE main course being heated in the heater pouch, with a stone to increase the heat transfer

Hannah liked it and I had a bite which I thought was pretty tasty. However, I did think the whole kit was heavy compared to freeze dried food, stove, gas, pans and water…

The next morning we were planning on touring again, but everyone woke up feeling rough so we canned that idea. I was virtually hacking up a lung!

A great breakfast at Zephyr Café! Quinoa was excellent!

However, on the way, Hannah’s water pump in her Jeep blew up! We had to be retrieved from the side of the Sea to Sky Highway.

Great weekend!

Some of the photos above were taken by Mark, Hannah, Harini, Stephen or Christina, although we are not certain exactly who in some cases. Thanks and full credit to them!

Christmas Trip to the UK & France!

So another trip back home. Since this was a family trip, there’s not too much to write about etc, but I have got some photos for you all, both from Yorkshire and from the South of France.

Elfin Lakes Snowshoeing and Winter Camping

So here we are again winter! You think you can stop my hiking habit!? Of course not. Better still, I’ve worked out how to use the Gallery Shortcode on WordPress.com!

Christina (from the Garibaldi and Juan de Fuca trips) had once again done us proud and organized a snowshoe hike to Elfin Lakes Shelter in (a different section of) Garibaldi Provincial Park. Christina, Harini, Mark, Scott & Whitney, Stephen and I were going… only Stephen had winter camped before!

Preparing for this one presented a few problems. Firstly I didn’t have a winter tent. I do have my great MEC Camper 2 tent, but that’s 3 season rather than 4, and contained meshing. This attracts condensation that then snows down back on top of you, and melts from your body heat, making your bag wet. Secondly, the bag itself was rated to -7C. I could increase that to around -12C with a fleece liner.

Well, I would just throw on some more thermals when I slept. Heavy arse bag packed, snowshoes and winter boots at the ready, I woke up at 4:30 to transport myself, Christina and Harini up to Squamish to meet the gang, under a lunar eclipse of all things…

We got to the trailhead and set off. Quickly, we realised we had hiked above the fog!

Harini’s backpack did need repacking due to being heavily loaded at the top, but no matter, we were soon all plodding on nicely. Whiskey Jacks were about and up to their normal scavenging ways…

It was around this time, after a huge long uphill switchback section, that Harini and I realised our snowshoes had heel lifters! This makes going up hill more akin to walking up the stairs, much less effort! We were kicking ourselves!

The higher we get, the better the views got!

Eventually we reached Red Heather hut. This is a warming hut that had been built up here, complete with fire and tables to relax in. Can’t camp inside it though. That said, if I were stuck in a snowstorm or something, damn right I’m sleeping in there!

Quick lunch and a chance for some photos of Mount Garibaldi!

We had intended to go a more northerly route, which took us below some avalanche slide paths. Here is a little lesson in back country travel. Lesson one is that you should go and get a REAL lesson in it (I’ve done Avalanche Safety Training 1 for example). Lesson two is always travel with a beacon, probe and shovel. Lesson three is where this story actually starts. Essentially slide paths are slopes with the potential to avalanche, and then the movement the snow will take after that. A slide path can be varied, but typically a clear slope with an angle of 25-45°. You can spot some of them by a lack of trees, although there are trees around them. Of course, that doesn’t apply above the treeline. You only make the decision to travel through them based on snow stability tests, avalanche bulletins and weather conditions. Because some in our group had not brought avalanche safety gear, we decided to proceed along a more southerly but higher ridgeline.

Now here’s where the debate starts and I think this deserves a full sized photo! Apparently everyone but me can see the huts in this view!

I cant see it but apparently it's there!?

We trudged on and started to come across a novelty… flat sections, and even downhill!

This has to be something that deserves a video. We ran into two guys who had built an ingenius way of getting an extra 40kg of gear up the mountains. The Pole Pack Hiker.

Wish I had one of those as the pack was digging into my shoulders. No matter, the hut was within 2km!

That night we feasted on the traditional Mountain House Buffalo Chicken Wraps and various freeze dried treats. Stephen kindly provided the Caesars! A rugby team or stag do or something also hiked their way up. They had brought pirate levels of boose! The rangers came along and asked them to keep it the hell down. When we all went to sleep (at a very adult 19:30, we had been up since 4 remember)… they were singing away. I think I actually said aloud in my tent “I wish these idiots would shut the fuck up!”

Sleeping in -12°C… well this is no where as easy as it sounds. When you climb into the sleeping bag, you will immediately be far to hot and have to unzip it. However, in the night, your metabolism slows right down, and you’re then going to start to get pretty cold. I woke up shivering a few times, but pulled a hat on, put my sleeping bag over my head and went to sleep.

Also, you’ll find your moisture rich breath will condense on the fabric of the tent. Then, when you move, it will snow back down on top of you! It did on me quite a few times.

The next day, this is what we woke up to!

Today was going to be mostly downhill. Phew. It was also the best light of the day so I think I’m just going to post a load of photos!

And here are a couple of Panoramas:

Back at the Red Heather hut, the Whiskey Jacks were back and out in force to steal whatever they could! They even nicked salami right off Stephen’s knee!

After that it was only a 90 minute walk back to the cars, which we were more than a bit relieved to see!

In conclusion, top marks for my snowshoes!

My mighty snowshoes! MSR Denali Ascents with 6inch tails!