Mount Seymour: So Close and So Far
The kids had been asking for a while to experience camping in the snow. It was me that needed more convincing. Eventually I agreed to come along, what’s the worst that could happen? Plus I figured I could probably survive one night in the snow. I have done it before, just not recently… The kids “helped” us pack Our friends who live in Victoria were excited to join, though by foot and not on skis. In retrospect, they should have probably had snowshoes, but they managed. The original plan was to head to Red Heather and camp there by the warming hut. But original plans don’t always work out. We…
Red Heather: A Backcountry Skier is Born (Again)
As children growing up in Israel, we barely ever saw snow. Snow was this novel thing that you would see in movies or drive for hours to touch, briefly, and then forget about for another couple of years. No wonder then that when Maya and I arrived to Canada in 2006, we didn’t know how to ski. At all. We picked it up quickly though, and it was super exciting. After a couple of years we got into backcountry skiing and spent many weekends in the mountains, making memories. Nevertheless, my last backcountry ski trip was in 2015, a few weeks before our first son, Neil, was born… We do…
Zoa Peak Loop: Not The Default Trip
Driving out of Vancouver, we had yet to decide where we’d be skiing that day, despite over thirty emails that had gone back and forth between us the previous week. The weather was unseasonably warm and rainy, so we weren’t expecting good snow. Our original plan was my suggestion to climb some an esoteric peak in Manning, Mount Forddred (I liked the name). This was shot down after a short discussion, due to the low snow conditions. Our backup plan was also discarded when we drove past it and again noticed a lack of snow on the approach. We were left with our default trip, Zoa Peak. Don’t get me…
Red Heather: How to Avoid Becoming Jaded
Over time we become jaded: the same old activities only continue to excite us if we make an effort to view them with a fresh eye. This is hard, since by nature we seem to be sensitive to changing stimulation but not constant stimulation. Just like in the oh-so-overplayed Passenger song Let Her Go: “Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low Only hate the road when you’re missin’ home Only know you love her when you let her go” That’s one good reason to introduce your friends to a new activity – they will hopefully be excited and super stoked from something that you have already started taking…
Hanging Lake: Hike-skiing, Ski-hiking, or Hskiing?
In the Coast Mountains, it’s not often that early season skiing starts at the end of December. This year, just like last year, is a late starting snow season. Somehow, during the years we have lived in Vancouver, almost every snow year is “out of the ordinary”, unusual or atypical in some way. Perhaps it’s global warming causing the weather to be more variable. Either way, we take what we can get. I picked up Doris, Avery, Matt and Mary. When we left Vancouver it was raining hard, and apparently continued raining for much of the day. We drove up the Sea to Sky, placing empty bets on when we…
Phelix Hut: A White Easter
It was 8pm on Thursday evening, and we were still undecided on what we would be doing on the Easter Long weekend, Friday to Monday. I guess we are kind of last minute people. That’s actually one of the privileges of owning a car – we can decide where we want to go, when and with who. A long look at various weather forecasts concluded that sub-par weather was coming from all directions. Our friend Anne was also looking for something to do, for three days. Finally we decided that given the bad weather, a trip to a comfy hut was in order, enter Phelix. We picked up Anne at…
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Tetrahedron: A Stagette Party in the Backcountry
On a sunny Saturday morning nine of us headed to Tetrahedron, on the Sunshine Coast to celebrate Pascale’s upcoming marriage, on a girls only trip, also known as a Stagette. I was excited by my late pick up time of 7:55am, especially due to the fact that Gili left our nice warm bed before dawn. Sometimes it’s nicer to be on a relaxing easy going trip than on a slog fest. Of course, I was also happy to go on a trip with a bunch of cheerful people and to explore a place I haven’t been to before. We met with the rest of the crew at Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal.…
Mt. Breakenridge: The Mountain at the End of the Lake
The seed for this trip was planted five years ago. Maya and I were cycling up the east side of Harrison Lake, a majestic turquoise jewel. It was a beautiful spring weekend, and we kept on admiring the snow capped mountains of the Chehalis Range, on the other side of the lake. But my eyes were drawn to another mountain, at the opposite end of the lake, easily visible despite being 60km away. Last weekend I finally made it back, to stand at the top of that pointy white giant, the same one which had appeared so far and out of reach. I woke up at the ungodly hour of…
Marriot Basin: Another Perfect “Weekend”
Last week we started our “weekend” on Monday which made perfect sense since the weekend was rainy and wet and then suddenly on Monday the sun showed up for a couple of days making it a wonderful opportunity for a trip to the mountains. For a while now we said that we’ll try to “cherry pick” the timing for our trips according to the weather and not according to the weekends. This is even better when going to places that are crowded during the conventional weekends, such as Elfin or Marriot Basin. So when Vancouver was getting ready to start the week we left early enough to avoid the traffic…
Iago Peak: When Everything Falls Right Into Place
There are those rare days in skiing that are a combination of both perfect sunny weather and excellent snow conditions. Last Sunday was one of those days, so we were off to the Coquihalla for some backcountry skiing. It was our third day in a row of skiing, but each day was of a different type. On Friday we skied downhill on Cypress. It was the first day of spring and probably the best skiing conditions we have had up there the whole season. On Saturday we went to Cypress again, but this time for some really nice and relaxing cross country skiing. It snowed the whole day and the…
