August 28, 2002, Black Tusk Area, Garibaldi Pk, BC

Weather and other commitments conspired to threaten our year round ski streak up here but, after much desperate phoning around, Richard from G3 sailed in to save the day. We headed up the 4WD Microwave Tower road, found the park gate open, and risked the wrath of the now rare (due to funding cutbacks) BC Parks Rangers by parking high up on the tower maintenance road in the alpine. It's currently possibly to drive right up to the Towers at 6000 feet but it's probably not a great idea on a weekend unless you like paying tickets(!) A Telus technician was hard at work inside the control buildings and there were a couple of other vehicles up there belonging to hikers.

A 20 minute walk brought us to our first 20 turn descent and, from then on, were skinned our way to the big north side run on Black Tusk itself. We had to walk two or three patches of rock but they were short (less than 50 metres a piece). The snow was a little cupped (and had some mysterious volcanic rocks in the bottom of some bigger holes) but was pretty smooth and presented us with about 800 vertical feet of easy corn skiing on the football field width snowfield. All in all, we managed about 2000 vertical feet with a couple of minor interruptions.

Jonathan