|
|
|
|
|
|
Turns All Year Trip Reports
(1) Viewing these pages constitutes your acceptance of the Terms of Use.
(2) Disclaimer: the accuracy of information here is unknown, use at your own risk.
(3) Trip Report monthly boards: only actual trip report starts a new thread.
(4) Keep it civil and constructive - that is the norm here. |
|
|
|
|
Author
|
Topic: October 13, 2003, Black Tusk Microwave Towers (Read 1292 times)
|
Jonathan
5Member
Offline
Posts: 7
|
With high pressure looming, and a few days of precip and 4500 foot freezing levels behind us, a few phone calls got an intrepid team of 6 tele/AT enthusiasts together for Canadian Thanksgiving Day turns. We were lucky enough to have a number of G3 folks (including Oliver himself) along so we piled into the official G3 "Truckosaurus" (seats 5 with gear) and headed up to the Cheakamus River West Side Main just out of Function Junction south of Whistler. Richard and Robbie were the only free heel die hards along (they kept casting frowns in the direction of the fallen ones) and we took the opportunity to test drive a few pairs of the new production G3 skins (along with the special anti-cross linking mesh for long term storage).
4400 feet brought us to snowline, so we put on a set of front chains but we made it to the upper gate at 5000 feet without any issues. We skinned right from the vehicle and headed round the south side of the towers (doing a little boot packing on the windward side) and popped into the backbowls. Coverage on the old snowfields was surprisingly good (about 1-2 feet of new on old firn snow) and the ski quality was a bit punchy (fast and just enough of a minor crust to snap your boards around very quickly) but we laid down 2 runs off the approach ridge to the Tusk, 2 600 footers down the North side (mmmm good) and a finishing pair of runs on the exit. The exit road finally turned to more rocks than snow, so we all bailed out between 100-300 yards from the car. Amazingly, we probably didn't hit any rocks until we were right on the exit road.
The weather was pretty clagged into start but we got some big patches of visibility (enough to enjoy our runs with top to bottom) and folks without sunscreen were a little salmon coloured by the end of the day. Temperatures were probably barely sub-zero in the shade and decidedly short sleeve t-shirt oriented in the sunshine. I guess the FL has gone way up for now but we might get some more new snow towards the end of next week (around Oct 24 onwards) and the base will be nicely pounded down after this deluge!
Jonathan.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Paul Belitz
Member
Offline
Posts: 408
WWW
|
You got to skin from the car! I'm jealous. Nice trip.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Jonathan
5Member
Offline
Posts: 7
|
Hi pbelitz:
Alas, we went back three days ago (the 23rd) and the torrential flooding of the weekend before has washed out the road about 3km from the bottom. It could take a while to fix although the BC Hydro and Telus will probably want their road back in action so they can drive/snowcat to do maintenance.
Jonathan.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
ron j
TAY Moderator
Online
Posts: 2459
|
Sounds like a great stash, Jonathan.
Thanks for reporting. Pray for snow.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
"When I stop having fun I'm turnin' around"
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.” - Niels Bohr
"If a given person makes it a priority not to die in an avalanche, he or she stands a very good chance of living a long, happy life in the mountains." - Jill Fredston
|
|
|
|
Thank you to our sponsors!
|
Contact turns-all-year.com
Turns All Year Trip Reports ©2001-2010 Turns All Year LLC. All Rights Reserved
The opinions expressed in posts are those of the poster and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Trip Reports administrators or Turns All Year LLC
|
Turns All Year Trip Reports | Powered by SMF 1.0.6.
© 2001-2005, Lewis Media. All Rights Reserved.
|
Page created in 0.993 seconds with 19 queries.
|
