Telegraph cove- kayaking with whales

I never thought kayaking can be so scary and so beautiful. My parents came for a 5 week visit to meet my 20 months old son for the first time. This was very special for me and them. It was their 2nd visit in BC, and again I wanted to show them how spectacular the nature here is. The reason why we decided to stay here. Telegraph cove is a small village on the northern part of Vancouver Island, 350 km from Nanaimo. By small village I mean 6 houses (maybe 7:) but everything necessary for life is there: General store, coffee shop, museum, motel, kayak rental, marina, campground. Ok so maybe 10 houses. I can imagine how empty and rough this place gets in winter but in summer it was just perfect. We spent 7 nights in the tent. But every day we went on the water to watch humpback whales, orcas, bears, dolphins, seals, sea lions, eagles ... and everyday we saw so much more than what we expected. The wildlife around the bay can get really busy. But there were also days when fishing was the most fun part of the day. Leaving this place and coming back home was a civilization shock for us and we will be back to explore Vancouver Island coast.

mt. Hanover, not quite in Germany

Last weekend trip led us to local mountain just few km far away from our home. Mt Hanover (1748m) was in my view for few years already. Hidden from "regular" people view, we also had to ascent 1250m to get its live proportion. We put the skis at 1200m and followed through the saddle (1400m) toward the summit. There were so many ski opportunities around and the lines from mt Brunswick are a good reason to come back in the future. Fairly easy slope (35-40 deg.) in the south gully was enjoyed by me and Stano in the noon Sun. Altogether 2000meters elev. gain in 8 hours.

Mt. Cayley. The way under the burning sun

Another mountain on another sunny day, but this time not without suffering. My burned lips keep the memories from last Saturday still fresh and so the pictures do. 2 of us started pretty late (9am) fairly low (+-700m) due to snow on the Brandywine fsr. The sun roasted our faces all around during 10 hours the trip took us. Sunscreen for sure helps, I just don't like when it enters my eyes while sweating. And I was sweating a lot :) I will skip all the up and down on the ridge/ glacier and as well the snowmobile thing... (we met around 20 of them and they were not bothering us) I was surprised how high we were able to skin up on the SE face of Cayley. But the tricky section was just behind the small saddle. Little exposed traverse (or a lot but not to steep:) then over small rock/snow step and we were again on top of (our) the world. I know, there are 2 small pinacles on each side, but I am not interested :) Altogether 25km, 10h, 2450m elev. And my lips...

Easter at Anniversary glacier

For the Easter hollyday Palo from Calgary came to visit us for the long weekend, so I wanted to show him something so he has an motivation to move to Vancouver already :-) I picked him up at the airport at 1 am, so didn't get much sleep that night. From the begin of his vacation he liked Vancouver very much and even by the night views he was so impressed :) We started really late from the parking lot (4pm) and going up the glacier was painful for me as I started to fall a sleep just before the col (around 8pm). Building a tent and cooking was another slow and painful procedure for me. The next day we wanted to start with Aussie couloir as warm up, doing Matier next and Spetch as last. Everything went well except for the Aussie. Snow condition were not that great and we were more than warmed up after skiing it :-D
I was surprised how many skiers came to enjoy the powder on Matier's NW face on Saturday. But it was definitely worth it. The ascent of mt. Spetch was the scariest of the day. We ascended the N side and skied the NW wich was also the best (steepest) of the day.
Second night was in the sign of almost no sleep. We didn't attach the tent properly and the wind started to blow pretty strong during the night. Nothing serious for the tent, we just couldn't sleep because of the noise. There were 5 of us in 3 person tent so that might have been a reason too :-)
On the last day we exited via mt. Slalok and its N face, which I can't put any words on :)
Monday was just relax. Up to mt Seymour we went and quick kayak ride in the afternoon. We were tired but happy. I was only sad to bring Palo back to airport.
Hope to see him soon :)

Only two of us- Castle towers

Last weekend was really special for me. I spent 3 days at Burton hut with my skiing/climbing partner (my wife). Leaving our 14months old boy with her parents for more than 1 day was big experience for everybody involved :)
Our plan was to hike to Burton hut the first day, climb Castle Towers on 2nd and do something funny on the last day. The weather was very supportive for the whole trip and only turning back 10 meters under the main summit of CT was little bit disappointing.
On Monday we climbed Deception peak. This was a nice 2.5h hike up and beautiful 20min downhill.
I always wonder myself, how alone you can be so close to the crowded areas like Neve traverse. We were the only ones skiing the slopes past the cabin but have seen a lot of people coming from Neve. Fog and snowing started as we approached the Barriere so we just did the 6.5km trail skiing to get to the car.

I can't name this again. But is worth few words.

It all began on Saturday morning with high avalanche danger all around and 50cm of fresh snow past 24h. So this was the plan: finding some tree skiing, bringing at least 2 friends with beacons and shovels and lets go. Hollyburn up on Cypress mt. To be honest, I was disappointed. Amount of people, snow quality and snow quantity overall was huge/poor :-) But there still was a Sunday, good weather and my wife joining me again in view. I was pretty sure that mt. Seymour with its slightly higher elevation and North facing slopes, avalanche danger drastically decreasing (moderate) will bring us more joy than the day before. So it was. Just few people enjoying beautiful weather and untracked terrain just for us. This was up to this day a highlight of the season on local mountains :-)
VIDEO HERE

Cayoosh mt. around the corner

This weekend I was expecting the best conditions this season. With 20cm of fresh snow, some snowy clouds and temperature around -7C what an disappointment. Everything was fine just those clouds didn't let us go higher up and made my eyes useless. On the open white slopes, I couldn't see anything. Stano said- you need real Goggles! so I'll give it a try next time.

Whistler out of (bounds) people.

With the promising temperatures (-12) and not sure about avalanche conditions (our condition) we went to Whistler once again. We didn't spent much time on the ski runs and tried little bit of the untracked terrain this resort is blocking. Up to this day the best skiing this season and to our surprise just few people around. Unfortunately due to high activity of my son at night, I didn't have the power to do more than 2 laps. Oskar was smiling also just on the way down :-)

Testing some stuff...

Yes we got a new car. The old one still waiting for a new owner, if anybody is interested :-) Of course I was keen to try it somewhere, somehow... Fresh snow up on Cypress gave me great opportunity to test the car and also my shovel.
VIDEO HERE

Valentine's day in Valentine's gully

I was wondering what special could I give to my wife this year. Maybe flowers? Did I say something special on the begin? Lets go for a short ski run instead! We decided to make a small loop on mt. Seymour, descending steep slopes to the East side between 1st and 2nd pump and ascending 350m with one short steep section just beside it. Some fresh snow from the last night made it real fun on the way down, luckily not too much doing the ascent still ok. Elena's crampons did the walk a bit more adventurous, because they were not sharp enough. Otherwise very nice line worth a ski descent if the conditions are better (more snow:) Later that day and watching the line-up in the flower store made me feel good about the decision I mentioned at the beginning :-)
These picture take you in such a remote part of our backyard, still so close to the city. Thank you Marek for checking the conditions last week and Janka for taking care of Jakub. Happy Valentine Eli!
VIDEO HERE

First skiing!

I was getting very excited about this trip. It was the first skiing 11/12 season, but this time little bit special. Our son Jakub was getting 11 months old and we decided to take him up on Seymour and show him, how nice the skiing is. Although his smile was little bit frozen, we believe that he was enjoying the sunset from the carrier on my back as much as we did.

The Lions revisited

On Tuesday we decided to take a look at the beauty of Vancouver- the Lions. 4 of us took the regular trail from Lions bay and spent a beautiful day in the alpine. 8 hours round trip and some scary exposure on the last section of the summit.