Goat ridge- Sunday afternoon

I always looked at Goat ridge from Squamish and was wondering how the hike and views could be from up there. Last weekend I found out. The trail starting at Murrin park (100m North) is very nice and not very steep to Petgill lake. Right on the begin you need to turn left after 20m from hwy. I went right, then another fork tried left, right, than back, left again. Took me 10 minutes to find the first left turn. Second confusion was the 2.5km long stretch on old lodging road. Didn't know I have to stay on it till the end. This is when the Iphone come very handy. I reached Petgill lake in 1.10min and wasn't really motivated to go any further up. After 20min break I descided to explore little bit of the trail leading to Goat ridge. In 40 min I reached the first viewpoint and as time was against me, after 3min I started to head down. 1h 6min it took me to get down to Parking lot at Murrin where my wife with kids was waiting already in the dark. I was happy to be down after some 3h, 18km and 1100m elev.

Australian gully- Cypress ski resort

I always do enjoy exploration of local mountains. In the previous winters I heard a lot about this gully mostly from newspaper when people got lost, injured and unfortunately dead too. Its situated close to the ski resort so some of the youngsters try to ski it. We didn't try to ski it, but I was wondering how steep it is and if there really is a big drop causing troubles to those who wan to. We followed the parallel ridge above it and then tried to descent. I was here once before and was forced to turn back because the slope was getting to steep and we still could't see the objective through the trees and rocks. This time with Elena, I didn't expect any difference but for some reason we manage to traverse the 50deg. slope and put the crampons on. Few more steps over exposed rock and jumping into the gully was the scariest of that day. With the right people around you everything is possible. But now in the gully we could see below us a drop 3-5m with water running over bare rock. Above us was a crack in the snowy step 1.5m. To the right steep slopes and to the left roks. Without ice axe I wasn't sure which way to go. But I was sure not the way we came from. We decided to go up, which turned out to be very enjoyable. On the top we both agreed that this must be very cool/ scary line 40-45deg. with two 50deg. sections. Will have to wait till next year to come again.

mt Seymour circumnavigation

This "project" was hidden somewhere deep in my head. But probably from the first time being on mt Seymour and seeing this gully, I wanted to ski it. There were better snow conditions this year, but 30cm of fresh snow although heavy, I couldn't resist to try it on last Sunday. With Juraj we entered this 150m SE facing future, 53deg steep in some short section and pretty narrow in one spot. Juraj going first took some of the fresh with him and left for me something that is hard to describe. Ok it was hard :) But fun and after few poser shots on the bottom off we went towards Runner peak. This part of the area doesn't get much visit especially in the winter time (my guess would be 2-3 parties). We enjoyed this remote slopes down from Runner (west) and completed our circumnavigation hiking to the top of mt Seymour (1455). 1 more fun run and back to the car and back to my family. Altogether 5 hours and 1400m and 6 times putting the skins on :)

My girly blog post

My first thought was - eh, if I was a guy, I would put this on our blog.

After couple of hours - ah hell with it!

...and so here it is, my girly blog post.

On our weekly ski trip to our  north shore mountains (remember, we have just about 4 hours to get back to kids!), as we near the first bump of Mt. Seymour, I notice a guy in shorts. I make  a comment to my husband - "I wish that guy would tumble down and get the snow right on his b...."

Don't take me wrong, it was a beautiful day, pretty warm. But I just don't like seeing this kind of "gear" in the mountains, even if it's "just" our local mountains. People have died here and I hate how they get constantly underestimated.

As we hurry around the first pump with at least 15 people on top of it, I nearly loose balance skiing down towards the 2nd peak with the skins on. That makes me think of the guy in shorts- "I shouldn't have talked like that, now I will get it back in return". I did not know at the time how much truth was in those thoughts. 

On the 2nd peak I secretly swear at couple of people that cause me to not go and ski with full bladder. We take the best line from the 2nd peak down to the gully, traverse, and again another even better line below the 3rd peak. I stop in the middle of the run on a steep slope as I cannot hold it anymore, put my pants down and assume this cute girly position. In a split of a second I realize it's all going wrong as I loose balance and start falling ... yeah, falling with my naked bum into the arms of Seymour powder. Yeah, our loved powder. Everywhere, on my bum, in my ski pants, underneath my shirt. How is this not connected to the guy in shorts! I hate him at this moment even more...until I start laughing about it which takes me about a minute, because as I said - it's a beautiful and warm day.

So that was my story. Now -beware of your thoughts and comments about other people! You never know what's about to happen as a result of them.

Just some of the driving skills training...

This one ended up with broken birfield :(

Parents are awesome!

Since I am a parent and awesome as well :) I must explain this a bit. With 2 small children "running" around, every time on skis with El is very precious. And every time her mother takes care of our children for few hours, we enjoy all of it on local slopes above North Shore. With the visibility not so good, I decided on Hollyburn which has some descent tree skiing. But going up I realized pretty quick this won't be much fun (hard snow with just little bit of dust). Plan B was to cross the woods from top of mt Hollyburn towards mt Strachan and ski NW slopes towards Howe sound CT. Things started to improve with gaining the altitude and on the best descent of the day we've found 20-30cm of fresh snow. Next time we should skip the boring part and head straight to this area. Short video:

Magical weekend.

Well for me every weekend is something special. As long as I don't have to work. This time, the plan on Saturday was Mt. Seymour backcountry with my friend Juraj and on Sunday kayaking Squamish river and hiking up Grouse mt. in the afternoon. Thankfully to El's parents and the weather, all 3 things were really enjoyable. Now I can say, who stayed in the city, was a looser. I mean can you call somebody who miss the opportunity to ski in the sun above the clouds and kayak in the morning frost warmed by the sun a looser? I think you can :)

...let the winter begin!

Mt Cayoosh. This is a classic winter season opener. 1300m elevation gain and you can ski all the way to the car. Well, the last 40min are pretty tough. On January 2. I wanted to discover some powder in this area but to my small disappointment everything was wind blown, wind moved and so on :) But still, this is a great run in beautiful surroundings and being with your friends in the backcountry... what more do you want? Ok, we need more snow :) Forrest at 1400 was still a bit open. This was my -I think- 5th time up on the summit, so next time I would like to take a look at some other ski projects in this area as Million $ couloir etc.

https://picasaweb.google.com/oscar.nika/MtCayoosh2561m