Black Tusk in a snail pace 4.20h

Just came back from this hike. Forgot to bring my camera but this lack of weight still didn't help me to go fast as I wished. I though I can do it easily in 4h. But some snow higher up, my legs... I was happy I didn't crash on the last 6km downhill. Legs couldn't hold my weight. I am not use to running. Not yet. 29km and 1740m elev.

Mt price and Taylor meadows 23.feb and 2.march

I was very excited to meet this for me new group of locals who I believed were good skiers and even better uphillers. I wasn't wrong and with some fresh snow after couple weeks of sunshine group of nine headed towards mt. Price 2052m. We divided into 2 groups. 1 did stay in the trees to enjoy better visibility and 2 went for the summit. It was little bit sketchy as the avi was high and I as the last 4th person was left on the slope alone. Somebody even cut small debris 5cm by 10m but again I was alone and I needed to catch up with them. Or turn around. Too late. Next time. Skiing from the summit was fine, I only hit rock once :) I couldn't see much, everything was just white. Straight into the trees and my eyes felt happier. I was sinking in the snow (30cm) a bit and could't get enough speed but still great skiing. On the way down we decided to give the Barrier a try. Which I wasn't happy about. I didn't think there is enough coverage. Which was partially truth. On the first turn i am hitting rock and my binding release. Damn! Time to turn around. But everybody just goes down. Ok, lets see. I hit rocks couple more times but the Trabs prove to be a good quality skis. 30-40cm of fresh with not much base led us to the first switchback at 820m +- Thanks to Paul we found the turnoff right away. Great day out for sure. 26km and 1500m elev.g.
Last weekend we went with Nicolas out and with heavy snow starting right in the morning we headed towards familiar terrain. Friend of mine reported some sun crust everywhere except N facing slopes but on Sunday we were lucky to have this crust covered by 20cm of fresh. We did 2 laps under Black Tusk and we would for sure do more if I didn't have birthday on Sat. Terrible driving conditions on the way home (slippery, slow traffic, accidents) reminded me again how precious the time is.

Tszil mountain 2377m

Not much skiing, but the little of the good was great. And a lot of very bad was really bad. Especially coming down the Joffre lakes trail was a nightmare. Rocks everywhere inviting my skibases to touch them. But I could resist and enjoyed even this part. It was great to be out this season for the first time out of Vancouver on a new mountain for me. Unfortunately Nicolas wasn't able to join me all the way cause his toes were freezing (-17deg.C). I was on the edge with mine but manage to keep warm for the rest of the body. Didn't see many people up there. This season is way beyond the "regular" snow pack which is one of the reasons probably. Hopefully next week 50+ cm will cover some of the rock...

This winter is bad. But not as bad as in...

...Europe :) I always like to compare. So why not with Europe? This winter here sucks. Not enough snow and even not enough rain. Yes RAIN. I love rain. But only if the freezing level is 1000m or lower. When I talked to my friends from back at home, they enjoy spring like weather and no snow winter. Alps are little bit different but 1.2m coverage doesn't sound exciting. So I just keep doing my loops on Seymour and Cypress. But last weekend Cypress was so bad, that I didn't even try the backcountry, as the skiresort had minimum coverage allowing so so to go up on the closed runs. But down I rather choosed the "fake snow" run with crowds :-) Seymour bc is still doing much better although south facing slopes are sowing lots of rocky teeth.

Rice lake loop

This is a classic walk for our family and everybody finds his own. Ela runs for about an hour at lynn creek, Martin enjoys the scenery from the chariot, Jakub trains his bike skills on the descents and me? I am just enjoying. Looking around and I always find something interesting. Awesome Saturdays mornings. How can the feathers freeze? Delicate hourfrost (pretty good for an I phone crap :)

Singing pass

I wanted to check this place in summer for a while. Running sounded like a good option. We took the singing pass trail which is really nice, worth checking on the bike too. Once we reached the alpine views surrounded us especially the huge glacier towards Castle towers. We followed the ridge towards ski resort and the plan was to run/walk to the village. This was a problem. 1200m elevation loss is heavy for already tired knees and as we found out halfway, we were not allowed to walk in the ski resort area (because of the trucks driving up and down on the road we were on...). I asked the person who stopped us, how to get down since we are very poor and have no money :) The tram is for free going down she replied. Well, we are not that cheap we told our self and run to nearest tram station. This was luckily downwards since my legs were pretty tired. After 16km and 1200m e.g. who wouldn't be :)

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

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.