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Becky's spring break had arrived and we had some skiing to do. Unfortunately, I was sidelined with a cold that turned into bronchitis the week before. We decided to stick with our plans to head to BC and just get in as much skiing as we could.
Keiths Hut is a first-come first served cabin near Mt.Matier and Joffre Peak. We'd been up there a couple years before and mid-week there had only been a few people there- plenty of space in the sleeping loft for us to stay. Turns out that Becky's spring break coincided with the local school spring breaks too- so many a student and teacher was up there as well. When we arrived at the pullout along the highway we saw that eight cars already parked there meant that it was probably pretty busy, so we packed out tent just in case.
A couple hours of easy skiing up through the forest and we arrived- sure enough the hut was jam packed, so we set up our tent nearby- at least we'd have a nice warm place to have breakfast and dinner before heading out to the tent.
The day we arrived it was overcast and snowing lightly- the previous week the weather had been clear and cold, and then had a day of rather warm weather which pretty much cooked all the powder into crust or glop. We ran a few laps on the ridge above the hut...good skiing, not great.
Day 2 and 3, more snow, poor visibility, but we were finally zeroing in on the best place to play- a 1000ft slope on the side of Vantage Peak had 2-3ft of wind deposited powder, was steep enough to be fun, but still shallow enough to not have much worry about avalanches. The wind was howling so much that every lap we had to break a fresh trail up through the powder to get to our previous high point. Toward the end of day 3, Becky started to get a sore throat- a sign that my cold had migrated on over to her.
Friday was sunny and clear- a perfect day in the mountains, but Becky had a full blown cold at this point, I was still a little under the weather, and the previous three day storm cycle had us reluctant to race up into the alpine and ski anything all that steep. We settled on two very nice laps of sunny powder above the hut before we packed up our gear and headed home. Not quite the week of epic skiing we'd hoped for, but good enough.
Becky's spring break had arrived and we had some skiing to do. Unfortunately, I was sidelined with a cold that turned into bronchitis the week before. We decided to stick with our plans to head to BC and just get in as much skiing as we could.
Keiths Hut is a first-come first served cabin near Mt.Matier and Joffre Peak. We'd been up there a couple years before and mid-week there had only been a few people there- plenty of space in the sleeping loft for us to stay. Turns out that Becky's spring break coincided with the local school spring breaks too- so many a student and teacher was up there as well. When we arrived at the pullout along the highway we saw that eight cars already parked there meant that it was probably pretty busy, so we packed out tent just in case.
A couple hours of easy skiing up through the forest and we arrived- sure enough the hut was jam packed, so we set up our tent nearby- at least we'd have a nice warm place to have breakfast and dinner before heading out to the tent.
The day we arrived it was overcast and snowing lightly- the previous week the weather had been clear and cold, and then had a day of rather warm weather which pretty much cooked all the powder into crust or glop. We ran a few laps on the ridge above the hut...good skiing, not great.
Day 2 and 3, more snow, poor visibility, but we were finally zeroing in on the best place to play- a 1000ft slope on the side of Vantage Peak had 2-3ft of wind deposited powder, was steep enough to be fun, but still shallow enough to not have much worry about avalanches. The wind was howling so much that every lap we had to break a fresh trail up through the powder to get to our previous high point. Toward the end of day 3, Becky started to get a sore throat- a sign that my cold had migrated on over to her.
Friday was sunny and clear- a perfect day in the mountains, but Becky had a full blown cold at this point, I was still a little under the weather, and the previous three day storm cycle had us reluctant to race up into the alpine and ski anything all that steep. We settled on two very nice laps of sunny powder above the hut before we packed up our gear and headed home. Not quite the week of epic skiing we'd hoped for, but good enough.
