Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Day 40

The plan for my fortieth day of skiing was to knock off a tour that has been on my to-ski list all winter. The tour consists of a 5.5 km trail that gains 700m of elevation through quiet forests that slowly changes composition as the altitude increases. The trail ends at the 935m Pic Johannsen that serves as a gateway to many other seldom used hiking trails and Parc Mont-Tremblant. After gaining Johannsen there is another 5 km of gently rolling terrain that takes you to the summit of two more peaks before arriving at the summit of Tremblant.

I woke up to clear skies and a brisk -23 day. I took those temperatures seriously and brought a down jacket, hatchet, and firestarter as a precaution. After a bit of a run around trying to find the the trailhead I was skinning about 9:30. Here is a shot of Tremblant from a frozen beaver pond early in the trail.




By noon I had reached Pic Johannsen which is not a summit you can see out from so instead I had to see up:



After a quick lunch I was on my way to practice single track downhill skinning. The next 5 km just flew by as I toured past Pangman, Edge and arrived at the Tremblant lookout at 2 pm. From the lookout you can see Johannsen in the rear middle, Pangman just in front of it and the Edge off to the right.



The final shot is one of my usual stomping ground Gray Rocks whose awesome powder has been brutalized by a melt freeze cycle. You can also see the vistas that the CAVU weather provided me on this beautiful winter day.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Does that make me crazy?



A 10000 foot touring day is on the horizon.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Quinzhee





This was fun and easy to build.