Trip Report

Reveille sounds at 6am Saturday morning. Everything is packed in the car and Dan, Brodie and I are ready to head into the Laurentian Mountains to do some telemark skiing and stay on the side of a mountain. I should mention what I mean by Everything being packed in the Volkswagen GTI. Well for this weekend we had a 30 kg bag of gravel, four 20 kg cinderblocks, two bags of cord wood, two bags of kindling, two sets of skis, one set of boots, three large ruck sacks and a few other odds and ends to squeeze in with the three of us. The plan was to set-up the building materials to make ourselves a Barbecue but first we would have to get everything to the campsite.

At this point the careful reader will realize I mentioned we had only packed one set of boots. Luckily we realized this before getting too far out of Ottawa and promptly doubled back. We arrived at the ski hill formerly known as Gray Rocks mid-morning and immediately it began to snow. After unloading the vehicle the reality of hauling the material was becoming apparent. I strapped the four blocks and the bag of gravel to a toboggan and began towing it behind me. This worked pretty well for the first while on flat ground but became impossible as soon as I started uphill. Dan came to help me and after ditching the gravel and one of the blocks he managed to get the heavily-laden toboggan to the camp site. I made a few more trips myself and after about two hours of exhausting effort everything was in place where it needed to be.

We lit up a nice fire, arranged and leveled the blocks and before we knew it we were cooking sausages. With that taken care of and the snow accumulating we set out to hike for some turns. We were happy to find about 10 cm of light fluffy snow on top of the bulletproof crust we were skiing on last weekend. The turns were a lot mellower this weekend and much quieter too. We got in about five runs before darkness forced us back to the camp. I had a bit of trouble with my skins towards the end of the day as they became covered in snow and unwilling to adhere to my skis. I managed to fix this for the next day by getting as much snow off as I could and then sleeping with them in my sleeping bag to dry them out. Back at the campsite we were giddy with prospect of having salmon filets with baked potato and asparagus for dinner. This new grill is giving the campsite a real luxury feel and it is very nice to be able to eat so well. Pretty soon it was skiers midnight and we turned in.

The temperature plummeted throughout the night as the snow stopped and the sky cleared. I slept very warm though with lots of layers on and my sleeping bag cinched up tight. When I woke up the next morning it was -24 outside so I bundled up, put my ski boots by the fire that my campmate had already ignited and made quick work of breaking camp. Soon I was skiing down to the car under about 70 lb of gear which is always a bit terrifying. With the camp cleaned up all that was left was to get in some laps on the fresh snow in the sun. By the time we were close to the summit we spotted Dan's last two lines of worm turns from the previous day that were basking in alpine glow. Even my toes were warming up from the skinning and we were stoked to be the only ones skiing fresh snow that morning. We got in another four runs which included getting a lot of footage. One of the shots we are working on involves scaling the old chairlift towers which is pretty innovative I think.

The system I have been using for skiing in this cold weather is turning out to be very efficient, light, and comfortable. Basically I put on a base layer and put my camelback on over top of this then I put my Gore-Tex outer layers on top of the camelback. This seems to keep the water at a perfect temperature nowhere near freezing. I then use the large chest pockets of my coat for my skins. This keeps me well hydrated and dry throughout the day. When I stop for a break I put on my down jacket and this keeps me from cooling down too much. This weekend was overnight trip #4 for the year and they just keep getting smoother as I continue to figure out the little things like being organized and packing properly (with the exception of not forgetting my boots). Throw in some gourmet grill action and little fresh snow and you have the perfect weekend.

Telemarking in Full Swing

Its January 13th and later today will be my 20th day of tele-skiing for the season. That is just an awesome start and I have gone from a total beginner just getting down the hill without falling to linking tele-turns down some reasonably hard runs in all types of snow from powder to bulletproof. Most of all it has just been a great time just being outside in the winter and enjoying the fresh air, exercise and challenge of learning.

So far I have done three ski camping trips and only 4 of my 20 days of skiing have been with a lift ticket. I put together a video of my longest camping trip this year with a bit of other footage I had kicking around to round it out. The video is mostly some monologues about ski camping in general to give people a taste for what I am doing with myself on the weekends.