Black Mountain - October 25 2023

North Vancouver Area, Porteau Cove, BC
1224m

After far-too-long since I last got to ski, I have been itching to get back to it for quite some time. Much time was spent healing and getting myself back in shape, and then came the waiting game for summer to turn to fall, and fall to turn into winter. I was getting worried given how dry things were the previous weekend, but Tuesday the 24th brought a nice, cold storm to the North Shore. I stalked webcams all day, and after determining that the Sea-to-Sky didn't get nearly as much snow as the North Shore, I decided I'd be heading to Cypress Wednesday morning to hunt for some turns.

In addition to "just getting to do one of my favourite things for the first time in over 7 months", I had a few other goals. I haven't skied since I got hurt, and wanted to see how the motions+stresses felt on my body, ideally somewhere I could bootpack out of fairly easily if the answer was "not good" (and I knew I didn't have the willpower to wait for resorts to open). I also had new gear since my last stuff was MIA or destroyed from my accident, so I wanted to see how that did. Last, it's just kinda fun to see who posts the first ski attempt of the season, so why not!

I drove down and got onto Cypress Bowl Road around quarter to eight, and I started seeing snow as early as 700m or so, a welcome sign! They plowed, but ofc that's never perfect, so I could finally justify my winter tires after a few weeks of driving them in 20+ degree weather 🙂. Once I parked and started gearing up, an employee came up to me, which wasn't a great sign (see the North Shore Dawn Patrol group for details about that). However, I was pleasantly surprised to have them just ask me to move my car to somewhere not in the way of plowing operations, and it was no problem at all! They warned me of how early in the season it was to ski, but I was full of determination and had rock skis on my back, so I ignored that part. So, with my boots on my feet and skis on my pack, I started walking at ~8:15am.

After a couple minutes I got to the lodge, where I slapped my skins on my skis and got skinning, which thankfully seems to be like riding a bike, as I seemed to remember the process well enough 😅. There were a few cat tracks and boot tracks from employees, so I decided to follow a cat track up Black Mountain as far as I could, because why break trail if a giant machine did it for you?

My route took me up Windjammer and Panorama, which provided a safe and efficient way up the mountain due to the cat track (which I saw being expanded partway through the hike, but they were seemingly nonplussed by my presence). The snowpack was deep enough that I wasn't hitting rocks, but the cat track did every so often, and you could see areas where water was flowing and exposing the ground, or larger rocks just weren't totally covered.

A bit before 9am I found myself at the top of the Eagle Express chair, where I decided to be a "good boi" and just follow the official trail to the summit(s), since I didn't really know how dense the trees were, even if it might've ended being a bit more undulation than the shortest path. Given the low elevation, I suspect this was probably the right call. It took under 40 minutes to skin up, on a powder day maybe I should just skin up instead of waiting for the chair!

Once I got onto the trail, I realised that it was gonna be "definitely more of a hiking than skinning trail", but oh well, I couldn't just ski down immediately, I still had to bag SOMETHING. I also didn't feel like transitioning (and therefore being able ot bootpack), so I figured "eh they're rock skis, they'll be fine", and just kept on skinning. The trail to Theagill Lake was a slight downhill, though I played it careful and side-stepped a few sections since I suck at skiing with my boots unlocked. It was deep enough that skinning was nice, though, except for a couple tighter spots where rocks constricted the trail, or near the bottom where some meltwater carved some holes in it.

Past the lake, it was a short skin to Cabin Lake, where I picked up a bootpacked trail. I probably should have followed suit here, but I decided to be stubborn and skin all the way to the top, which was definitely more effort than it was worth. There were a few steeper spots where the low snow meant I had to make very large+high steps to get through the rocky sections with traction, and overall it was probably more difficult than just walking. It was still less than 10 minutes to the south summit, though, so not the biggest deal.

Since I was already stopped at the top, and knew I wasn't gonna be able to ski down, I strapped my skis onto my pack here, and started booting down. It was a bit harder than if I didn't obfuscate the bootholes with ski tracks, but 🤷. Might've also helped if one of my pole baskets didn't disappear into the snow partway through, making me waste a few unfruitful minutes digging around for it. Guess the new poles need a new method to ensure the baskets stay on. Say what you will about my old BD touring poles and how hard it was to get the baskets on/off, but they did stay there once you installed em, at least.

Once I got down I enjoyed some lake views of the larger Cabin Lake (which was NOT frozen), then found myself the trail to the north (true) summit.

Despite the north summit trail being longer+higher (though marginally), it actually took less time since I was booting it; this was despite my having to break trail for this section as well. Once at the summit area, I took some pictures of the views, then I had to tackle the "true summit", a snowy and sharp-faced boulder that seemed like it might pose a bit of a challenge in my ski boots.

I had to take a big step up on a lower ledge, then reach and pull myself up to au-cheval the rock, then scoot to the top to truly tag the summit. I guess you'll have to believe me since I didn't feel stable enough to take my hands off for a photo on the top. Maybe I would've if I just took my pack (with the skis still on it) off, but that'd be cheating!

With that out of the way, I booted down the Black Mountain trail, which goes further north than my route up, since it was the one with a bootpacked path, and still seemed like it would get me back onto the resort. This worked well (it also seems like it'd have been easier to ski, less rock obstacles for skinners), and I split off at around 1170m to get back onto the resort slopes, as the non-treed areas were the most likely to have enough snow to actually make turns on. After putting the skins away, I buckled my new boots far too tight, and set off for the first turns since March!

The first turns were quite careful, as I wasn't sure how my knee would react to the pressures of skiing (I was more confident in my ankle given how well boots isolate them). I am glad to report that this went fairly well, and I didn't have any knee pain holding me back, just the thin snow and desire not to totally core-shot my skis 😃.

As I got about halfway down, I realised I was getting unreasonably tired, so I loosened my cuffs and determined that despite touring boots (especially lighter ones that skew more towards the skimo crowd) generally being soft due to their weight-cutting, I had actually over-tightened! Despite being temporarily painful, this was actually great news, since it meant I had room to adjust with my boots, so I let my calves breathe for a bit, tightened them up a bit more loosely, then continued my way down.

I found the best snow between 1100-1000m, as it was more snow than rock in this little section, so I could link a few turns without getting rudely interrupted, and could now enjoy them with my boots not cutting my blood flow off completely. It didn't last forever, and I couldn't get to anything I would call fast, as there were still plenty of obstacles lurking, but it was definitely more fun than walking!

From there to the base of the chair it was more careful route selection to minimize the abuse put down on my rock skis (think I avoided core shots, at least). There were a couple creek depressions to get across, but none were open, at least. I'd say the skiing was 10% sharks, 60% scraping/scratching, and 30% turns. Not bad for October.

After I got to the bottom of the hill, it was a short skin to the lodge, and bootpack to the car. I shared some beta on the snow conditions with a few people in/around the lot, and headed home in time for a late workday. While perhaps not the most glamorous ski day ever, it was not bad for October in the Vancouver area, and for me, I confirmed I could ski well enough to still enjoy the sport, which was really the most important part. I can't wait for some more storms to roll in so I can do some "real skiing" now 🙂.

GPX Track + Map