Andrew Strain Photography » backcountry

Spring Touring – Cerise Creek

Strain — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:36:00 +0000

I went on a touring mission up Cerise Creek / Mt Joffre with a couple friends last week. Conditions were… interesting over the first half of the approach, where for the first time since I bought them I wasn’t cursing the uselessness of my snowshoes. The crampons bit into the choppy ice of the forest floor far more effectively than climbing skins, but I’m still buying a splitboard this fall. Snowshoes suck.

We thought the snow might be a little sloppy up high, but avoiding sun-baked aspects led to a late April powder harvest. Gotta love that spring crop!

Pre-season shred

Strain — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:31:32 +0000

I posted a while back about the pre-season jitters that overtake the snow world as the days get shorter and the snowline drops. I know many of my friends have been dying to get back on a chairlift, whether its at Whistler this weekend (opening 2 weeks early!) or Baker (which opened today with bluebird skies and 6 feet of fresh), but I’m not the kind of person who likes to wait.

With word that storm after storm had hammered the local alpine, myself and several other hungover shreds dragged ourselves over 1000m up Blackcomb mountain at the crack of noon in search of our first pow turns of the Olympic season. We weren’t entirely disappointed – there was a good 2 feet through the terrain park, but below that coverage started to get spotty, fast. Luckily, none of us took any major board damage on the way back down to base 2… even after riding a snowbase that petered out to less than 2 inches where we finally unstrapped. Theres something about straightlining a sloppy mix of wet snow, grass, mud and rock with a crew of good friends that just feels right, ya know? Probably the worst conditions I’ve ever ridden in, but if that wasn’t fun I don’t know what is.

Park laps anyone? Taylor, Eric, Ryan, Sam, Taylor (theres 2 of em) and Steve strapping in at the shack:

Gunning up for the season:

While riding rocks may be fun, riding deep snow tends to be alot more enjoyable. With a scouting report in hand that the Elfin/Red Heather area had at least double the snowbase of Whistler and the snow continuing to fall, I busted out the snowshoes and headed out into the Squamish backcountry with a posse of skiers on Remembrance Day. We may have been an hour late, but we observed a moment of silence followed by a chorus of O Canada on top of Paul Ridge just after noon. Lest we forget.

The site of our snowy memorial ceremony:

Last year, I opened the season in the same area – here’s the post if you need a refresher. That was November 23 – snow depth, less than 2 feet. Yesterday, I probed 160cm on Paul Ridge. I don’t think we hit that last season til February or March… yeah, I’m excited.

Love the late afternoon light on this random party skinning up from a run:

Eliel Hindert warms up for a season of sending with this deep pillow line:

I love being in the backcountry hiking around and earning turns, and I’m pretty thrilled that I’ve beat most of my friends to the first day of the season, but I’m super stoked to have a chairlift doing all the work again this weekend at Whistler. See you there! I’ll be shooting photos of the opening madness…

Sun Days

Strain — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:47:00 +0000

Sunday has lived up to its name the past couple weeks, giving me plenty of opportunity to shoot photos and work on my increasingly well-defined goggle tan. Two weeks ago, (after the storm-of-the-season week came to a close), I spent the day out in Lakeside Bowl on Blackcomb with the NuuLife crew with the intent of staying out all day and shooting some pow shots at sunset…

John Swystun getting it done on both sides of the lens:

Read the full post for a story about how easy sledding is and a short whis park video from Eric Poulin:
———

…Unfortunately, Dave Craig suffered an equipment malfunction on the landing of a step down and had his board double eject (wtf, I know) and take off ghost rider style down to the bottom of the bowl. With his board a 500 feet below us, we decided to bugger the sunset shooting and call it a day.

This…

…turned into this:

Is this why we’re supposed to wear leashes?

Fast forward a week to last Sunday – the weather was prime again so I took up an offer to head out on a sled trip into the Whistler area backcountry. I’ve always heard people say how much of a bitch sledding can be when you first start out, but I was not prepared for the beat-down my body was about to receive.

Making matters worse was the fact that I wasn’t actually sledding up to the zone – I was being towed, wakeboard style, into the alpine. I like to think my legs are in pretty good shape, but my arms? Please. I’m a photographer, not a longshoreman. Now I feel like Stretch Armstrong – and don’t even get me started on the roller coaster ride up to Tricouni…

Complaints aside, once we were up it was about as glorious as it gets. We had some rad laps in the trees to start out, then hit some mellow terrain in the alpine and built up a perfect huck-anything step over.

Eliel Hindert found a nice spine area in the trees to rip:

My prior sledding experience is almost exclusively ice fishing trips. Not today.

Andrew Narkewicz, double or nothing:

Gideon Baldridge plays backcountry chauffeur for Eliel:

When we arrived at the trailhead in the morning it was an absolute zoo, so Gideon got a little creative with his parking skills. It cost us when we got down; the snow he parked on had melted under the heat of the car and refrozen after the sun set, pretty much welding his Land Rover in place. It took a bunch of digging and a pull from Hockenstein (thanks buddy) before we were on our way back to the city… we rolled home 15 hours after we left in the morning, dead tired and super-stoked.

Meanwhile, back at Whistler, Eric Poulin did some filming and threw together a little edit of how he spent his sunny Sunday – check it out!

Last Sunday from Eric Poulin on Vimeo.

Cerise Creek / Keith’s Hut

Strain — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:42:00 +0000

I spent a few days earlier this week riding out of Keith’s Hut, a cozy little backcountry cabin in the Cerise Creek valley, about half an hour east of Pemberton. It’s close proximity to the highway make it a popular touring destination, but going up midweek gave our group a solid monopoly on the hut.

The skies were blue, the snow was stable, and there were still plenty of good lines to be had, a week after the last snowfall. Top it all off with fish and chips at the Wigan Pier in Squamish on the way home, and you get a perfect backcountry trip. Chyea!

Looking back at Mt Joffre after shredding a 700m chute / glacier line:

Read the full post for more photos:

——
Joffre soaks up the morning sun:

Skinning up, with a view of Mt Matier and the Anniversary glacier:

Hereward serves notice that he will be skiing that line next time:

Looking east towards Vantage Peak:

Made it off the glacier with no crevasse incidents:

Speaking of monopoly, we didn’t get to bed until 1am on Tuesday due to a 5 hr long game…

The rest of my photos
Hereward’s photos

The only downside to the trip, was me realizing that I badly need a better touring setup. My backpack is way too big, I carry too much camera gear, snowshoes kinda suck and I always have to borrow a beacon when I go out. Definitely adding a better pack, a splitboard, and my own beeper to the “must buy” list, although I’ll have to make due with my current setup for the rest of the season. I also need to figure out a better way to carry my camera when space and weight restictions are tight – the camera block from my sequence is waaaay too clunky to bring along on a multi day trip…