Andrew Strain Photography » blackcomb

Deep Winter

Strain — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:29:00 +0000

The first week of the new year is probably my favorite time to be around Whistler. The Christmas vacationers and New Years partiers have returned to the cities, leaving the mountains relatively quiet during a time of year noted for the intense winter storms that pummel the coast day after day. It isn’t unusual for the alpine to shut down for several days at a time as the snow piles up, forcing powder hunters into their secret forest stashes until the weather breaks and the upper mountain opens with several feet of fresh.

For 4 years now, Whistler has played host to the Deep Winter Photo Challenge, a 3 day contest that pits 5 photographers against each other for a hefty prize purse in stormy conditions that tend to be the exact opposite of ideal for photography. Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend the event itself this year, but I was shooting with some of the participating athletes in the days leading up to the contest, working through the storm on our own little Deep Winter side challenge. I’d be stoked to be one of the competitors someday… but I think I’ll wait until Jordan Manley gets sick of winning every year.

A pair of photos of skier Jake Cohn on Blackcomb Mountain in the early days of the new year. Deep.

I missed the slideshow presentation because I’m on the road, touring through interior BC with the Surface Skis crew. More about that in the next day or two – but you can keep up to date on our whereabouts and shenanigans by following my twitter. We’ll be back in Whistler on the 18th… fingers crossed we’re coming home into another storm…

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:
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…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.

Winter, is that you?

Strain — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:03:00 +0000

Good times shredding with Jake Cohn on Blackcomb today. Is winter finally here?

Spanky’s Rockfest

Strain — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:55:00 +0000

With the lack of snow this season, I have yet to transition from my “rock board”, my trusty 2003 (I think… I got it used in 2004) Option Sansalone. It has its fair share of core shots and edge damage, but Sapphire Bowl dealt a mortal blow this past Thursday, removing a bunch of sidewall from my heelside edge. With a few repairs its probably still fine in pow, but I can’t see it lasting long on hardpack.

I can’t really complain though, as I’ve ridden that board through the rockiest days of the past 5 seasons (and it was a demo board before that), dishing out a ton of abuse along the way. Best $125 I ever spent, long live the Option factory sale!

My poor board:

We hiked up above the glacier to deliver the last rites:

The scene of the crime – a very rocky Spanky’s Ladder:

Read the rest of the post for a few more photos.
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Hereward doubles down:

All smiles on a bluebird day – this was before my board was so savagely assaulted:

I never get sick of this view:

A few more photos can be found on my flickr.

Two Methods

Strain — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:15:00 +0000

Pentax K10D – DA 50-200

Rusty and Poulin demonstrate their methods in the Blackcomb Park on Tuesday. If only Poulin could’ve squeezed in another foot of vert, the chopper would’ve been completely below him…