Thanks to Alison Etter for these two photos taken with her iPhone. Let me tell you the kind of day it was – a snowshoeing day up my favourite ridge (Evening Ridge) and I didn’t take a single photo! That’s right – not one!
My usual photo count on a so-so day is 50. Today – 0. And why is that, you may ask? Well, my camera isn’t too happy about getting soaking wet and that was the state of affairs. It snowed and snowed hard – driving, windy snow at the top and heavy, thick, wet snow near the bottom.
Our intention had been the top of the Whaleback as our final destination. We made it to the first bump on Evening Ridge – to go past that would have been interesting to say the least. We could see nothing. We had no orientation. It would have been like flying on instruments. And with 20 people in our group, we did the prudent thing and turned around at the top, after breaking trail through deep snow – and hied back down to a reasonable amount of shelter from the wind for lunch.
The cool thing was that instead of going back via Hummingbird Pass, we chose to investigate the mine route. This route lifts straight up above the pass and doesn’t make anyone nervous about avalanche risk. Everyone seemed very happy about this new route. I still prefer the direct south route we took last time. But it’s possible I’ll get to do that again this weekend because the weather looks promising – at least, a lot more promising than today.
That said, it was a fine day and super to spend time with Sheila again. More to come.
