First Day Of Skiing - Mt Sproatt

"My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud."  -  Henry Rollins
    8:00am, raining, not much in the way of snow in the valley.  Jeff Van Driel and I were to stoked to care though, and off we went up Mt Sproatt, trying to find the best snow.  We drove up the Callaghan, and got as best we could, into the area we thought would be best.  Skinning away from the car, it was a different snowy world altogether, unlike the rainy valley.  It was dumping and the snow was deep.  The trail breaking was easy at first, but got hard when we began breaking trail up to our waists.  We followed the old road, up to the Sub Alpine, leap frogging trail breaking leads the whole way.

    Getting pounded with snow we stopped in a the CSA cabin to dry off and have lunch.  Drenched and chilled we kept moving to get to the goods.  The snowpack measured 150cm at 1540m, and coverage was actually pretty good.  We saw 15-20cm fall during the day, and there's more coming!
     Breaking a yo-yo skin track as high on the surrounding lines as we could, we skied unbelievably good snow, dare I say almost too deep?  Steeper slopes were definitely needed, but we didn't have the time or the energy to bust a trail further into the mountains.  Skiing down the snow plumed over our heads almost to the point of not being able to see.  I had been waiting so long to ski, and face shots on the first day were such a treat!  The long slog out was a bit of a downer, as the lower logging road was tough travel in the deep lower elevation wet snow.  Otherwise, stoked for this season and ready to get out more!

Skier:  Jeff Van Driel