Tales from the Hinterland: 2016/2017 edition

Long time no ski! The chair does not lie but it can be deceiving: under three inches of fresh is a solid block of concrete. Winter is rebooting up here.

 

Due to a combination of uninspiring conditions and a busy work schedule, I hadn't been on skis for over two weeks. Gasp. This seems to happen every January, and often leads to a mild depressive state when I become convinced that everyone is having fun but me. This never happened before the Internet. Today, I kicked myself in the ass, packed up the car and drove the 15 minutes to Hidden Bump for a little tele-rejuvenation. Just what the doctor ordered.

Here I am putting my boots on. We don't "boot up" in the Hinterlands, we put our boots on. Computers boot up.



For a Saturday, it was pretty quiet. Snow conditions were quite nice and I even found a few spots of untracked two inches on fresh cordoroy.



The pillow line is looking a bit overgrown.



Liability concerns are getting a bit out of control. Who would even go there? Must be the new GM.



Through eavesdropping, I deduced that the dude in the plaid jacket was giving an advanced carving lesson to a group of members (it is a semi-private club). Some of those people have been skiing there since they were kids, good for them for finding ways to keep 350 feet of vertical interesting. They really should just take up tele skiing.



This view never gets old. It was good to get out and clear out the cobwebs.

As a little break from the chair, I give you blue snow in the beaver meadow:



Finally! We are back into winter adventure mode. Yesterday, I went for a nice sunset tour in the backyard backbush:



Today, TD and I rendezvoused with LeChef for another tour in the back of beyond. On the way in, we had to wait here for a train to go by. The conversation suddenly turned to old movies:



Considering that this was a day trip, there seemed to be a lot of stuff in the back of Dave's car.



If you recall our trip from two years ago, we were a little further along the Powder Peaks Road. If you don't, trust me, it is way back in there. Lucky for us, our arrival coincided with the arrival of the plow guy, maintaining the road to the graphite mine. We sent LeChef out to parlay, since he was dressed appropriately:



We got organized. TD was having difficulty with his new frankenbinding setup.



But off we went anyway. No logging trucks were spotted, thankfully.



It wouldn't be a day out with LeChef if there wasn't a water crossing. This is the Magnetewan River. Dave had to catch up after switching skis.



Here is our objective (taken later when the sun disappeared). We skinned up to the right, then came down the central snow gully, also known as "Turning Japanese." The whole thing is roughly 400 feet of vertical. There is a lot of terrain in there.



Nearing the top of the skin track. Most of it was not this steep.



We enjoyed the view.



The ski down was bit challenging. There was about eight inches of really light powder on top of a somewhat breakable crust. I resorted to hop parallel turn on the steep bits. It was still fun.



After the downhill run, we toured around a bit, setting some access trails for the upcoming TwigFest gathering next weekend (come on up!). The lunch stop was a bit brisk (photo by TD).



Dave had to switch to his old Bandits after the binding debacle. And then had to resort to pine tar for the ski out. The horror!



It was a long drive and a long skin for one run, but a fun day out in the woods with some good people.

Man you guys just stink of soul.

#bestongoingtripreportever

Thanks boys.

raisingarizona wrote

Man you guys just stink of soul.

#bestongoingtripreportever

Thanks boys.

Thanks RA. I was definitely stinky when I got home.

raisingarizona wrote

Man you guys just stink of soul.

#bestongoingtripreportever

Thanks boys.

I concur

I look forward to this thread every year

These guys know how to party

i am excited for the coming weekend :)

I am always interested in this thread. I am also quite curious as to where exactly the Hinterland begins.  With this awesome snow today, 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan is a winter wonderland.  (Ok, maybe not the Hinterland, but close!).

Marcski wrote

I am always interested in this thread. I am also quite curious as to where exactly the Hinterland begins.  With this awesome snow today, 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan is a winter wonderland.  (Ok, maybe not the Hinterland, but close!).

The Hinterland begins where you find it. It is more of a state of mind than an actual place.

Your dog and Utah need to rendezvous for a short dog snow festival.

Twig Fest this weekend, come on up! It's going to effing cold and there will be crust. The snow under the crust is awesome.

Hinterlandian Weekend Update:

The chair on Tuesday, before the FR event:



The chair on Friday, after the FR event, on day one of Twigfest 2017. Things were not looking good.



You might also think that things are not looking good when your ski day starts here:



Ah, but no biggie, just an oil change and estimate on the $$$ exhaust repair. #lovehaterelationshipwithsubarus. TD picked my me up and off we went up the Powder Peaks Road for the second time in a week:



We seemed to have the road to ourselves, and parked accordingly:



And off we went, over the river and into the trees. There was breakable crust over the nice snow, we knew that the downhill prospects were not good. But the touring was good.



Finally we put skins on and headed up Nickel Peak. It is a big landform. Which way?



We skied by a number of descents that we did not choose to descend, due to the crusty conditions. Crust and old guys = bad combination. Here, LeChef looks up at The Minefield:



Gaining the top of the ridge, we skied west and inspected Big Cedar (photo by TD):



And some other run, twig factor 7 and steep:



The view was nice (photo by TD):



Since the snow was pretty sketchy, we elected to leave our skins on and do a gradual downhill traverse across the the massif. TD put in a pretty sporty line and we followed gamely. Spot the skier:



The traverse was not without incident:



Finally, we skied out the river and back to the cars. Another exploratory day in the books.



Part two coming up...

Love the Hinterland expeditions and exploits!

Weekend Update, Part Deux. Part One is here.

Snow started coming down on our drive home from TwigFest. By 4 AM Saturday morning, when I was starting the car to drive Blue Toes to the Toronto airport for another trip to Cuba (OK, it is her job, she's a travel agent and tour group leader), there was seven inches of new snow. Hmmm. A bit dark for chair pictures at that ungodly hour but we kept it in mind for later. By 10 AM, I was home again and not ready to ski. By 3 PM, I went skiing in the local backbush.

I wanted to test out the repair I did to some "new to me" Scarpa T3s I inherited recently (no cost). The boots are beat and the right one kept falling out of the Lite Spike binding on my S-Bounds. Which is a drag, since they are the perfect boot for this setup. I did some Dremeling and used G-Flex epoxy to beef up the worn out pin holes. Here is an early pic of the repair:



Despite the care given to the repair job, even G-Flex did not hold:



Fortunately, I had brought along the optional flex tubes for the Lite Spike. The tubes can be skied in free pivot mode, or locked down like a downhill tele binding. Kind of like cables that you can add at will.



The woods looked very nice.



I did a pole test, later measured at 27 inches. We have some base.



I set the trail out to Secret Hill and then decided to descend. Talk about survival turns. I can't help but think this would have easily skiable with the Chargers. Maybe.



But I persevered and set the access trails for each of our local ski runs. And trekked out:



It was a beautiful afternoon to be out in the woods, despite the weird snow conditions. Kind of like, "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink."

Nice work squeezing them lemons!

We tend to make a lot of lemonade here in Arizona, I know the feeling!

This is awesome. Long live the Hinterland.

Marcski wrote

... Long live the Hinterland.

Hear, hear!

Just saying. Tomorrow will be good.

Are you sure there's not a body under there?

D.B. Cooper wrote

Are you sure there's not a body under there?

Hmmm. Good question. There was that guy that came over in the fall for a beer on the deck. Haven't seen him since.

Wow for the chair update.

D.B. Cooper wrote

Are you sure there's not a body under there?

Or Utah. Anybody seen Utah lately ? Then again, TD seems to be MIA. Bluetoes....  

Snowballs wrote

D.B. Cooper wrote

Are you sure there's not a body under there?

Or Utah. Anybody seen Utah lately ? Then again, TD seems to be MIA. Bluetoes....  

Hey!  Im fine. But thanks for worrying Snowballs.