Big White

We've been away skiing for a couple of weeks and haven't had time to make any updates. This trip was a quick jaunt up to Big White with Dan.

I didn't know much about the backcountry around the ski hill but Dan was up for exploring and I was in need of the exercise so away we went. We parked at the Black Forest lot and followed a well beaten path just below the ski out from The Cliff. On the way we met up with John Fazekas who I knew from trips many years ago to Apex or Zoa or somewhere. He was using Dynafit boots on homemade bindings and a homemade splitboard. Neat stuff.

We climbed around the lower end of the ridge that forms the skier's left hand side of The Cliff and into a small bowl on the backside of the resort (Smoker's Bowl?). The snow was wind hammered and nasty but we were well compensated for our efforts by one half of John's splitboard making a break for freedom. He post-holed around searching for some time while we had lunch and ruminated on life in general.

After this we climbed back up to the ridge and found better snow for a couple of runs on the south facing side amongst the trees before calling it a day.

Close to home but otherwise not much to recommend Big White on this day anyway.