Go North, Stay North!

When the high pressure refuses to go away and fresh snow refuses to fall, you either stay at the hill and ski hard pack or you find some friends, who know friends, who own sleds! In this particular case the only direction to head was north, too a well kept secret called Powder King. Unfortunatly even PK could not escape the sun and warm temps and the only thing that wasn't baked was the north facing aspects. So that's all we skied.

When we arrived we bumped into Leo, a well known local and self made man who,at the age of 50 something is always looking for an adventure. He loves his turns and his sleds, and he doesn't mind towing a bunch of people up the mountain if it means good turns.

 

The secret of PK is so well kept, that there aren't enough people to run the lift mid week. This can be a problem, unless you know someone like Leo. Thirty minutes after arriving we were on our way to the top, thanks to Leo's sled. 

 

Traveling south east from the resort you hit PK's slack country area, known as the camel humps. Fortunately for us many people don't believe in leaving the resort and we pretty much made fresh turns in this area for two day.

Joel mounting the humps.

 

Joel adding some turns to a blank face.

 

Marry and Joel plan the next line.

Day two rolled around and the lift was spinning. Fog was heavy in the valley but it looked promising up top. This time we were going to have to work for our turns, as there would be no sled support. We headed back towards the humps and pushed a bit farther to a drainage called the hidden valley. Again the snow was untouched and stability was moderate, allowing us to put some great tracks into the drainage.

  

The fog looked like water filling a lake.

Joel finds the sun/money shot.

He then decides it would look better in the air.

 

Without a sled, we push the daylight hours.

That night at Leo's place we decided to explore an area west of the ski hill called Mt. West the following day. You could see the slope from the top of the humps, it looked big and juicy but the current stability of the snow pack on such a large slope worried me. After a grueling two hour tow behind the sled up a narrow bumpy trail, I felt like I had just preformed a thousand squats, and we hadn't even started skiing yet. We looked at the slope and decided it would be a bad decision to ski it, so instead we headed to a sweet north facing slope with some sexy cliffs, a much safer alternative. 

 

Joel and Leo burn for the top.

  

Sweet air.

Joel finds the sun.

Joel goes big of a sexy cliff.

I don't go as big.

But I make it look deeper.

The man with the machine!

 

Leo, having just as much fun watching as we are having hucking.

Worlds ugliest dog.

Worlds ugliest dog getting cozy with Joel.

Some scenic shots of the area:

 Always looking for some fun.

  

 

The true hard cores live here.

Another great trip ended with a long ass drive back to Calgary. But in the end, it was worth every bit of the 12 hour drive, because we skied fresh while those in the south skied hard pack or sketchy avy hazard snow.

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