Last weekends event hosted at Mount Cain was a fundraiser for the Vancouver Island Avalanche Bulletin put on with help from Outdoor Van Isle and Island Alpine Guides.  I kept busy Saturday morning in the IAG tent signing people up and collecting donations for ACMG guided educational backcountry laps.  In the afternoon I was fortunate enough to join in on a lap with a group to ski the Dream Chute as a "tail guide/photographer".  After the lifts closed down a raffle with thousands of dollars worth of sweet prizes from generous sponsors, then a steak and prawn dinner followed by an epic outdoor dance party with four DJ's spinning into the early hours of Sunday.  The weekend continued on with more skiing and touring, blue skies, stoked skiers and snowboarders and recovering partyers.  There was so much going on during the weekend it was hard to be everywhere to document it everything (especially when the skiing was so good!) it's definitely a must see event.

Stunning views from the village to wake up to in the morning, Mount Cain (left) and Mount Abel right.

Guided tours were in high demand, people were lined up within minutes of the tent going up.

Cliff (dark green jacket), a guide from IAG discusses our plan with the group

Our proposed route

Hiking up the bed surface and over the old fracture line proved to be an efficient route.

Cliff leading the pack with Cain's summit behind.

Looking back at the ski area and our traverse line across the "East Bowl".

The wind was blowing hard for some of the approach.

Tele drop into the Dream Chute.

In total 16 people skied the line and all were stoked!

Traversing back to the village through the old growth.

Back just in time for the raffle

People walked away with some really sweet prizes

and a beauty sunset.

Volunteers worked hard all day to dial in the party site with a multi level dance floor, firepit and a DJ Booth (with lasers).

A very successful event indeed, over $4000 raised for the bulletin, Mount Cain broke their previous record in lift ticket sales and a truly amazing vibe from everyone all weekend long.  Can't wait for next years festival!   Check out the Van Isle Backcountry Festival website

The rest of the photos from the weekend can be viewed here

Pogo Mountain

Steamboat Mountain in the distance

Unnamed? peak to the west of Pogo

Skinning along the Kennedy River

Snag lake and more of the Maitland range

Bootpacking up the north ridge of Pogo

Some rock hard pillows on the way down

Logging road skate ski

Adder Mountain

Recently had the opportunity to go snowmobile skiing in the Hurley Pass area northwest of Pemberton BC in the South Chilcotin mountains.  I was able to "borrow" a 2013 Skidoo Summit X, it only had 100 kms on it when I started!  Day started out clear and cold, -20 C in the parking area, fortunately there was a bit of an inversion and more comfortable temps in the alpine.  Great stability and nice soft powder on some of the aspects made for a great day of sledding and skiing, even got a quick tour in while up there.

Grand total of 7 machines and 8 people.

All bundled up ready to go

On the Hurley

Stoked!

Snow quality was pretty good

Lunch break, we worked this zone pretty good.

Clouds rolled in later in the day

Dave Norona is always stoked

This little mountain range running between Port Alberni and Cumberland does not look like much from the highway but I have wanted to check it out on skis for quite a while now.  It can be a challenge to access as the road is gated and most often closed.  Some of us have been keeping an eye on one of the main access points and have seen it open fairly regularly during the week, we thought it would be a good opportunity to get up there and check it out.  

We were able to get fairly high on the logging roads before the snow was too deep to continue in the vehicles.  It made for an easy approach...

Heading up you are treated to some great views of Denman and Hornby Island if the visibility allows

Some spectacular old growth patches remain untouched in limited places on the Island

A couple mini couloirs will make for some great lines off the summit once filled in a bit more.

Sweet playground

No shortage of steep lines to ski around here

Looking forward to return here a bit later in the season with a deeper snowpack!

Winter is on its way, the snowline is creeping down and some lucky people are getting out in the mountains for their first turns of the season.  Thought I would share a few images from a highlight ski tour in Strathcona park last winter.  Mount Jutland was the goal of the trip and  with 5 keen skiers we set up a base camp at Circlet lake to explore the lines on the mountain over a weekend last March.

Albert Edward Jutland Ridge line.

Crossing Lake Helen Mackenzine on approach

Paradise meadows and Castlecraig Mountain

Castlecraig

Albert Edward and Regan

Climbing from Circlet lake

Albert Edward looking into the Strathcona park

Dropping in

Home for the night

Since the BC Bike Race in July (photos here) it has been one of the busiest summers for me. Between various local photo work and taking important time to be with my wife and daughter I had the opportunity to spend the month of August on the road shooting three consecutive mountain biking trips.  The images and stories from these trips will be trickling out in the near future (one of them is here ). September saw more local work and catching up.  Last week I hit the road to Utah for the second year in a row with a few friends to view and demo some of the 2013 mountain bikes at Outerbike and most importantly ride some great desert singletrack.  While the priority was on riding (all I packed was my D700 body with 50mm 1.4 lens) I did manage to capture a few images:

Martin Ready of Island Mountain Rides on the Slickrock bike trail.

Ross looking for any sign of shade.

Shade break.

Ryan and Frank climbing the steeps.

Jeremy working the Singlespeed.

Early morning shuttle to "The Whole Enchilada" trail

Shuttled to 10,300ft, pedal/hike to 11,200ft followed by 7000ft of 'down country'

Frank working his lungs in the La Sal's

Enjoying the top of the pass

Jeremy and Jeff Dropping in on 7000ft of trail.

Ross pretty much sums it up

Meetings, course scouting, trail maintenance, e-mails, phone calls...  It's all building up for the sixth edition of the seven day BC Bike Race starting on July 1 in Cumberland BC.  I have had the fortune to watch and document the event since day one.  Event week is something I look forward to every year with excitement and anticipation, this year is no different.  If you want to see images from past years you will find the galleries have  been updated.

Some images from a course designers meeting in Cumberland last month, Its a great opportunity to sample some of the local riding for the crew and also get in a little trail maintenance session.

Enjoying the views on the way up to Bear Buns trail in Cumberland's back yard.

Martin Ready dropping into Bear Buns

Connor Macleod experiencing Cumberland's riding for the fist time.

Connor put together an excellent short film of the weekend on pinkbike.

New trail: Potluck, yes, you get to ride through a stump!

Jeremy riding some freshly cut cedar.

Greg taking a break from the Waverly kitchen for a little Thirsty Beaver

Post ride at Tarbells

Getting down to business

Martin Ready bringing the tools into Space Nugget for a trail maintenance session

Andreas and Jeremy building up the base

Testing out the new line

Martin Ready giving his approval

After exclusively using Facebook the past couple of years, the blog was completely neglected.  Unfortunately at one point during a host changeover I managed to loose all of my original posts and shut it down.  I am working on improving that with a goal of adding as much content as possible (new and old favorites).   Feel free to comment and let me know what you would like to see more of.  You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (don't forget to like or follow!).

For this first post I thought I would share some of my favorite images from a recent trip to Chamonix France.  This was the first stop on a month long tour around Europe with my wife Taryn and our 3 month old daughter Anika.  We arrived in Chamonix with warm weather and clear skies which allowed for three days of spring skiing and touring.  I was overwhelmed with the ease of access to the alpine, beauty of the landscape, and the potential skiing and climbing opportunities of the area.  Thanks to Jamie from Doglotion for showing us around for a couple of days and Jeff who joined me from Nanaimo for this part of the trip.