Copper Mountain March 26th

We've been bugging John Platt for the last couple of weeks to join us on a backcountry ski trip and he agreed to head out with us Saturday for a run up Copper Mountain.  This was the site of our first BC ski trip and we were pretty excited about getting into some sweet powder.

We had some great conversation on the drive up as the snow fell.  As you can see above the weather was great - windy, snowing, with occasional glimpses of the sun.  The previous week's weather had been snow, snow, snow with light accumulations each day.  Looks like it's going to be a great day!

This was the view I had all morning - the rear of John and Dylan

A glimpse of sunshine on the way up

John took the lead since the snow had covered up any sign of a skin track.  He didn't relinquish it much all day, breaking trail; while I struggled to keep up with him and Dylan.  It was a good move on our part to invite him - the guy is a machine.  After a couple of hours we had climbed just below the summit and decided to de-skin and make a run down a protected line.

Dylan blowing smoke

This was a great run with a bit of powder on top of a crust.  After this quick run we stopped and had lunch since Dylan was about to keel over with hunger.  While eating we enjoyed 10 minutes of sunshine!  But that quickly ended and the clouds and wind took over.

We skinned all the way to the summit for our second run.  John pointed out a big crack in the cornice that must have been 30-40 feet from the lip.  It was hard to imagine that back on Jan 2 we were at this very spot looking over the edge of a much smaller cornice. 

This second run was a bit tricky.  It had warmed up a bit and with the wind blowing there was much more of a crust. Still had a great run, but it was a little tough for the tele guys!

After the second run we called it a day and skied on out to the car.  All told we climbed 3000 feet and skied about 2500 feet of vertical.  Another great day!