Sorcerer Mountain Lodge

January 15-22

The week started off on a rough note when the road to Golden shut down just before we tried to get through. We were effectively Revelstuck in Revelstoke. Still being the self entertaining men that we are, we found solace in beer, bowling and strippers. We check the road report every two hours to see if we could get through, and conceded to the fact that we had missed out flight at around 9am. While we sat in Denny’s eating a good healthy meal we were contact by the hut owner who told us to head to the local Helicopter Hanger and hitch a ride from Revelstoke, at our own cost. Many people would have deliberated, hummed and hawed over it, but our group decided that for the amount of snow that had been falling, and the fresh Pow that is promised, it was worth it! We hopped in and tookoff. Shortly after take off the pilot looked at Walter and asked for his credit card, put the joystick between his legs and started writing and flying…quite the coordination! After a great 45 minute ride we landed, unloaded the heli, and hit the slopes.

The week ended as it began, and every day between was the same too. More new snow, more fresh tracks, and more new snow. Damn life is hard! For a ski vacation you really couldn’t ask for much more, other than for someone to break track for you every day…and, with careful planning inthe group of 19, we pretty much had that too. Regionally, avalanche conditions throughout the week ranged from Extreme through Considerable, but locally we didn’t see much movement. We were cautious, dug pits, paid attention to what was happening around us, and were only plagued by one small slough on a slope that we had been skiing all morning. This being said, we were skiing some pretty gnarly terrain, hucking ourselves off mini cliffs (up to 20ft), and bombing down some 40+ degree slopes. In most instances the only movement we saw was the snow billowing over our heads.

We managed to ski most of the terrain that was immediately around the cabin and most of the treed areas within a short walking distance, but stayed off the big glaciers and exposed terrain. Considering how many of us there were at the cabin, we rarely skied across each other’s tracks, but admittedly this was in part due to the fantastic snow we received. All in all, I was very impressed with the terrain, with my only hesitation being that at the end of each day we had to hike back up to the cabin.

Click here to check out the photos, and click here to check out Loic's photos.