Blanca Lake Backpacking Trip

August 21, 2024August 26, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

I hiked to Blanca Lake around the third week in July and it was the first weekend where it really started to feel like summer. The snow melt was very late in the mountains and I’d been tracking the hike via satellite all week. 5 days before we went, the entire lake was still frozen, but it was melting fast and by the time we hiked up there, it was almost entirely gone.

Blanca Lake is not a well known hike, but it is starting to get more popular. It’s located pretty far up Squamish Valley Road and it does require 4×4 to get to the trailhead. The hike is only 4.5km, but the road to the trailhead is long and exposed, so I wouldn’t recommend hiking the extra distance on a hot day. We ended up picking up a few hikers along the road and they were about to give up and turn around before we drove by because it was so hot.

We had a great crew for this trip. Seth and Sadie both joined me for their second hike of the summer, and of course Brandon was ready with his 4runner. We were also joined by our friend Adriana, who we hiked Tetrahedron with last year, and a new friend, Victoria, who we met when hiking Hozomeen Lake several weeks earlier. I downed a lot of gatorade along the drive as we convoyed up to the trailhead in two cars. It’s a pretty long drive on Squamish Valley Road, as well as on the FSR. The road isn’t in that bad shape, but there are several water bars along the way and a sketchy washout before the top. A few cars parked before the washout as it’s not a long walk from that section.

To make the occasion more special, it was Brandon’s birthday! We ate sandwiches at the car and then started the hike up to the lake. The trail is flat for a short distance, but then you immediately do a big climb up through the trees. It was challenging because it was so hot, but at least we were in the shade. After the climb, the trail stays in the trees and is pretty flat again. You traverse through some small meadows and eventually come to a stream crossing before starting to climb again.

Some of the group was able to get across the stream crossing with their boots on, but I opted to just put on my sandals and wade through it. It was much easier and we all did it on the return trip. We encountered a few groups who were day hiking on their way down, but otherwise we didn’t see a lot of people. You continue through the trees again and then eventually come out on a boulder field that follows the river to the top. Seth really struggled from the heat on this section and the hike took longer than we expected it would, but eventually we all made it to the beautiful wide open view at the top.

The final section of the trail and the lake are all in the alpine. Blanca Lake is really at the start of the alpine and if you have 2 nights to spare, it’s definitely worth it to stay up there for an extra day and explore around on your own. There aren’t any trails, but the terrain is easy to navigate and you can do a scramble to some of the other lakes and peaks.

Blanca Lake is the biggest lake, but there are several other lakes nearby, as well as a lot of tarns. I decided to swim in Blanca as soon as we arrived and it was so hot even Seth joined me! It was freezing cold (it had literally only finished melting 2 days ago), but it was refreshing. Adriana and Victoria opted to swim in the small lake just below Blanca, which was warmer, and Brandon scoped out a secluded place to pitch our tents by an even smaller tarn.

There were quite a few people camping on Saturday night. Most of them camped right next to Blanca Lake, but there’s lots of room to spread out. I liked our spot over by the tarn because then Sadie wasn’t distracted by or a nuisance to the other campers. I swam in the smaller lake and 2 tarns, but not the other 2 large lakes. I can’t see any names for them on Gaia, but there’s a big circular lake west of Blanca, and another lake to the South. I hiked over to view both, but they were a bit farther away, so I didn’t swim in either.

We sent up the tents and proceeded to have an excellent evening hanging out in the alpine! We brought party hats for Brandon and celebrated his birthday with some cherry liqueur that I’d brought home from Portugal. We had Brandon’s infamous thai chicken curry for dinner and had a great time hanging out and enjoying the view during golden hour.

There’s no facilities at Blanca Lake, so be prepared to dig catholes for your bathroom. There are some trees around, but it’s pretty barren, so we brought bear vaults and bear bags rather than hanging our food. It should be possible to find somewhere to hang your food, but it was definitely a lot easier using Carolyn’s bear vault, which I borrowed for the trip.

It was an absolutely gorgeous evening and we spent most of the night taking photos of each other. The sunset turned everything orange around us and we shared snacks to celebrate Brandon’s birthday. I made everyone worms and dirt (a girl guide classic!), but I guess our sugar tolerance is lower than my girl guides because we all ate way too much!

I was the first one up in the morning thanks to Sadie. It gets bright so early and she wants out of the tent, so I decided to let everyone else sleep in and take her for a walk. She was my little dog sherpa and carried our essentials in her bag. Like I said, there’s a lot to explore, so we did a short hike up to some of the ridges to view the other lakes and have our breakfast. Blanca is cool, but in my opinion, the lake to the west has the most beautiful view. I wish we’d had more time to explore, but I’ll have to add it to my long list for a return trip.

We took our time having breakfast and packing up and as a result, we were the last to leave. The campsite was completely empty, so I think it’s really only busy on the weekends. The hike back down the valley was nice and there were a lot of wildflowers around. We stopped for lunch shortly after crossing the river and then continued back to the cars. We stopped at the Water Shed in Squamish for dinner and then closed the books on a really nice weekend in the mountains! I took way too many photos on this trip, so here’s a few more!

Pipeline Road Ski Touring

March 6, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / Leave a comment

To date, I’ve only been touring at Brockton Point, so I was excited to try out somewhere new. I’ve been to the Zoa Peak/Falls Lake area a few times in the winter and was feeling comfortable with the idea of touring up the Pipeline Road, which delineates the first half of the trail to Zoa. The trail continues up through the trees to Zoa, which is also popular for touring, but I’m still very nervous about coming down and I don’t like densely gladed runs even in the resort. The pipeline road is a good grade and nice and wide, so I liked the idea of just skiing up the road.

Originally, we had planned to go snow camping overnight. But the weather has been so terrible and it was calling for rain all weekend. I don’t mind going out for the day in the rain, but the idea of also camping in the snow and rain was not at all appealing. So we decided to go for a day trip instead. It was just me, Carolyn, and Brandon, so we drove out to the Coquihalla nice and early, hoping the rain would let up.

Unfortunately, it was still raining when we arrived and we were shocked to discover that there’s so little snow this year that they’ve actually been plowing the road to the Zoa Peak trailhead! The road is ~1.5km long, but it’s not normally plowed in the winter, so generally it adds an extra half hour of flat terrain to your hike to get to the official trail start (where the summer parking lot is). So we drove all the way out to the base and strapped on our skis and skins in the rain.

Brandon hasn’t picked up touring yet (but we’re wearing him down), so he just had snowshoes and a crazy carpet. He’s such a good sport and to be honest, it didn’t make much difference with him on snowshoes. It’s a nice hike up the road, fairly easy and the rain didn’t bother us. I actually find touring a lot more enjoyable than snowshoeing and it only took us about an hour to get to the top of the road. From there, we removed our skins and prepared for the ski back.

We probably could have skied out in like 10 minutes, but we took our time to try and enjoy it. Plus we had a good laugh watching Brandon on the crazy carpet, so it ended up taking around a half hour. The snow was very sticky because it was wet, but there was enough base down that it wasn’t too challenging to ski. Like I said, it’s a nice wide road, so I felt comfortable skiing it and we had a good time. It’s a shorter trip than going up to Brockton, but I definitely enjoyed it more.

If you’re a beginner, then I think the pipeline road is definitely a really good option and I’m already looking forward to coming back in better conditions! We only did one lap because of the rain, so it was a short day, but we hit up the owl cafe in Hope on the way back and had the most delicious meal of Newfoundland mussels and elk burger! I was super surprised to see NL mussels on the menu and didn’t expect them to be very good, but they were really tasty!

Brockton Point Ski Touring

February 28, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

I’ve been downhill skiing since I was 10 years old. Since moving to BC, it felt inevitable that I would eventually want to get into ski touring. It’s intrigued me for the past few years, but it’s such a high buy-in for new gear that I was reluctant to commit. My downhill skis are 16 years old and very narrow for west coast skis (68mm underfoot). Me and Carolyn both decided to get new downhill skis at the same time, and as soon as she said she was getting skis for touring, I was obligated to get them too!

For those of you unfamiliar with ski touring, to oversimplify it, it’s downhill skiing without a chair lift. Meaning you stick skins to the bottom of your skis that allow you to walk uphill. The bindings are also different and use a pin in the front that allows your heel to lift out of the binding while walking. They look a bit like what most people know as telemark skis. This allows you to explore a lot of different terrain that wouldn’t be accessible to ski otherwise. Once you get to the top of the hill, you take off the skins, switch your bindings from ‘walk’ to ‘ski’ mode, and clip in your heels for a more traditional downhill ski experience.

Choosing skis, bindings, and boots was a learning experience and took me most of last winter. A great tip when deciding is to take advantage of Whistler’s ski demo program. When you have your own equipment, you can demo skis for $20 a day, you just can’t keep any one pair of skis for more than 2 hours, but you can try different skis all day. I did this once at the demo shop on Blackcomb (at Rendez-Vous) and once on Whistler (at Roundhouse). You use your own boots and poles and it’s a good way to see what you like. My favourites were the Head Kore 97 skis, which I was able to get for a really good price online. It’s been an experience getting used to my new skis though since they are 30mm wider and 10cm longer than my previous pair.

Bindings were the most expensive part of my new gear, but the most straightforward. I wanted hybrid bindings that could be used both in the resort and in the backcountry (instead of the lightweight backcountry bindings). There’s really only one hybrid set on the market (called the lab shift) and they’re made by both Salomon and Atomic. For boots, I went to a professional boot fitter and tried on boots until I was happy. This was the most challenging part as I found a lot of them really uncomfortable. I opted for Salomon boots, but I’m not 100% sold on them yet.

Anyways, back to the point. After getting all my gear last year, the season as almost over, so I only got to ski tour once last year and opted to start with Brockton Point on Mount Seymour. It’s a popular trail for touring because there’s a dedicated trail up the mountain and you can ski down the resort runs. I was hoping to do lots of touring in 2023, but it’s been a terrible year for snow, so I kicked off my season with a second run up and down Brockton Peak as well. I’ve done it twice on skis now, both with my friend, Eddie.

Eddie has been ski touring for several years, so he’s been very tolerant and supportive while I get comfortable. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but overall I think it’s been easier than I anticipated. The downhill part is definitely scarier than the uphill part, but the uphill part has been surprisingly comfortable. It’s very easy to walk uphill with the skins on and to be honest, it’s a lot more comfortable than snowshoeing. Your weight is distributed more and because you’re sliding your feet versus lifting them, it’s a lot easier. There are some tricky parts when the trail is steep, but overall the uphill part has been pretty enjoyable. I think a lot of people imagine that it would be exhausting, but mentally you’re prepared to go uphill for an extended period of time, so it’s really more like hiking with a fun ski out. At this point, it’s not really about the downhill ski part for me. More experienced skiers are out there chasing fresh mountain powder, but since I’m learning, it’s less about that for me right now.

Anyways, Brockton Point is a great place to learn, because like I said, the downhill part is scarier than the uphill, but since you’re just skiing in the resort, it’s no different than a normal ski run, it’s just free. You just have to plan to get a day pass and park in the snowshoe lot since you’re not purchasing a resort pass. We followed the snowshoe trail up the side of the road and then up the side of the slope to Brockton. From Brockton, you can drop back onto the resort runs. It took us about 90 minutes each time to get to the top, but I think Eddie could have down it faster without me. Eventually I’d like to try going further to Pump Peak, but I’m not quite there yet.

Touring seemed intimidating to me for a long time, but I’m thrilled to have finally taken the step to try it out. You just need to be cognizant that touring is generally a lot more dangerous than snowshoeing because skiers tend to prefer to be in steep terrain. Taking an Avalanche Safety Course is an absolute must if you’re getting into ski touring and I never go out without my beacon, shovel, probe, and helmet. Check out my winter safety post for more tips. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to go very much touring this year with the snow conditions, but looking forward to expanding this hobby in the years to come!