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Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier & Tim Schmidt After a busy spring on the North Shore, it was time for a change. The coast will always be my favourite place to ride, but one of it's appeals is that a short drive East will get you to an entirely different environment. And so it was off to the desert for a weekend in Kamloops, BC. 
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Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Eli Relke & Brent Hillier A long time "bucket-list" goal of mine has always been to bike and ski Mount Seymour on the same day without any outside help. I pitched the idea to Eli Relke while we were ski touring this past winter and we earmarked the trip for Spring. Thanks to the MEC Rental program, we got our hands on bike trailers, loaded them up with gear and set off.  Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier & Jordan Drinovz The plan was to ski one more blast of winter pow, to say goodbye to one of the most unpredictable and unstable winters I have ever skied or worked. My former patrol manager at Mount Seymour told me one day, "the thing with plan is it never goes according to plan." Those words have never been more true.  Words by Brent Hillier Photos by Brent Hillier & John Kearns Whistler is great in a lot of ways, one theme that reoccurs in my life is the benefit of learning new things on the slopes of Whistler/Blackcomb. Whether it's skiing or mountain biking I've never left the Resort without some additional skills. It's no surprise that an AST course in Whistler always delivers a fantastic learning experience. One Saturday I headed up with my friend John and introduced him to backcountry skiing, with a private AST 1.  Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier & James Dahmer In my article A Winter of Learning, I explained this years unique problem of a Persistent Weak Layer at the bottom of our snowpack which was buried at the end of November. Up until a Melt Freeze cycle and subsequent cold snap, this layer had continued to produced avalanches. On the coast we were dealing with a major snowpack instability, one we were managing by staying out of steep and rocky terrain. It's meant a winter, not only lacking in snow, but lacking in the ability to branch off into steep, challenging terrain. The crust that developed during the end of January did do the job of bridging the weak layer at the bottom of our snowpack. No avalanches have been reported on that layer since. My prediction of surface faceting did take shape, what it didn't do was completely deteriorate the melt-freeze crust. So our basal layer, although still producing results in Deep Tap Tests, is now unlikely to be skier triggered. What I did see taking shape on January 29th, as I hiked into the Keith's Hut, was some very substantial surface hoar development. Shortly after we experienced some extremely cold temperatures in the -20°C range, causing faceting. Our next avalanche problem was beginning to take shape.
Surface Hoar on the approach to the Keith's Hut on January 29, 2014
Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier Did you know that any guest of Whistler/Blackcomb can take a free avalanche awareness tour? This year I have the pleasure of being a part of this very cool program, and this past weekend all of the guides met for a day of skiing and training on Blackcomb.  Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier & Eli Relke The early season continues! With a new set of wheels, Eli and I decided to go find winter... again. On December 11th we set out for another mis-adventure to the Elfin Lake area.  Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but if you can't appreciate a 1985 4WD Tercel then their's something wrong with you. Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier & Eli Relke With first snowfall back in September it seemed like we were going to have a quick start to the 2013/14 Winter. That unfortunately, had not been the case, the first ski trip of the season was full of early season pit falls. (Bushy Kickturns, Coreshots and Broken Promises) Trip number two was was underway and we had set our sights on a much easier approach. None of us were in the mood for a repeat of our Duffy trip.  Eli Relke, Fraser Pike and myself (left to right) make our way up from the Diamond Head parking lot to Elfin Lakes.
Words by: Brent Hillier Photos by: Brent Hillier, Eli Relke & James Dahmer
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