Coast Range Outdoors

Recently, we’ve had a series of storms hit the South Coast that have dumped 50-100cm’s of snow in the higher terrain from Squamish through Pemberton. I felt pretty sure that there wasn’t enough snow to ski, but the night before this trip I saw a social media post from some folks heading up Brandywine. I try not to get too influenced by posts, but the folks who posted the photos sent me an accurate description of what to expect. I had nothing planned, and Tyler had the day off, so we decided to go for a walk with our skis and hopefully make a few turns while avoiding the tib fib sharks that were lurking just beneath the surface.

We left Squamish and drove up the Brandywine FSR to the upper parking area for Brandywine Meadows. We hit snow, but didn’t need chains. This road has a few deep cross ditches near the top so high clearance is a must. Fortunately, just like half of Squamish, I have a Tacoma.

We started skinning right from the truck. This is a generous description, as we were skinning on snow, dirt, through creeks, and mud. After a bit of skin globbing, we were in the meadows proper, and coverage improved. However, a few major creek crossings required skis to be taken off and chucked, which was then followed by less than graceful boulder hopping in ski boots. No wet boots on the way up! On the descent, there was an unexpected cold plunge of a ski boot into a creek.

We started skinning up above the meadows, and before too long, we were getting into the alpine. This was right when the weather rolled in. Besides a few sucker holes in the clouds, we were mostly socked in from this point until we dropped elevation back into the valley after our ski descent.

The weather did lift at times, and as we were skinning up to a bench at just below 2000m, we got a good look at the terrain around us. What a spot! And with 80cm’s, it was feeling wintery.

We got to the bench feature and had some lunch. The weather rolled in at this point and we were in the whiteout again. Other than the odd isolated slope with a smooth ground surface, everything was still below threshold for avalanches, but our main concern was visibility and low tide conditions. We didn’t want to ski any alpine features without being able to see, with the risk of finding tib fib sharks under the snow. We decided to ski down from 2000m. With the conditions, there wasn’t much skiable any higher than this anyway.

We picked our way down, and actually found a few good turns. There were some rocks that were scraped too, but that wasn’t surprising. We kept our turns and our thoughts light. Overall, expecations were slightly exceeded.

It felt good to get out ski touring for day one of the season in October. Hopefully the storms continue and we continue to get some early season skiing opportunities. Thanks Tyler for a fun day out!