season length

[Knowsam]

What is typical back country ski season around Vancouver (say 2hrs driving any direction)? I see great photos of the area but they are always taken in Jan/Feb. Have I missed it for the year?

Thanks

 

[snoboy]

Should be reliably good 'til mid April most years.

[PaulB]

It depends on what you consider acceptable skiing conditions, but you can typically start in Nov and go until May without doing a lot of hiking. Otherwise, if you're willing to put up with a high ratio of hiking to skiing, you can ski pretty much year 'round.

 

Check out Turns-All-Year.com

[gertlush]

Here's a picture from June last year in the Joffre Lakes area..we had to hike up to the lakes but good skiing from there. However that was the trip where the work to fun ratio finally tipped away from skiing

 

 

Oops, forgot to add that this is more like 3-4 hours drive from Vancouver.

Edited February 27, 2008 by gertlush

[AlpineK]

In 2006 we had good skiing late March/early April and then good skiing again in early May.

 

From the sounds of it this year the snow pack is doing pretty good, so I'd expect good skiing to stick around till late spring.

[ilookeddown]

The answer to your question depends on how hard you want to work to get to it. My last ski of the year is usually in July down south near the other Vancouver.

 

 

North side of Adams 2nd weekend in July

Edited February 27, 2008 by ilookeddown

[AlpineK]

I should have qualified my statement.

 

Please define your expectations for, "good skiing."

 

I've skied on Rainier in July.

[skykilo]

If you want it, the skiing is good year-round. Of course there are other distractions available....

[Knowsam]

Thank's all for your responses. I lived on the NS for years but never backcountry skied, now that I've moved away and have started to ski I learn that the backcountry sking is fantastic out there. One more question - how practical is a split board there for single day outings (or at least outings where the downhill is the goal)? In the rockies I've had to learn to ski (which I'm terrible at) b/c there are so many flat spots, but it doesn't matter b/c avy keeps us off anything steep - on the Coast you seem able to get on the steeper stuff so my ability to snowboard over ski might actually have an effect.

Sean

[ultragrrl]

As a splitboarder myself I think that for many (not all) tours the board is very practical and a fun way to cruise the mountain.

 

I mean splits do have their down sides, they don't edge as well, so steep traverses can be difficult. Also, rolling terrain is kind of icky unless you are proficient at skiing in split mode.

 

One of the largest split manufacturers is based in Whistler, Prior, yep,yep,yep. So, it mustn't be all that bad

Edited February 28, 2008 by ultragrrl