QFT.Quote:
Originally Posted by ml242
More please.
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QFT.Quote:
Originally Posted by ml242
More please.
I swear this is the last round of tasters before we get to the terrain and the skiing....
First a little context of the backcountry part of this trip. It was an a week-long AIARE 2, at the Ymir BC lodge (https://backcountryskilodge.ca/). The trip is organized by Rob "Mountain Athlete" Coppolillo at Vetta Mtn Guides ( more info here: https://www.vettamountainguides.com/...e-courses-2022). His co-instructor and guide was Tim Brown. Rob and Tim are both pinned-up IFMGA guides who started in CO but have worked in a lot of locales in various capacities (forecasters, heli guides, human-powered guides, etc). As folks who have provided a lot of feedback to the AIARE curriculum this is sort of their "ideal" way to teach a level 2 -- with plenty of time for getting reps on decision making and in general trying to get recreationalists to act more like pros. Our group ended up being only 8 students to two guides...which I thought was fucking aces. Understandably they typically run it at a 6:1 ratio to keep costs down -- we just "lucked" out with multiple people getting fucked at the last minute by the world.
I'm not going to comment much on the instruction except to say -- I got a ton out of this course. Hard to imagine getting this level of instruction and learning without such a setup of week in the hut, moving with a tight crew. And I will be looking for opportunities to ski and learn with either Tim or Rob as much as possible in the future. (If my background matters at all to you in me saying this...I'm a bc recreationalist mostly mellow CO touring. I'm a 4-year volunteer ski patroller at mtn with a sizeable avy control program. And my day job is in the avalanche industry.) Overhearing their guides meeting in the AM (reviewing bulletin, InfoX, our obs, weather), spending the day with a group you got to know well, extensive trip planning and debriefs, and informal evening talks deep diving into topics/experiences with a beer in hand was all damn special.
Morning meeting -- putting obs onto an avalanche rose on the window.
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Evening fireside chats with beers
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Packed up the essentials: beer and FKNA coffee. The latter being the star of the trip. I am the lucky recipient of all the leftovers. Learned a ton about coffee on this trip.
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The analogs between coffee and the wine world -- from production, distribution, preparation, to tasting are wild. Dorked out a lot. Tgapp ain't fucking around when he says he's got distinct taste in coffee. But all I heard on the trip was "FKNA" from most everyone drinking it. To be fair, that might because I played coffee bitch all week. Every morning guides + motivated folks would go fetch weather/avy bulletin from the nearby at 5:30am. I'd wake 45min later and start making pour-overs in large batches for them to have upon return.
Packed the heli with banana boxes of food and jumped in with tgapp
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I lied, next post food...then terrain and skiing :). I'll let tgapp weigh in on the accommodations...
Most days of the trip we got up, ate well, trip planned, and spent ~9-10am-4pm out in the field walking around, making obs/digging, skiing. We got pretty damn lucky to have a crew with minimal gear fuckery (though tgapp managed to break a binding, and I lost a screw out of my walk mechanism), and plenty of fitness.
Some photos....
A little afternoon shot on day two.
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Looking down a line about to ski into the fog off a small peak on day 3
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Toured frequently along this ridge just west of the hut
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On day two we saw this little col in the middle. tgapp, myself and one other went on a bit of a walk to see if we wanted to ski it.
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Ridge walk was a bit spicy in spots with a completely faceted snowpack, some steep downs, and cornices.
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Put the guide on a rope and sent him in to find a bunch of windslabs.
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Given no good exit if we skied the col line (either long traverse around or back up the windslabby connected terrain) we noticed sun had hit a SE facebehind us just the right amount.
Tgapp on one of our laps
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And looking back up
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Avalanche conditions generally trended down through the week. A DPS problem was getting less reactive and just saw some small windslabs. On the day before departure, we finally chose to ski a big, E-facing avy path after poking around. It did not suck. We skied the right side of this photo.
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:eek: looks amazing. moar, por favor.
Yes yes yes, boys. Good stuff; very jealous about getting that course and time with Rob as the lead. Amazing!
i like this format - i can take a piece of this and pass the rest of the narrative to DBD.
THE LODGE
Ymir Lodge is a backcountry ski lodge in the Kootenay mountains, southeast of Whitewater (WH2O) ski area. It is located just west of a saddle between South Seeman Peak and Qua Peak. It's a two story structure (not counting both the attic and the basement), covered in corrugated steel siding on all sides & roof of the building). The outhouse is an independent structure that is located at the top of a flight of stairs, and it is joined to the lodge by a patio. We called this the poop deck.
Attachment 404129
Heli, poop deck, Ymir Lodge
It's pretty difficult to describe Ymir lodge in it's full, resplendent beauty. Words just don't do it justice. Most of the furniture seems to be of the DIY variety, with a strong theme of re-using mattresses. Two couches are made out of mattresses, as well as a DIY hide-a-bed in the kitchen that hosts a giant map of the range.
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here i am in a hammock in front of the mattress map. due to the incredibly un-engineered ("organic") nature of the lodge, wearing a helmet in the hammock seemed VERY prudent. notice the unfinished drywall - or partially unfinished - as well as the random, uncovered junction boxes. more on those later.
The interior is a mishmash of exposed lumber, drywall with no mudding, and drywall with mudding. The omission of corner beading seems to be intentional, as does the seemingly random mudding. It is as if the builders of the lodge want to engage it's residents in some sort of strange, contemporary art project - asking questions like "Why did they mud this joint but not the one right next to it?" "Do all projects need to be finished in order to be beautiful?" | "Why do we hide our imperfections when it is far easier to just be open with them?"
Attachment 404140
deep thoughts with unfinished drywall
There were two internal "urinals" in the building, aptly named:
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And a real point of view of the home depot bucket special that is "Pee Stand Up". The vinyl backsplash is truly a nice touch.
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One of the biggest advantages to hut life is the sense of community you gain through spending a whole week with the same crew. To help build that camaraderie, the wise designers of the Lodge decided to build doors that never fully close, nor are framed in completely. This may seem like an oversight, but I have come to appreciate what a wise and functional design decision. Doors are more like suggestions than actual barriers or dividers.
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Believe it or not - this is with the door fully closed. Truly, a revolutionary concept. I'll never look at a finished door again.
Some of the structural elements of the building were more alarming than charming, but certainly added to the experience. Like when we noticed that instead of supporting the ceiling, the structural ceiling beams were randomly on the ground in the dining area:
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Note the missing beams. But at least they installed the metal parts!!
The wiring in the building made me feel like I was playing some sort of puzzle-based RPG. "What are these junction boxes? What do they connect? Why do we have so many exposed wires?" all seemed like clues in this great mystery, especially given how little functional electricity was actually in the building.
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the christmas lights are truly a nice, ambient-lighting touch.
The most serious issues of the lodge were also the most difficult to capture: two years ago, our guide (Rob C.) had personally bought and installed $200 of Carbon Monoxide monitors in the lodge. Presumably because they would not stop going off, the lodge owners mysteriously decided to remove those CO monitors. On top of that, the uninsulated basement and exposed beams had created what appeared to be a VERY serious black mold problem - I worked flood mitigation in college and saw a ton of black mold - and it seems like the lack of a vapor barrier/insulation and the condensation on the basement ceiling is causing a very serious issue.
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After our first night we all woke up groggy, with nausea and headaches. Rob C, our IFMGA (and an incredible mountain athlete) needed supplemental oxygen (which they actually had - again, probably cheaper than fixing the CO problem). From there on we decided to open windows in the upstairs. No windows in the downstairs were openable (no venting in the kitchen).
I think that's it for the lodge... I'll turn it back over to DBD to talk about food, and I can prepare some ski stoke pictures for my next post.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, the CO thing is really scary!
A lifetime ago I spent a weekend in the Tomasaki hut in the LaSals, smack in the middle of a century storm in Moab. It snowed non stop for the 3 days we were there. Yurt "operator" showed us how to turn on the newly installed propane heater/stove and mentioned that they had installed a CO detector but there was nothing to worry about as the stove was super well vented. He was gone 10 minutes when the fucker starting screeching at us. We spent the weekend with windows and a door opened. Closing either for more than 5 minutes would trigger the detector. We couldn't really ski as the avi risk was a 12 out of 5 so we played cards and got drunk wearing all our layers. The last morning we woke up to 6" of snow on the sleeping bags. Glorious trip. No oxygen there, I suspect they weren't aware of the problem yet. Having supplemental O2 ready is a fucking criminal admission in that context.
The hut details really bring this thread to life. I think some locals in Nelson mentioned to me how shady this hut/owner was… about seven years ago.
So right when he stopped paying his taxes? https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...ing-taxes.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by Dromond
Place has a ton of potential. I think Mags should probably buy him out :fmicon:
I took several different trips to the lodge 5+ years ago. The shitters used to be inside of the lodge so the poop deck is an upgrade. Do they still have the yurt they converted into a sauna?
Trevor was in the lodge on all my trips, and he was always friendly and nice to me. I got the impression he was not the greatest business man and maybe hard up for funds. Sorry to hear about his tax problems and the lodge maintenance falling behind. What I liked about the place is great terrain and snow, closest Kootenay area lodge to Seattle, much cheaper than all the competitors, and Trevor used to let me book my trip for only four or five days where as everywhere else required you to commit to a full week. Another person on the trip described the operation as "cowboy as fuck." I kind of liked that about the place. You would never see something like that in the US, with all our rules and regulations. Does suck to get sick with black mold though.
Did you stay at the Hotel Ymir?
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We didn't stay at the Ymir Hotel though I had checked it out prior.
I agree with your take on the lodge Alta. I don't think anyone on our trip was upset with the rustic accomodations. But at some point there's a difference between rustic and unsafe. Sadly it seems like it may be teetering on that line. Would love to see minimal investments to bring it up to snuff -- work exchange, small co-op. Such a cool spot and the terrain -- as you say -- is excellent whether it's storming hard or sunballs all week.
Now...on to the food.
That terrain looks pretty sick - nice work dudes!
the terrain looks sick - as does the guide!Quote:
Originally Posted by hatchgreenchile
supplemental O2 for breakfast is sketchy - sounds like you guys kept a positive attitude regardless
for someone who keeps tellin me hes a gaperQuote:
Originally Posted by doebedoe
kids got decent form, a beyond stoked attitude, and potential
thanks fer takin the time to take us with
and thanks to tgrapp for summin up avvy 2 as
what could smoke our asses today?
what are we missin and why are we missin it?
and theres a special magic in the hut trip
Looks like the lodge is being ordered to close by the Ministry of Forests.
https://www.nelsonstar.com/news/back...ered-to-close/
I spent several weeks out in the "Yurtopia" yurts skiing that terrain behind Whitewater in the 2006-2008 timeframe. Trevor took us all out in the snowcat in as far as possible and then we skinned the final km's each time. Was amazing, with overnight refreshes more often than not. Each trip was unguided so we explored a lot, and kept it relatively safe when we could hear Whitewater bombing each morning. Still great skiing. Never stayed at the Lodge, as I don't think it was built until a little later?
This guy has thrown his hat in with the truckers and lost his lodge?
Ya seems like he's gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. All of his issues are pretty easy to clear up but sounds like he'd rather fight the man.