The Canyons

My relatives came out from the East Coast and rented a 3 bedroom condo at the Canyons and were nice enough to put Gunjan and I up for the long weekend. Unfortunately, my grandmother came down with a respiratory infection and had to stay back in Connecticut – we missed you Grandma! My brother also came out, meaning I had ski partner to to explore the backcountry with.

We got off to a late start, thinking we would let the sun would warm up the snow. Taking our first lift ride at The Canyons, we noticed there wasn’t that much snow at the base, but the higher elevations looked like it had good coverage. The mountain seemed pretty empty for the holiday season and I was not complaining. My brother and I took some runs on some groomers and eventually headed over to the Ninety-Nine 90 lift and rode up. Once at the top, we traversed looker’s right, as we had spotted some nice untouched pow farther over. There was a reason it was untouched, it was out of bounds and in an avalanche prone area. We could have ducked the ropes, but we decided to play it safe and got a decent ski down. We meet up with my aunt and cousin and took some more runs before calling it a day.

The next morning, we hit the slopes earlier and went straight for Ninety-Nine 90. At the top it was completely fogged over, but we had scopped out the area the day before and knew where we needed to go. Following a barely visible boot pack, we made our way along the ridge, running into another group of backcountry travelers. We found a small cornice and decided to drop in, not sure what conditions we would find below. It was decent, with some wind affected powder in varying amounts covering a crust. We stuck to the trees, trying to keep our senses in the whiteout. We took two more runs in the BC, each time going a little farther and finding the perfect spot on the last run. We decided to head over to Peak 5 chair and explore. The conditions were less than optimal off that chair, until we went through the backcountry gate and found some good powder near The Abyss. After that, I had to head back to the condo, pack my gear and get on the plane back to Seattle.