C A N A D A
As temperatures increased and no new snow fell in Idaho I continued my journey to the Great Up North Canada. The last two seasons the BridgerBrigade crew has made our way to Kimberly, BC to do a seven day Backcountry Hut trip within the Purcell range.
Here is some information about the hut:
Mark and Sarah Yancy are a family of four that has taken great pride in owning and operating the Boulder Hut Lodge for over 9 years now. We strongly believe in maintaining our old school roots while staying current to the interest in more aggressive backcountry skiing. For the “purist” at heart, we offer a down-to-earth, no frills, backcountry skiing experience.
Sarah and I are caretakers of a long-standing tradition of stewardship at Boulder Creek. We have instilled in our kids, Grace and Alden, the ethics of stewardship, a passion for places wild, and a love of adventure. We are a family that shares the same desire – to share this incredible backcountry experience with others.
As owners and operators of the Boulder Hut, Sarah and I began our careers over 17 years ago as professional ski patrollers. Sarah has worked seasonally in the mountains of Alaska, Washington and Idaho doing everything from training an avalanche rescue dog to building and designing trail as a trail crew member and surveyor to monitoring and mitigating backcountry impacts on public lands. Mark is ACMG certified, Professional member of the CAA and has extensive training in avalanche forecasting as a Professional Ski Patroller and ski guide. Over 25 years of exploring the mountains has given Mark a true appreciation for adventure. When Mark isn’t charting routes through the mountains, he’s navigating blueprints and furniture designs in his accomplished career as a builder and craftsman.
With friends and the extended family of backcountry enthusiasts, we are painstakingly re-building the Boulder Hut to preserve its historic role in British Columbia’s rich history of backcountry lodges. Boulder Hut is a living, growing piece of the ski community in the Purcell Mountains of Southeast British Columbia. Here, we make our home every winter and welcome our backcountry skiing guests as family! http://boulderhutadventures.com
This trip each year seems to get better and better. The hut itself is in just a remote place that its hard to put in words how special it really is. The whole time you are there it seems like you're in a dream cause you wake up every morning put your skins on and point to a spot you want to go and off you go. The terrain there is so playful it has everything for every type of skier. It has big narley lines, jump spots, pillow lines, and mellow mini golf lines. We had great conditions this season with low avalanche danger, which was so sweet because the crew was all able to get on some bigger lines that we were looking at last season. This trip was so much fun and the crew we had out at the hut just made it that much better. Axel Peterson, MacKenna Peterson, Kyle Taylor, Rob Raymond, Karl Fostvedt, Ben Goertzen, Ty Guarino, Mandy Torgerson, and Lars Ayers made up our crew so much diversity in everyones skiing made for a great mixture of ideas to ski all of this amazing terrain. Here are some photos of the adventure.
Looking out at some of the goods
Rock on
The views continue...
On top of one of the bigger lines I skied
My buddy Ben Goertzen and I getting lock and loaded
Sweet pillow zone
Crazy Karl looking out on the new terrain
Some of the bigger lines we skied
Putting the skins back on
Storm clouds moving in
Rosa the coolest mountain dog ever...
