Catching a bit of the Whistler traffic, we arrived at the Rainbow Falls parking lot, a little after 8, with Moose, the gorgeous dog, greeting us at the parking lot. We split the groups into “have never been touring/toured once”, “have skied and flocked to dog”, “have skied and didn’t flock to dog in time”.
James and Ethan asked us what we’re looking for, and after a bit of muttering about potentially practicing setting a skin track or a companion rescue, Elias very nicely put it “Vibes, I’m hoping for a day of vibes”. After a bit of gear faff and beacon checking we started skinning up, and on the fork talked a bit about navigation. We talked about how vibes may not be the best way to navigate, but when two trails lead to the same location, with the same risk, the more “vibes” supposedly led by some waterfalls.
Unfortunately, turning off to the fork was my first fall, but the trail had vibes regardless. Somewhere in the canyon there seemed to be signs of a frozen waterfall, although it was difficult to see from the trail.
We continued up, but soon the first bridge came. For those of us who have only skied up to Red Heather it looked quite daunting – a small little bridge with a block of icy snow, as opposed to the beautiful wide trails of the trail up to Red Heather. Crossing these little bridges is quite scary, but we all made it through, and no companion (creek) rescue practice was done.
Bridge crossing
Soon the trail turned around and another slow down followed – another bridge over the same creek. Several of us skied around it successfully avoiding it. After a little downhill bit, we reached the most (dramatic looking for us non skiers) bridge of them all. Some people successfully went up and around, others down and around, some of us non downhill skiers attempted the actual way. Several side slip and then turn around attempts later, I decided to go up and around, as I was not quite looking forward to a winter swim, but it was 12 already and a small group of us decided that the descent might take a while with all those bridges, so those of us with a bit less skiing experience decided to have lunch and turn around.
We then deskinned ( I have no idea if this is the right term) and slowly started heading down. The initial part was fine, with occasional narrow sections. Soon we reached the little up hill section, so there was an excellent amount of side stepping up and falling training .
On steeper descent sections we did a combination of side slipping, skiing and falling as a braking mechanism, sledding (albeit not intentionally) . A lot of unintended falling also occurred. AJ helped us improve our getting up after falling skills. Several skiers zoomed past us and looked at those of us wearing teles with a lot of respect, unsuspecting of my complete lack of ski skill.
Approaching the creek we discussed the possibility of companion creek rescue if we accidentally fall, we DID want to practice that, but decided that taking off our skis and walking over was perhaps the wisest way to go. The final bit down to the cemetery was some excellent skiing with beautiful views of blue skies over Whistler. Realizing we went down to the cemetery, and not the intended parking lot we walked a bit over to the parking lot.
Beautiful blue skies over Whistler
Waiting for the other groups to descend we snacked, shivered, and discussed Norwegian food.
While perhaps we didn’t practice companion rescue and skin track setting, I certainly improved my side slipping, skiing on narrow trails, and gracefully falling and getting up from falls skill, all while looking extra cool because all this was done in tele skis. And I’m sure these skills will be plenty useful. Thanks instructors and organizers for a lovely day out and for cheering us on!
This day most definitely passed the vibe check.