Day 72 | holy $#*!

Signed up for Steeps, Trees, and Drops session hoping to learn more spots off Peak Chair and Harmony where I can take my higher level kids when the snow is good.  Instead I ended up spending most of my day out of bounds and having the thrill of my life!

I met up with the session to find about six guys fixing to get up Peak Chair.  The Instructor had his camera pack with him and the guys wanted to hit a 30-50 foot cliff drop.  I was all for witnessing that!  Unfortunately, we were told the chair wasn't going to open for another hour so instead of waiting around we headed down to the Big Red Express via Frog Hollow and rode toward Harmony.  Once we got to the Harmony Chair, we found the queue to be insane so someone came up with the bright idea to do Singing Pass.

Now not everybody just nonchalantly rides Singing Pass.  Singing Pass is out of bounds.  Singing Pass is a virtual straight down the tree line under the Peak 2 Peak gondola.  Singing Pass is dangerous, steep, and shouldn't be ventured alone!  Singing Pass is also about a 4km skate back out to the village.

Don't get me wrong, there was a fairly easy gully that I was able to snowboard through where I found a section of fresh snow that was literally waist high.  The boys that I was with were more hard core.  They were dropping cliffs and pillows.  It was one of those things where you watch videos of people doing these amazing feats on their snowboard, and even though you know you can't do it, you'd still like to be there to see it live.  That was my day.

The snow down the Pass was amazing.  Of course, not many people venture in there so there was plenty of fresh .... and it was deep!!!   But the traverse out of Singing Pass back to the village was HELL for me.  I was slow and skating on my board for about 4 km really took it out of me.  I refueled at ECBC with a chicken breast panini and somehow the guys managed to talk me into a nice powder run from the Peak to the Creek with very little hiking.  I heard the word Khyber thrown around and since I've been wanting to ride Khyber trees for years now, I didn't want to miss this opportunity especially after all the snow we've just had.

Up Peak Chair we went!  Again, Khyber trees are out of bounds.  I wasn't nervous at all as I've been told they aren't too difficult, you just need to be with people and watch out for tree wells.  Also you need to know where you are going!  I followed Quentin down the mellow lines while most of the guys dropped some cliffs in this section called Flat Cliffs.  I had a harder time than I normally would have as my legs were spent from the previous insane run!

Once out of Khyber we met back up at Creekside where I took one more ride up the gondola and then called it a day.  I managed to make my way down Dave Murray downhill without losing my legs (or any limbs).  It was an insane, epic day where my boundaries were pushed to the limits and I hit some turns in waist deep powder.  Days like today are why I choose to live my life in Whistler and I never regret a moment of it.

Here's a video of the guys.  I wish I could have zoomed in more.