The Snowboarder's Journal - The Snowboarder's Journal 21.4
ADRENALINIC: Twenty Miles from Nowhere in the Coast Mountains
Words, Photos and Captions: Colin Wiseman 2024-01-29 10:16:53
Marie-France Roy and Francisca Navarro heading for higher ground in BC’s Coast Mountains on the last day of their hut trip.
It was nearing dusk by the time we reached the hut. A Canadian flag flapped in the wind outside of the small A-frame. Snow fell lightly from the sky. The front door was wide open.
“You wanna go first?”
Fellow media man Matt Bruhns and I had been breaking trail through deep snow for hours on snowmobiles laden with a few nights’ worth of food, clothing and camping equipment. He’d led the charge. I decided I should be the one to see if any Coast Mountain critters had found their way into this off-grid abode somewhere beyond British Columbia’s Sea to Sky.
Thankfully, no sharp-toothed locals had taken residence inside. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I scanned what would be our accommodations for the next couple days. A well-equipped kitchen counter, two-burner cooktop and sink on the left. A cast iron woodstove in the middle. A table that converts into a bunk suited for two folks behind that, and a loft that could fit three, maybe four if you’re friendly. Musty foam mattresses in the corner. A pulley-assisted drying rack above it all. Backcountry luxury.
There were a few basic rules to follow in this low-key retreat at 5,000 feet, built and maintained by volunteers. Burn your toilet paper. Pee on the pee tree and nowhere else. Sweep up and pack out what you brought in. Respect the space and it will last, hopefully, forever.
Marie-France Roy had been there before. She lives nearby for the winters and knows these mountains well by now. Soon she arrived, along with Chilean rider Francisca Navarro. Their delay was due to my oversight—I had left my snowmobile key at Marie’s house several hours away. The pair volunteered to return and get it, then double in on our fresh track. I chalked the oversight up to logistical exhaustion. Marie, Matt and I had been in Girdwood, AK, the week prior, chasing something. We had arrived there a couple days late, it turned out, as an early March warm-up had cooked the steeper aspects of the range. It was still fun, but it was nuking back home. So we’d packed up early and headed back south. So much chasing can leave one feeling a bit disheveled. But we’d made the right call. As Marie said, “We had what we wanted right at home.”
We settled in for the night, with everyone claiming bunk spaces and arranging our gear thoughtfully to avoid clutter. Duffel bags in a pile here, skins and beacons and all those backcountry essentials there, food accessible atop the woodpile. The simplicity of this space, away from digital interference, was refreshing. Marie, a veteran of backcountry sojourns near and far, had a plan for proper organization and we followed her lead.
It wasn’t always the case that Marie felt confident enough to front a backcountry mission. When we met nearly a decade prior, she was just transitioning from Red Bull-sponsored and heli-assisted film forays into slower-paced splitboard missions with a deeper connection to time, space and place.
“The learning curve is not overnight for planning and even for touring, just learning the navigation skills, the safety aspect, it’s never finished,” Marie later told me. “I’m still very often questioning my own decisions—it’s a lot more intimidating than just going in the park.”
Yet Marie took those first steps—a big risk given her elevated place as one of the few women filming with a major production—and was part of a high-end, all-female film with the Full Moon crew in 2016. Afterward, she approached the backcountry on her own terms and started primarily splitboarding for her personal fulfillment as well as when pursuing media-worthy lines.
“When you’re splitboarding, everything’s slowed down and you’re more exposed, too,” Marie said. “You’re way out there and it’s going to take awhile to get back. You have to have good communication with people you trust. It’s the best setting to support each other and it’s not nearly as competitive of a feeling compared to the park, or filming from a heli.”
Sometimes, a single opportunity can make all the difference. When Marie called Francisca into this trip, Fran was busy with a guiding exam. She’s working to become an internationally accredited splitboard guide, one of the first women to do so in her home country of Chile. None of us knew her in person, but Marie had connected with her prior via their mutual Patagonia sponsorship. We knew Fran was well-educated enough to make responsible group decisions. Turned out, her free-flowing positivity added good energy to our crew.
Still, despite significant big mountain experience and an adventurous attitude, pillows and jumps, for the most part, were not yet in Fran’s repertoire. With Marie’s mentorship, that was about to change. We’d begun with a day of sled-accessed pillow riding, then set off for a more intrepid objective—two nights and two days in the hut, 20 miles from nowhere.
Settling in, Marie pulled out a set of acrylic paints. I hadn’t painted in 15 years. But in the hut, with no digital distraction, it seemed an appropriate activity. Everyone brought their own style. On food packaging, Bruhns painted a psychedelic wave. Marie began with a rough sketch that turned into a refined nature scene. Fran built a dreamy city atop a bison. My contribution was a simple, bulbous, snow-covered tree. Together, we tapped into simplicity and added our personal aesthetic to the collective space, pausing only to stoke the fire before bed.
We awoke to a few inches of new snow and a blank canvas—the whole zone to ourselves and no tracks in sight. The first objective: snow assessment. You can only glean so much from an avalanche report this far into the backcountry. Different microclimates and different aspects can produce vastly different results, and we were keenly aware of potential weak layers deeper in the snowpack. Thankfully, the terrain beyond the hut offered a consistent progression from sheltered to exposed.
Walking through quiet fir trees drenched in moss, clouds continued to roll through—it would be a slow break to the storm. That suited us just fine as we arrived at a small mellow slope with a few natural poppers, our first lines of the day. Moving to a frozen lake, the full expanse of this area became readily apparent—steep, pillowed walls on multiple aspects sat below a bench, which wrapped around the mid-elevations of a large glacial cirque with 270 degrees of rideable terrain. A moraine split the lower bench, offering an enticing sustained pitch to rip wide open turns. Gullies flowed through the trees well below the massive cliffs of the summit and, ultimately, a high glacier below a prized couloir high above. It was enough to last a few days, or maybe a few weeks, a few years, a lifetime if you wanted to see what was around every corner—the endless possibilities of the Coast Mountains.
Still, we didn’t get up high that first day as lingering clouds obscured the alpine. Patience is a virtue in the backcountry and we were happy to lap the lower elevations. In addition to allowing for extensive snow assessment, this gave time for Marie and Fran to talk through some of the finer points of riding coastal BC terrain.
Later, Fran reflected on that day, “I’m not used to filming with crews, and I realized how beautiful and amazing, how safe you can feel while pushing your limits and showing yourself how strong you feel. When you are with an amazing team, everyone wants the best for every moment. Riding with Marie, she is so strong and unstoppable—even though she’s humble, it’s amazing how much technique and style she has for snowboarding and moving through the backcountry. That helped me bring out my best version of self, especially for jumping, and follow her perfect eye to choose a line from the bottom and follow it from the top, turn by turn, pillow by pillow, one of the hardest skills on blind lines. I jumped like never before because watching her made me feel everything is possible. Even with a few crashes, with a supportive and motivated team, my inner strength grew 300 percent to achieve unimaginable things.”
Clearly, Fran had a good day. She tried tricks she had never tried, on the kind of playful coastal features she had never ridden, all while learning a lot about style and flow. By the time we returned to the hut, she was spent. We all were. Stepping outside that night, the Milky Way had never looked so good. Yet with nothing to do but refuel and relax in our backcountry abode, rest and rejuvenation came easily.
We knew it would be a big day. Birds chirped through still air, a particularly curious red crossbill greeting our early awakening. Coffee on, water boiled for breakfast, we were out the door by 7:30, greeting Timmy Taussig, and his friend Mark, who had departed well before sunup to join us.
The goal: Ride the high lines as much as we could. So we set out on our skintrack from the day prior, a half hour to the lake, another hour to the bench, for snow-test laps at treeline. The snow felt stable. Soon, Fran and Marie were perched atop the tongue of the moraine. Fran went first. She dropped from the top, picking up speed and arcing long, confident turns before dipping out of sight toward the lake below, lost in perfectly pitched powder bliss. Then Marie, and Timmy and Mark from up higher, moving to the toe of the glacier, following the light around the basin and cycling laps into the afternoon.
It’s hard to convey the feeling of these rare days when it all lines up. The snow, the people, the terrain, the stability—you spend a winter chasing it and are lucky if you land on a few of these perfect days by the end of it. So, when they arrive, you need to take full advantage—and that’s what we did.
It’s also amazing how much terrain you can cover by foot in a day with a slow and steady approach. By 4 p.m. we’d laid tracks across most of this high amphitheater, tagging each slope in succession, following the sun. But Marie still had one line in mind: a short, steep wall of spines, in a hanging bowl just out of sight, back toward the hut. Pausing for a snack, we assessed everyone’s comfort level with the plan and the best route to get there. With the whole team on the same page, we dropped one by one from the top of the moraine, this time traversing to the far side of the upper bowl, skinning across a subtle bench under manageable exposure. And another half hour’s shuffle away, the wall appeared. It wasn’t a big face, maybe 150 vertical feet, but it was as steep as anything that could hold snow. Marie and Fran set a skintrack to the adjacent ridge, then clamored into position. Just those two would ride this line as the rest of us waited below in a boulder field, assisting their positioning over the radio.
This time Marie went first. Before dropping, she radioed, “Are you ready for some Jeremy Jones shit?” It was designed to get a laugh out of the crew, and it worked. She cut in on her toe edge, exposing rock under a thin snowpack, cut to her heels above her sluff, and pointed it off a small drop, exiting clean. Fran dipped around a cornice onto a steep panel, carving two quick turns into the shadows. “Adrenalinic,” she called it, and it fit—the pair was riding high.
Then, a release—Marie and Fran led the charge down a ridge into the trees, all six of us bouncing through golden evening light. Then a gully, pillow poppers to the valley floor, a quick transition to the hut. Departing under falling darkness, there was no rush to get home.
©Funny Feelings LLC. View All Articles.