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Bombtram Mountain - Coquihalla - March 26, 2009

Words and photos by Sharon Bader and Lee Lau unless otherwise noted.

Went up to the Coquihalla today with Shar, Jos and John B hoping to find slopes that had been spared from the recent warm spell. We toured up to BombTram Mtn (a tour John had written about in his new guidebook and were granted our wish. Beautiful views, powder snow, bluebird skies (replaced later in the day with some high overcast) and a pretty easy ski out for a bonus shot of winter in the Coquihalla even though it was well into spring further down the valley


Trailhead starts and ends at the Box Canyon

View from the clearcut as we ascend towards the Two Bears avalanche path - which incidentally is now skiable for the first time this spring

Jos broke trail as his usual Jos - schnell pace


Views as we broke into the alpine at about 1800m and looked onto glorious NE facing bowls covered in untouched light powder. Zeer mooi! Snygg Vacker!

Sharon looks into more bowls. These are on the NW Side

Skinned up to the minor ridge of Bombtram with views towards Anderson drainage

Sharon looks S towards the Chilliwack Valley along the peak ridge. That could be a nice tour with access to some S corn skiing


Sharon puts on her best photogenic smily face while the papparazzi hover


John makes tracks down the NE bowls

Jos enjoying the powder snow


Lee escapes from behind the lens


Sharon attacks

We enjoyed the first run so much we had to go up another time to do it again. More untouched powder fields beckoned. This time we skied from the summit all the way down to the Box Canyon. As per the guidebook you cannot ski direct to the Box Canyon but must traverse over cliffbands towards a gully that splits the Canyon and is a logical way down. In the interests of group safety I volunteered to go first and found pretty good snow sitting on top of a melt-freeze crust. It wasn't that much of a problem for the first skier but was definitely an issue for the following skiers! I could hear scraping echoing up and down the gully.

From the Box Canyon it was a short 1 km traverse, mostly downhill, back to the vehicle


Next lap


Sharon attacking and slaying pow

Down a 800 m run to the Box Canyon

At the top of the Box Canyon which lies just beyond the wee plateau at the top of the picture


John getting sloppy seconds in the Gully


Jos

Sharon

Sharon in the Box Canyon

Traverse out


Google Map route and approx route out.


Bombtram Mtn - Coquihalla from Lee Lau on Vimeo. 


 

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