Cayoosh - January 24 - 26, 2008 Day 1 - North Creek Words and pictures by Lee Lau and Sharon Bader unless otherwise noted

With a big high pressure system sitting over SW British Columbia for the past week it was time for a multi-day mission to the Duffy Lake area. My old friend Kevin was back from teaching in China and wanted to get in some touring and cleanse his lungs of Chinese toxic air. We figured that the Cayoosh area would be the ticket.

Our first day was just a half-day due more to sheer laziness then anything. With a sled-assisted tow into our base of operations we quickly set up, dropped our overnight gear then took off to the N branch of Cayoosh Creek into the Valley of numerous Slide Paths. My plan had been to ascend the ridge via SW facing slopes and then ski those same slopes. However, a pretty severe inversion presented us with the beginnings of sun-crust on valley floor. Pinwheels on the sun-affected slopes showed that the solar and heat had affected those slopes even more. We gave up on that plan and decided to tour to the head of the valley to see what we could find.

Clear cold skies means surface hoar ~ photo Jameson Florence

Approaching the Valley of Slide Paths via the N fork of Cayoosh Creek

At the head of the Valley of Slide Paths

Sharon and the group taking in the view of the North Cayoosh Glacier

Route finding to the head of the valley and then to the ridge at the valley head itself is straightforward. We weren't planning on heading up to Cayoosh via its N glacier but it would be trivial to access the glacier via this direction. Snow actually wasn't too bad on these SE-facing slopes and temperatures appeared to be cooler (perhaps localized glacier effect). We gained a small peaklet and found a heli-pad that appeared to have been used recently and took in the views.

Peaklet at the head of N Cayoosh Creek - view north looks to 7 Mile Creek and Nequatque Mtn

View from the peaklet looking S to the Joffre-Matier Group

Kevin and then Sharon skiing down to the valley

We then headed back to valley floor basically retracing our route. Due to the inversion, the snow at lower elevations was pretty good and we could ski through the valley floor easily crossing the snowbridged creek. There was still an hour of daylight so we headed to a clearcut just S of where we had set up for the night and did a lap in what turned out to be very good snow.

Jameson and Lee skiing down to valley floor

Looking at Pk 2225 - the prominent peak N of the junction of S and N Cayoosh Creek and further E to Rohr and Marriot Basin in the sunset.

Kevin taking in the good snow in the clearcut - view looks to the N fork of Cayoosh Creek and of course Cayoosh Mtn in the foreground

Sharon

Jameson

Kevin

Home sweet home