the North Shore’s Mt. Brunswick ski trip
the North Shore’s Mt. Brunswick ski trip
Mt. Brunswick, North Shore
I was turned back by weather last spring from Mt. Brunswick with Lee and Trevor. This year the weather, and stability looked perfect for round two. This time a friend from a trip to Kokanee Glacier was in town from Banff and game for an adventure.
Mt. Brunswick is the highest peak in the North Shore/Howe Sound area (1788M / 5866’), but due to an long and nasty approach, it does not often get skied.
With a little research in hand we started off. We got a short ride with up the gated road with some workers, we then hiked, skinned, boot packed with skis in hand, boot packed with skis on our backs, and crawled. We were finally rewarded with a nice hike once we hit the alpine.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Vince with Lion’s Bay and Howe Sound below him. We eventually dropped in just 2 o’clock to Vince’s hand before the rocks.
The views were quite amazing to say the least.
Vancouver in the background of two of its’ most famous landmarks,
the Lions.
We didn’t hit the true summit as the skiing near there would have been sun affected, but we were likely only about 20’ below it. I was comfortable with that decision as the views were pretty kick ass where we were.
Me and Vince with Bowen Island in the background.
Me with the Sunshine Coast in the background.
The best looking snow was on the northeast aspect. The first 20’ were a bit wind scoured but Vince found the snow quality was to his liking after that.
Apparently there is a way to ski out a lot further down than we did but you MUST know where a well hidden exit is. We didn’t, so we elected to start traversing out after about 800 vertical feet. But even that turned out to be pretty fun.
As we contoured around as high as we could before we eventually had to climb again a short distance to get back to the trail.
All told we started out at 235M and hit 1785M. It took 9 hours including lunch. It was a lot of effort for a relatively few turns but the views, and some quality great turns made up for it.
By complete coincidence, later that night I was invited to go sailing in Howe Sound by my cousins-in-law on their new boat the Barefoot. The marine forecast was calling for 20-30 knots northerly outflow which meant it should be a fun day to sail.
Bob, Jon, Jim and Mike Cameron.
Apparently my lack of ever letting out the jib sheet made some crew nervous, but hopefully this old east coast sailor will be invited back another day. Thanks guys.
View of Mt Brunswick from Snug Cove, Bowen Island.
Photo: Zoran Vasic