Hell Bell II - Nigunsaw Pass

The north of British Columbia really rocks!
Following the advices of some local we met on our journey, we made a stop around Bell II. But where's Bell II???


Bell II is on the highway 37 that goes to Yukon. What we found there is just some incredible terrain for backcountry. It looks pretty similar to Roger's Pass but without any information center, detailed maps that show you where to ski or daylodge. There is a heliski operation there, where you can have a look at the map of the area, get a crap or fill up at 1.28$/liter. We found some information through the avalanche safety crew that control the avalanche around Nigunsaw Pass.


Following there advices, we headed up to Red Flat creek to get a first view of the area. The snow was good considering the warm weather. So good that we went back there for another tour the following day. With perfect weather and just a little breeze, we climbed the 1200m all the way to the summit. The view from there was just spectacular the terrain surrounding is really full of opportunities for a skier. There is pretty much no one that use this backcountry skiing site for touring. We could have spend a month there skiing different runs every single day. But we have such a tight schedule considering everything we want to ski that we had to leave...


After a great day of skiing, we headed up towards Stewart. I've heard a lot about Stewart. Seen it in magazine and film. From what we've been able to see, there's not much to ski around Stewart if you don't have a chopper... We tried to get some motivation to go skiing a ridge near Mezidian lake, but the lake was not really frozen and the snow looked terrible. Total ascent: 16m...

That was the fourth day of the whole trip that didn't really worth putting the ski boots on! Jumping in the car after some vodka (to forget that shitty day), we headed toward Terrace!


Shames is an other typical northern resort. A small and friendly place that get hammered by more than 40feet of snow annually. The resort got a little bit of good terrain, but this is not the main reason to make it there. The slackcountry (backcountry from the resort - check out http://www.azadadventures.com/bc/home.html) is just enormous. We had the chance to hook up with one of the avalanche control guy we met in Bell II who kindly guided us around. The north aspect is pretty much the only thing left since the warming trend doesn't really want to stop!

We plan on hitting the backcountry of Shames one more time, drop Amelie (who is going back to reality) and head toward Alaska (which is only 2300km from Terrace). We might stop around the Cassiar mountain (near the Yukon border) where we've been told there was some good skiing!

Keep on going north!!

evans

Thanks Ullr for blessing us with snow!

We got in Powder King at 1am and we were a little bit disappointed to see a clear sky again… the same one that hit us for the last week! So we setup the tent without the fly to keep humidity out of the tent. But we got the weather almost right… at around 4am it started snowing and the tent became all slushy. We woke up in the morning, hiked the resort (closed on Monday to Wednesday) and got a few laps!

On that evening we went for a tour of the area around the resort! Although there is no real village some people live there… a few of them in real house, but most of them in buses or RV renovated for the winter (or with funny stickers)! What a special place!

Looking for more entertainment I ditched my car driving around at night! We had to shovel 40 cm deep, using all possible tricks during one hour and a half to take it out...

We woke up the following day not that motivated, until we met Leo and his sled!! Leo is a retired fisherman now living in Powder King, skiing a few hundreds days per year and going faster than anyone! Things happened pretty fast, so we didn’t understand everything that was going on, but we ended up driving the sled, skied good snow and were happy to discover the place!

Leo kindly offered us his place for the night and some fresh cooked bread, eggs and bacon the next morning! He’s really the King of Powder King!! We offered him some maple syrup…

The resort opened on Thursday and we were there for the first chair! It was funny to see our skintrack on the way up! We skied some good snow all day long… there was only about 50 persons at the resort, nothing was really getting tracked!

After that big day we went to the bar for a few pitchers of beer. Most of the staff was there (maybe even ALL of the staff… thus about 11 persons) and we had fun spending the evening with them! Powder King is a small and friendly place… after two days there you talked to everyone, they offer you a place to stay and they are all happy give you some information about their little place of heaven!

It was snowing, so we stayed one more day…

Here is what we discovered about Powder King in a few words: a small resort full of simple and funny people who enjoy skiing! The hill isn’t that big or steep, but there is decent backcountry to do there (the backside on Camel Humps, the slackcountry on Ester and Hip runs or the steeper Murray Ridge in front of the highway) and it is one of these places where they seem to receive light snow everyday!

We left Powder King for Smithers and skied there for two days. The snow was lighter and the terrain steeper than what we found in PK but the hill was really wind blown. Many people here showed us the area… there is something up North that make everyone friendly!

If you show up at Smithers and want some information about were to go backcountry. Go straight to the Valhalla Pure on Main Street and talk to Brian. He actually got all the information about what is going on around Smithers!!!

We had a fun time in Smithers, but the local told us that the backcountry is limited since they are not keeping the logging road open anymore and that we should head up to Stewart or Terrace…

So we are on the road again…

Alexis