It was another beautiful day for snowboarding. My long-time snowboard bud; Don S finally got a chance to get up to the mountain for a little shredding.
After a few runs down the groomers off Cascade; we decided to have a look at Heather Canyon. Not really ideal conditions; but Don doesn’t get up here that much, so we decided to take a little run through the Private Reserve.
Once again; not ideal conditions and soon enough we were at the cliffs at the edge of the Reserve. The snow was hard and slick; very unforgiving, to say the least. We had to negotiate a nearly vertical cliff covered with hard, slippery snow.
Very sketchy and dangerous conditions. We got out of our boards and started to carefully inch our way down the fallen trees and hard snow. One mistake would mean real trouble. A couple minutes after advising Don to “take baby steps” and be “extremely careful”; I slipped and started sliding down a nearly vertical cliff on the hard snow. I tried to grab onto bushes on the way down to slow my slide but hitting the bushes ripped the snowboard from my grasp as I picked up speed heading down the cliff.
I finally was able to grab a bush and hang on before I hit the creek at the bottom of the cliff and some pretty big trees. It was quite the adrenaline rush; serious injury was a real possibility here. My hands were shaking and I was a little beat up and dazed. Don slid down the cliff and grabbed my board out of the bushes. I was able to regain most of my wits and take the photo below of Don styling down the Creek Chute.
As we made our way out of the Reserve; there was one more reminder of how serious things can be here. The photo below is Don sitting below a very recent avalanche that had come down the Reserve cliffs. Serious business for serious backcountry snowboarders.
Little sore from the cliff body surfing right now; but I’ve got the weekend to rest up and I’ll be back up on Monday.