Getting there is half the fun

Brew Hut - VOC Trail Marking Trip

Putting the skool work on hold for another week I went with 12 other VOCers to mark the new winter ski route into Brew Hut. Actually we were originally 15, but we couldn't find one girl in Vancouver and had to abandon her after 30 minutes of searching. And another girl turned back 2 hours into the hike to hitch back to Van, which is another story in itself!

Brew Hut was built by the VOC this past summer and the old winter route in is supposedly super dangerous so Scott set up a new route via Roe Creek. After meeting at the trailhead Scott and Tim shuttled people as far as their 4x4s would go up the snowy road. Then we started hiking and skiing up a long logging road used by a Cat skiing operation. A Cat passed us on the way up with the occupants taking photos of us "hardcore backcountry travellers"! Almost 2 hours later we reached the turnoff up a steep abandoned logging road. Scott broke the trail.

Looking back down the small logging road at the others coming up:


Soon we turned off into the forest and started the marking process. We split up into 3 groups of 4, once again with Scott breaking trail out front. Leapfrogging up the trail, each group would mark a section and then pass the next group. It was surprisingly a lot of fun! We put little orange reflectors on trees ever 20 meters or so, cutting branches as needed, which was a lot sometimes. I think we all overestimated the pace at which we could mark, the pace was pretty slow. But we all got a good section of the trail done before most people headed up to the hut at around 3:30pm. Tim, Christian, Reuben and I stayed back and finished marking the rest of the trail up to the lake making it to the hut just as the sun was setting around 6:45. We arrived super tired but it was really nice of Marko and the others to have some hot water for tea all ready for us!

Tim cutting the snow-encrusted branches off a tree in preparation to place a marker:


In the spirit of St. Patrick's day I lugged 2 large cans of Guinness up with me and every drop was worth it. Highly recommended on every trip!

Somehow with all the saws and cutters and tree branches involved in the marking process I popped my thermarest, so it was the second trip in a row spent sleeping pretty much on plywood. Eventually I'll figure this sleeping thing out.

Greta and Reuben in front of Brew Hut Sunday morning. Can you believe 12 people can sleep in the upstairs of this?!


With the trail marking basically done Sunday was spent having some fun! Aiden, Tim and Scott went out skiing super early, which left the rest of us to go climb Mt. Brew, a small summit (1757m) just north of the hut.

Some of us standing in front of our objective:


The route up crossed one scary-ish slope above some cliffs and then climbed for a bit up through snow covered alpine trees. Both the skiers and the snowshoers had to carry their chosen methods of travel up the peak.

Marc climbing up through the trees:


Less than 30 minutes from leaving the hut we "summited"!


Upsidedown on the top: Me and Greta doing a hand stand on top of Mount Brew. One of my favourite pics!:


We took a slightly steeper route down off of the peak wanting to avoid a potential avalanche slope. But Artem and I managed to ski the whole way down! (if you could call it skiing - it was more of a controlled fall with jumps over dropoffs)

Back at the hut it was only 10:30 so Christian, Artem and I went for a ski while the others snowshoed around. Directly from the hut you could ski down a gully about 330meters to a small lake. We followed Tim, Scott and Aiden's lines figuring they wouldn't lead off a cliff. The skiing was stellar - I think THE best run I've ever had! Ski resorts have nothing on untracked backcountry powder!

This is about 1/3 of the slope we came down. My line is middle-left one, Artem's is the one to the right with longer turns, and Christian's is the large sweeping one that looks like an uptrack.


We ate lunch in the bottom of the giant bowl. Christian lost his shovel handle on the way down so we started up the gully to get it but soon heard the screams of Scott from the forest above telling us we were skiing up into our doom, or at least potentially. So instead we followed their nice skin track up through the forest into the alpine. It took us an hour to get back up to the hut.

What goes down must come up! Hard work:


Back at the hut the small battalion of snowshoers was preparing to leave to get a head start on us going down. Here they are marching off into the distance:


With a few hours of daylight left Tim, Scott, Aiden and I went for one more run down the gully! Christian didn't come because he broke his tele binding on his second turn into the bowl, but more on that later.

Tim matching our lines down!


A 'quick' and 'painless' (cough) 40 minute sprint brought us back up to the hut.


After packing up we undertook the matter of Christian's bindings. A quick fix meant strapping his foot to his ski, which made for a very interesting trip down.

Leaving the hut with Blacktusk and Mt. Garibaldi in the distance:


Half way down the trail the straps broke on Christian's makeshift 'binding' so he ended up walking down through the forest which was actually easier and faster than skiing as the snow was a horrid sun crust that made for difficult skiing.

The steep logging road leading down to the Cat track was impossible to ski and had a huge drop off on the left - extremely scary. Tim was the first to crash with a nice faceplant which left him with goosebumps on his forehead. Not wanting to feel left out I soon faceplanted as well into the ice and got a nice bleeding nose! From there I had enough and carried my skies down to the cat track trailing blood behind. Another super icy and super scary survival ski down the cat track brought us eventually to the cars.

Back in Squamish we continued the 'tradition' of going to the brew pub, fitting, since we were at Brew Hut and climbed Mt. Brew! Good food and good beer as always, concluding another awesome trip! They seem to always be getting better and better!

And here's a shot of the whole crew of 13: Aiden, Marc, Artem, Kirsten, Yuri, me, Reuben, Sebastian, Marko, Scott, Tim, Christian, & Greta.

Posted by Evan at 11:27 PM