Banos

Quito - Gondola up to 4300m

Heading up the gondola...

Looking stylish in the down jacket... 

 Farm land?  Not sure...  Quito is in the background.

The barren landscape of the Andes.

Tempting Quito's crime rate with a moonlight walk.  At 6:30.

Fernie and Tunnel Creek Hut

Sean and I decided to go to Fernie for the weekend.  It had snowed about 60 cm on Thursday and Friday so our plan was to go to the ski hill.  However, when we got to the ski hill it was ridiculously busy and it also looked like everything had been skied out.  So, long story short we asked around town for ski terrain and everyone was very tight lipped; the only information we could get out of them was the Tunnel Creek area.  So we went there.  It was a lengthy ski in - about 6 km long and 800m of elevation gain.

We got there a week after they opened up the area to skidooers.  They really tore up the trail.

Despite how the snow looks in the pictures, it was actually really crusty.  But, being suckers we went back up the second day, but decided (last minute) to spend the night at the Tunnel Creek hut.  Since we weren't planning on any hutting, we only had Sean's sleeping bag (which he never unpacked from his previous trip).  The guy who books the hut told us we would only need one propane bottle for cooking and to run the furnace.  He lied. We ran out of furnace fuel a couple hours after dark (we had it set on low).

 There was a massive cornice on the mountain opposite the hut.

They also had an adorable outhouse.  That apparently nobody used since nothing was dug out.

The night was lovely - very clear and there was a full moon.  Could have gone night skiing.

New Years in Revelstoke/Rogers Pass

Grizzly Shoulder (Rogers Pass):

Avalanche runout zone in Cheops (Rogers Pass) - the avalanche rating was low, as otherwise this would be kind of death defying:

As you can see, other people were trying dodgier lines in the area...

Sean enjoying the powder:

I ruined my toe skiing the resort, so we took a day and went to the hotsprings by Nakusp.  This is the ferry... it has one small lifeboat.  So I assume there are never any accidents.

We were originally going to find some hotsprings down a forest service road, but sadly had to turn around when the truck started sliding too close to the cliff.  Turns out it was a good decision, as a hot springs employee went there the day before and it ended up being an 8 hour trip.