March 16, 2006
Spankys Ladder
(TrackBack)Yesterday was indeed activious (that's a new word). A pretty late meeting with only one goal, strike off a couple of the double diamonds up on Blackcomb, namely a group of bowls called Spankys Ladder. I figure actually the hike up is called this as it is sheet ice with random footholes and a good drop just off to your left, great fun and some moron decided it'd be a good day to ski (hint: me).
Up at the top the view over the glacier is spectacular, a ledge leads into 4 bowls namely Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond and Garnet. We hit the Ruby first under the impression it was the easiest and indeed it was a relatively pleasant double diamond, the powder was awesome considering it hadn't snowed for a few days. The hike up and out and down to the Glacier road took an hour so we headed up again to hit the next bowl, Sapphire.
At the entrance is a sign proclaiming icy conditions, well we're all used to them from November but they failed to mention the sheer rock face you were also skiing over. Phil headed over first, board attached, hit a rock and somersaulted over a couple more. Not very stylish but it worked well. The rest edged down on their arses using boards for stabiliy. Next comes ski-boy, for some reason I decided it'd be wiser to take my skis off and use my boots to dig into the ice. Note: ice is TOUGH. I slipped, over the side of the traverse, managing to hit about 3 or 4 rocks on the way down ouch. The worst bit was letting go of my skis, one of which decided to make its own way down the lovely powdery bowl we were now in! Phil chased it down and caught it within a 100 metres or so but I still had to get down a double black diamond in about a foot of powder with one ski. Superb.
I have about 5 runs left on Blackcomb before they're all covered - obviously all double diamonds but there's plenty of time for the bruises to heal yet. Not looking forward to "Blowhole" which looks like a half pipe... vertical.
Posted by Mark at March 16, 2006 11:17 AM