Education

2024 has provided the Coast Mountains of British Columbia with an unusual snowpack or in better words, lack of snowpack. The end of January was filled with high levels of precipitation but not in the form of snow. The rivers in the Sea To Sky remained bank full for several days with snow melt from our already under average snowpack. At the end of the high rain, mixing air masses granted us twenty centimetres of snow above 1900 metres and strong winds. Word of the week: Variable.

The recent incidents on Mount Yamnuska are an important reminder. Trail runners aren’t immune to accidents and we need to be ready to administer first aid when they happen. I’m not usually into blood and gore but I want to share my experience from a couple of years ago.

We asked some of our staff members about their trusty Spring touring setups, why they use them, and a few of their tips and tricks. Tune in for a breakdown of what gear we prefer when it comes to moving efficiently, taking on a big line, or simply ‘hot dogging’ around!

Joel shows us how to re-glue Pomoca skins with a few tools and some skin glue.

Every skier and trail runner follows the weather to some extent. What's already a nationwide topic of discussion becomes a whole different story to us outdoors enthusiasts.

No matter where you find yourself in the scale of "we'll see when we get there" to "I follow every model religiously", there are some incredible resources out there to make your life easier and help you plan your next adventures. Here are our five picks.

Backcountry skiing’s been booming for a while now, but it’s exploded in popularity these past few years. Thanks(?) to COVID and a renewed enthusiasm for the paths less travelled, more skiers than ever are earning their turns, connecting in a deeper way with the mountains and the wilderness. Is this going to be the year we’ll start talking about overcrowding? It’s certainly been becoming more and more of an issue although compared with popular destinations we are still faring pretty good. 

Autumn is a time of transition. Many of us have put in big training volume blocks in order to achieve peak fitness for racing. October is frequently a time of rest and recovery. A time to work on mobility and strength. Yet there’s a plethora of articles and social media posts about autumn being the “best time to run.”

Have a road race coming up? Us too. Training supremely mediocre? Us too. Fortunately, Liz Halleran has some wisdom to clear the fog and get us back to the sweet spot for training.

The truth is, there is no one-shoe-quiver that works for all feet and all runners. Different shoes serve different purposes and understanding these different tools and what they are meant for can help you make well-informed decisions for your feet. At the end of the day not all shoes serve a single purpose, but here's how we generally organize them in categories. 

It’s well and truly Spring in the Rockies. Skiers are getting out on the icefields, and tracks are being made on the steepest faces. As you break out that tiny skimo harness for the season, it’s probably a good time to review what most people carry and dangle off of that alpine lingerie. A lot of this gear has multiple purposes, but here we are talking about its primary function of glacier travel and crevasse rescue.

Modern ski mountaineering ropes are 6mm and pack down to the size of your folded skins. They're not just lighter, but also more cut resistant and more water resistant that traditional nylon ropes. There's several specialized models available from various manufacturers but they each have pros and cons. I've reviewed each of the options available in North America to help you sort out the differences.

Marcus Baranow lives a quiet life in the hamlet of Lake Louise. His summers are spent maintaining campgrounds and his winters are simple: eat, sleep, ski. His nightlife consists of board games or working on one of his many solitary projects. Introverted by nature and isolated by geography, how is it that Marcus became the most followed skier in the Rockies?