Copyright © All rights reserved
FASSANI POWDER TOUR 2011: CANADA B.C. The powder circle!
February 2, 2011 … finally the dream comes true!
After months of waiting finally arrived the departure time to the eldorado of the powder, towards the desired goal of any freerider ... British Columbia ... Canada!!
The trip was planned for a long time; in August we started studying a path that, taking approximately 15 days, allowed us to learn about this country and its famous snow ... the so called “champagne powder”!
The riders: Me (Simon), Iacopo, Samuel, Franco, Bomar, Carlo Loz, Andrea Bandit, Federico and Vince.
The program (the one we really followed after some changes on the road):
First day 2/02/2011
Departure from airport "Valerio Catullo" - Verona with Lufthansa plane and arrival at Calgary at about 12am of the same day;then transfer to Golden
Second day 3/02/2011
In the evening transfer to Revelstoke (2 hours, 150 km) crossing the Roger Pass.
Third, fourth, fifth day 4-5-6/02/2010
Sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth day 7-8-9-10/02/2011
10th day 11/02
Ski at Rossland and transfer to Fernie in the evening
11th day 12/02
12th day 13/02/2011
Calgary and return to Italy on 14/02
The journey began with the fear of to paying for the transportation of the mega ski bags.
The website of Lufthansa wrote that you could transport them free of charge (regardless of the content) while some call-center operators said that if in the bag there were two pairs of skis we would have to pay a surcharge of 150 €!
Finally, at the check-in, our bags were considered as one piece and we didn’t pay any extra charge! After a long flight of 10 and a half hours we landed at Calgary really excited.
We were really happy and smiling until we arrived at the baggage conveyor ... our luggage and our ski bags weren't there. A man said us that they would arrived with the next flight (4 hours) and so we went to downtown Calgary for a quick tour postponing only by a few hours the departure towards the first stage of our ski-trip.
The city of Calgary is nice but nothing really special, few people around, a lot of homeless crowding McDonald to shelter themselves from outside cold, some nice sportswear shops and the memory of the 1988 Olympic Games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Winter_Olympics).
After our tour we went back to the airport to retrieve luggage but there we had another nasty surprise: only 5 suitcases by 6 arrived and ski bags were still missing!
After a heat debate about what to do and assisted by the ground-staff of Lufthansa, we decided that Me, Marco and Samuel would spent the night in Calgary in order to wait for the luggage to arrive the next day.
Carlo, Iacopo, Federico and Andrea Bandit left for Golden to ski at Kicking Horse.
The next day, all luggage arrived and we could then leave to Golden.
Finally we started to taste the real Canada when we left Calgary and began to drive on the Trans Canada Highway 1 through snow-covered endless meadows with cows grazing and hay bales covered with a thin layer of snow .... in the distance we could see the so-called Rockies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountains) which represented almost a mirage till that moment but they were approaching very fast!
In the evening we arrived at Golden where we stayed at the Kicking Horse River Lodge (http://www.khrl.com/).
Out for dinner and then early to bed because the next day we would have to leave toward Revelstoke!
After a sleepless night because of jet-lag (8 hours minus than Italy) we departed heading to Revy under an heavy snowfall (http://www.revelstokemountainresort.com/).
The resort opened for the first time on December 22, 2007, and was thought to be the biggest North American ski resort debut in twenty years.
Revelstoke now offers the longest vertical descent of any resort in North America. In terms of size, it is already about the same as other major resorts like Vail or Panorama, and over a third the size of Whistler-Blackcomb. When completed, it will have 10,000 acres (40 km2), which will make it the largest in North America.
At 9 we arrived at destination and we saw hordes of aggressive riders at the Revelation Gondola.
After the queue for skipass we could go and the first run was the "kill the banker " under the line of the gondola!
It was a really funny downill with steep cliffs and some tree skiing...really beautiful terrain!
In Revy we realized to be in another world ... the cliffs are reported with small orange placards, at the arrival of the chairlift "The Stoke" there is the small wood house of the Patrollers which work consists in safing the slopes and open only those bowls that are considered "safe", anyone was really kind talking with us and saying :"enjoy your powder"!!!
We spent the day exploring some untracked slopes that gave us some great satisfaction.
The day after, thanks to Jessica, the Social Media and Marketing Coordinator of Revelstoke Resort, we skied all the day with a great local-skier ...Sean Cochrane (http://www.biglines.com/video/sean-cochrane-athlete-edit) that made us discover some great path!
We guessed that he was a great skier but we didn't think he was a pro-rider... he scored a second place in the Canadian Freeski Championship 2011, the first North American stage of the Freeride World Tour (http://vimeo.com/19082567 from 4 to 4.30 m. approx) and he is one of the protagonist in a ski-movie with Mark Abma (http://www.revmovie.com/videos).
Revy It’s really awesome…incredible variety of terrains and with only three chairlifts properly located you can ski all the big mountain!!
Finally we had to leave also Revelstoke to continue our trip and move us towards Nelson and Valhalla Powdercats (http://www.valhallapow.com/).
The trip was a great adventure! We left in the afternoon, at about 2:30 pm, under a slight snowfall. We crossed the Upper Arrow Lake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Lakes) on a ferryboat (half an hour crossing) and it seemed us to be the protagonists of some ski-movie where the ski bums chase the powder in every way!
Snowfall intensity was increasing more and more. We crossed tiny villages and we scrambled along wide roads through mountains, lakes and forests .... we could see a lot of signs warning about avalanche danger, about moose, caribou or about the presence of "wild life ahead".
Driving required a lot of attention due to the amount of snow that we were tracking with our Suv but It was part of the whole adventure.
Finally at about 8 pm we reached Nelson, a small "town" of the end of the 17th century (http://www.discovernelson.com/htdocs/history.html). We went to bed early in the excellent Cloudside Inn (http://www.cloudside.ca/), ready for the adventure to Valhalla!
The night gave us some other new snow and the day was announcing to be great!
By a rear-wheel-drive minivan, after a troubled trip (fitting chains, waiting to let pass a truck on a tiny road snow) we arrived at the starting point of the snowcat.
We were accompanied by two professional guides (Eric and Nesbo). At first they explained us some notions about avalanches and made us individual test beacons and after that we finally could begin our adventure on the real powder!
The slopes were fantastic! Almost all starting very steep in open field and finishing in beautiful grooves.
The snow was really good and only in two runs we found it a bit heavy due to the sun shining in the early afternoon. The runs followed one another relentlessly and the ascent by snowcat was the opportunity to rest and eat every kind of sandwich, crisps, biscuits and drink some water or coffe!
We skied till 4 p.m. and then we went back to our Inn in Nelson.
The next day, adviced by our italian friend Alex, we went to try Trevor Holsworth’s catskiing in Ymir (http://www.kootenayexperience.com/catskiing.htm).
Ymir (http://www.ymirbc.com/) is an incredible place ... a village of miners arisen between ' 800 and ' 900 now inhabited by nearly 300 people. There are two hotels: the historic Hotel Ymir (http://www.hotelymir.com/) and the Ymir Palace (http://www.ymirpalace.com/-where we had a great breakfast every morning with the best pancakes ever).
The soil of this area is really vast, for around 15 km radius there is nothing ... only woods, mountains and powder!
The catski area is just a 30 minute trip by snowmobile and 15 minutes by cat.
The slopes generally begin with woods and finish on open field, the opposite of Valhalla!
Here the snow was absolutely the best ... very cold and dry ... spectacular!
Trevor and Joaquim , the two guides, accompanied us during these 3 days and each run they were suggesting where to go down (to the right or left of their trace that was always the first one!!!).
The first two days we were all following the rule stating that “who starts first in previous run is the last in the next run” but the third It didn’t happen... there was a kind of powder anarchy !!!
We skied always after the first guide but many times we arrived down at the same time of Trevor or Joaquim!
The landscapes of this area are by far the best of the whole trip ... incredible and breathtaking. Unfortunately these three days spent too fast and finally came the time to leave Nelson to go skiing at Rossland (http://www.redresort.com/).
Arrived at the resort the urge to rest had the upper hand on the will to ski and so we decided to visit the village and travelling towards Fernie that we reached in the late afternoon under a light drizzle that was to be supposed to be snow at the resort (http://www.skifernie.com/).
Fernie is a famous ski resort which is approximately 3.5 hours from Calgary (South). It is quite crowded in the weekends and there are lots of shops and grills/restaurants (The “Old Elevator” was very good) where you can dine or have a drink.
In the morning of our last day of skiing in Canada we woke up early to be among the first ones at the chairlift in order to have first tracks on the supposed powder. The resort got about 20 cm of fresh snow ... a litle heavy at the bottom but really nice in the upper part of the ski area which is really large with the presence of five bowls.
Finally we succeeded to be the first to go down on untracked snow and after about 6 run my legs and my back recommended me to close this Canadian ski adventure!
What else...
I thanks my fellow friends for making this adventure possible and I think that such experiences, lived with own friends, do not have price! For all the other things...ther’s Mastercard...ah ah ah!
FASSANI POWDER TOUR 2010 - english version
I had a dream ... I dreamt an abundant snowfall ...
I dreamt of skiing off-piste without feeling a criminal ...
I dreamt to share with my friends emotions that only powder gives ...
I realized It wasn't a dream ... but I lived a dream which became real ...
This real dream is called ARLBERG ...
The nation where civilization reigns is called Austria ... (against those who want to deprive us a piece of life by banning the off-piste skiing).
With Iacopo, Samuel, Cesare and Manfred I spent three fantastic days between Stuben am Arlberg and Zurs.
The first two days we stayed in "our" gled of Stuben because It was still snowing and visibility was bad .... but we had awesome faceshoots and got immense pleasure riding that good powder!
On sunday finally the sun arrived and then we transferred to Zurs.
With the guidance of Gen. Manfred Pancugolo we first path near the chairlifts Madloch and Seekopf (pending the opening of the cableway of Trittkopf) and from there we had access to the mythic High Wiesele .... an endless first track descent which almost reach Lech!
I think that now the words are enough .... I let space to the images of these fantastic powder days...
THE FASSANI IN CHAMONIX - english version
Friday, 23rd April 2010, 5.00 p.m, departure from Verona destination Chamonix !
The "Fassani" go away in the West and for me and Marco (Bomar) is the first time in Mont Blanc ... so the expectations are high as well as the excitement for the trip.
Also Iacopo and Franco are going from Mantua
Our guide for the two french days is Marco Mountainequipment who, together with Iacopo and Franco, has already been here many other times.
On Saturday morning the alarm clock runs at 6.30 in order to arrive very soon at the cable car of the Aiguille du Midi.
At 7.15 we are already lined up to buy the skipass but fortunately there aren’t many people and so at 8:00 a.m. we can take the first travel ...
Prior to the departure of the cable car arrives a particular skier: yellow Oakley suit, white band, Oakley eyewear, K2 Obsethed 2011 ... yes…Seth Morrison!!!
Queued at the cable car I try an approach, looking at him I say "Seth! Nice to meet you! You’re a great!"... Seth: Where do you come from?" Me:”Italy
Arrived at the top of the Aiguille I see a breathtaking show!
It’s really awesome the majesty of the glacier and it’s incredible to see the village of Cham 2000 metres below!!
We prepare to descend on exposed ridge that leads at the beginning of our descent ... we wear the crampons and we move.
Fatigue is felt, breath is short for altitude but calmly we arrive at the end of little path carved in snow and there we can prepare for the descent.
We start choosing the Grand Enverse du Plan but our line is too low, and then we do a mix between Grand Enverse and classic Enverse .
I am speechless looking at the crevasses and seracs ... we are in another world than Dolomites … the ambiance is truly incredible.
Snow is slightly heavier due to the high temperature but we don’t care ‘cause we’re enjoying such a great spectacle of nature!
We cover the final part of our descent, the Mer de Glace, and arrive at the plant which leads us to take the Montenvers rack railway back to Cham (not before having done 370 steps).
Fast break and new climb and descent, this time for a full Enverse du plan.
We arrive at the hotel at 6 p.m. exhausted but happy.
The day after we choose a more quiet descent from the glacier of the Grand Montet.
Also here breathtaking landscapes!!
Two great days with special friends!!! I'm also amazed to see the how many young mountaineers (men and women) populate the streets of Cham ... women and men well equipped who arrives from the glacier at any time…on their faces, burnt by the sun, you can read clearly the same tired and happiness that we tried during these days on the ice with a goalless draw (naturally at a different level in terms of technical difficulties).
Next year we’ll come back surely ... hoping this time in a better snow better!
Au revoir Chamonix !!!!
