2008 - Squamish Scrambler - Year 4

EVENT RECAP By Gary Robbins:

As people trickled into the North Shore Athletics in Squamish, the weather tempted us with patches of blue and views of the surrounding snow covered peaks. Could we really get lucky for the third straight year?

Thankfully it rained to an elevation of about 1000m throughout the week, which is right at the parking lot trail head for this snowshoe run, and all 4x4 vehicles were able to make it to the starting point without issue. We had six car pool vehicles and I greatly thank all who offered up their trucks up for transport on the day!

Even as we all collected in the parking area for our starter photo the skies played with us. A small blue patch here, some climbing cloud cover there...maybe, just maybe it would clear completely for us! This dream was quickly put to rest however, for as we ascended the trail the cloud cover grew thicker, the temperature dipped, and the snow started to fly! We had one brief vantage point back over Squamish after about fifteen minutes of snowshoeing, but the rest of the day would be spent in a winter wonderland.

We set out as a group of eighteen snowshoers and slowly started to pair off into smaller groups along the way. I was forced onto my ski touring gear for the day as I've been dealing with a calf injury. The ski boots with a fully ridgid sole, seem to allow me to proceed without issue, although I did spend most of the day wishing I could have been on my snowshoes with everyone else!

After a good paced warm up of about ten minutes John Dove decided he was done with us slow pokes and went about showing all of us what snowshoe 'running' actually looked like! Ward Beamer gave chase and a crew of five formed the second group. I was able to hang onto the back of these guys while on my ski gear.

By the time we had reached Red Heather Hut at 5km, it was perfectly clear to us that we'd be getting anything but a perfectly clear day! The cloud cover was thick, the visibility low, and a decent breeze threw the snow around. As we continued past the R.H.H. I was relieved to notice that the chimney pipe was spewing out smoke as it had indeed been fixed over the last few days. At least people would have a nice fire to warm up to once they arrived!

From here on in we were pretty much breaking trail on about 10-20cm of fresh snow...well John had very kindly broken trail for us! We crested the ridge at about 6km, where the views are normally breath taking, and we were all having some difficulty finding the actual route. John had decided to add some climbing to his day, and came bouncing out of the powder above us, having taken a quick detour. There are six foot tall orange marker poles all along the 11km to The Elfin Lakes Hut and we had simply overlooked a short turn to our right. Once we corrected our blunder it was clearly marked every 100 meters for the final 5km trek to E.L.H.

As we coninued along the now more forgiving, undulating terrain that would take us to Elfin Lakes, the socked in cloud cover made things seem a bit bigger, a bit farther, and a little more daunting. There were no views to distract you from what you were doing, just white as far as the eye could see...which was all of about thirty feet at times! Eventually it widled down to Ryne Melcher, Rick Arikado and myself, with John Dove up ahead, and Pat and Carrie Walsh just behind. By the time we reached the Elfin Shelter John had cooled down significantly and was ready to go again. Rick, Ryne and myself hung out for about twenty minutes, and Pat and Carrie spent a full hour relaxing in the hut. There was so much snow that you could have entered the shelter through the second story door if you so desired! There were stairs dug down to the first level entrance, which in and of itself is about four feet off the ground. There was easily twelve plus feet of snow back there!!

Oh yeah, and I am not giving full details of my wipe out on my skis as Rick shot a video and Ryne took pictures, while I flailed about like a new born deer stuck in six feet of the fresh stuff! I'm sure Rick has uploaded it to youtube already!

On the return trip we stopped into the Red Heather Hut to find a full shelter of at least twenty people, but not Fat Asses to be seen. We continued down to the parking lot which served as our start-finish area and proceeded straight to the Howe Sound Brew Pub to warm up and share a pint!

I had three draw prizes to award:

-20% off NSA Coupon went to Rick Arikado

-Free Yeti Snowshoe Race entry went to Carrie Walsh

-Trail Runner Magazine subscription to Amber Ringers

- Note from Sibylle: "Kintec Footlabs also sponsored 3 draw prizes.  They were awarded after the event to Monty Watts, Carolyn King and Lara Taylor.  I will contact the winners.  Sorry, I was down with the flu and unable to get the prizes to Gary in time."

Thanks so much to everyone for making it up to Squamish for the day. There were many new faces and it was great to see so many people enjoying snowshoeing, even though you were not rewarded with the views for your efforts! I guess that means you'll all have to come back up and try again next year!!

GR

Here are some photos of the day from CFA members. If you have photos that you would like to add to this slideshow, please upload them to your Flickr Account, tag them with SquamishScrambler2008 SquamishScrambler and ClubFatAssEvents and add them to the CFA Flickr Group. Detailed instructions on how to do this are posted here.

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Here is Rick's video of the aftermath of Gary's wipe-out:

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