On the Road and In Your Backyard

On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!

Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com

 

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

We’ll continue this bold adventure next week, everybody.

Today, pictures from valued commenter StringOnAStick.

These are some photos from a back country ski trip we did in January of this year. This is the kind of skiing where you get flown to lodge on a helicopter, left there to hike up and ski down with certified ski guides for a week, and then the helicopter comes back for you to bring you back to your rental car and the long trip back to an airport since this is a really remote part of B.C.

Taken on 2019-01-21 00:00:00

Valkyr Lodge, British Columbia

This is the main thing, climbing up on specialized ski gear with removable climbing skins on the bottom. Once you reach the top, rip off those skins, lock your heels down, and let er rip.

Taken on 2019-01-22 00:00:00

Valkyr Lodge, British Columbia

This is why you do all that climbing, so you can see a pristine powder slope, the finest kind of skiing in my book!

Taken on 2019-01-23 00:00:00

Valkyr Lodge, British Columbia

We actually had a lot of fog and bad weather, but this day it cleared just as it was getting towards the end of the day and the light was sublime. Even just an iPhone can make this look good.

Taken on 2019-01-25 00:00:00

Valkyr Lodge, British Columbia

This lodge is located well above any roads, winter or summer. The low clouds in the middle of the photo is the lake area, completely socked in with fog, so no helicopters were flying out of that area this day.

Taken on 2019-01-25 00:00:00

Valkyr Lodge, British Columbia

That little sauna building will always have a place in my heart. There’s nothing like having a hot sauna waiting for you after 8 hours of hard climbing and sweet powder skiing. The best is to get super warm, roll in the snow, get super warm again, etc. The shower room attached to the sauna area was always nice and warm, which isn’t always true at these kinds of lodges. These are remote locations run entirely on min-hydro power and streams that stay running all winter under the snow. All food, people, equipment needs, etc. can only get here one way in the winter so super efficiency and planning are required.

That will be my last skiing this year since I am scheduled for a knee replacement in early March; this trip and some icy conditions on a couple of slopes finally crushed what little cartilage I had left, so it’s time to go bionic!

 

Thank you so much StringOnAStick, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

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