Brian Waddington Hut

Enjoyed several days touring out of the Brian Waddington hut north of Pemberton in BC.

El Nino snow conditions allowed my to drive my high clearance 4WD van a few km and 1000 vft up the FSR past the usual winter parking lot, shortening the road skiing portion of the approach .    El Nino conditions made the hiking trail portion of the approach much more demanding than prior trips when there was a decent skin track to follow.   There we bare sections of trail.  water ice and creeks to hop over that are normally snow covered.   Boot crampons were the most effective tool in this section -- but carrying skins on a 5 day pack was a bit of a grunt.  

Got into the hut by headlamp.    

Skiing conditions above the hut were pretty good.   The tail end of the last Pineapple Express had cooled and near the hut the was about 6 inches of fluff on top of the rain crust.    At higher elevations the fluff was about a foot thick.     Pit tests indicated that the new snow was well bonded to the rain crust.    Additionally we encountered no instability in 4  days of skiing in the slopes around the hut. 

I had hoped to summit Aragon on this trip and ski the Aragon Glacier -- however as we approached it -- we could see a large bergschrund has developed between the glacier and the ridgeline.   I recall eyeing that on a trip in 2011 and then it looked like one could skin up to the ridge.   But this year the combination of climate change and El Nino it looked more like a climb than a ski.    We choose to ski in the sun on the shoulder of Aragorn.

Exiting from the hut through the forest was also a bit of an ordeal -- not enough snow to ski,  but enough to impede travel and water ice among tree making footing tricky for those without boot crampons.