Skifari 2018 – The Ultimate Ski Bum Road Trip

Skifari is a trip lead by a good friend of mine each year. We camp in a ski area parking lot, ski there during the day, then drive to the next one. Repeat for a week. It’s a great time and we had amazing  snow all trip this year! We had 10 people in 6 rigs. We started at Mt Baker, then headed to Sasquatch BC, followed by two days at Whistler.

Heading up to Baker after work for the first night got very interesting. It was dumping snow, and they had not run the upper area at all that day. 6-8″ of snow were on the road. Once we were ~1/2 a mile from the upper lot, we came across a small slide that was covering the road to a ski area. I stopped to see how deep and packed it was to see if we could cross. As soon as I got back in the car and touched the gas the truck followed the crown of the road sliding right into the snow bank. We were stuck, right in an avalanche Chute. I dug the side of the truck out and used the maxtrax under one front and one rear wheel. I was able to pull forward a bit, but it still was sliding along the snow bank. Luckily we were traveling with friends who were able to winch us back to the center of the road. But we were still slipping all over trying to move. I started to put on chains and a second slide released and hit the truck. Luckily we had a lookout watching the hill and took off running when it let go. Scary as hell bit we made it out ok minus a few buried tools…. We got very lucky that it was a small slide.

Stuck
Feverishly working to get out of the slide area

That’s all we got for pictures, we were working as fast as possible, and once the second slide let go I just hit  the gas back down the hill, one chain halfway on…

 

But we made it back down to the main lot and parked, it was almost midnight at that point. We had a tiny fire, a couple beers and crashed.

Baker had good snow, 10-12 ish inches overnight, pretty damn light, but not compared to the upcoming days.

Family ski day at Baker!

After skiing Baker we headed North, crossing the border up into BC and parking at Sasquatch mountain. Its a little 3 chair place, but there was no one there and the snow was the lightest fluffy pow you can imagine. It was great for the kid, she usually has trouble in pow, as shes ~55lbs, she just gets stopped, but it was so light she could keep moving relatively easily!

The whole Skifari gang parked at Sasquatch
Its going to be a good day.
Sasquatch Pow

 

Nice terrain for a little place

Next we headed to Whistler. Long drive day, but not too bad. There are always a couple on skifari. We stayed at the Riverside RV park. Whistler is VERY anti camping in their lots, so this was the next best thing. Close to the upper village and parking at blackcomb mid station worked awesome. We would roll out at 7 and have breakfast up there.

Parking lot lunch!
Whistler Camp site

Some fun trees at whistler.

 

A normal Skifari evening, a nice little fire, a few beers and great friends to chat with. Such a great time.

A Skifari evening

 

Great friends great snow, great trip.

Snow! Quick trip for some fun in the snow.

Took a quick overnight to play in the snow. Truck did great! 4×4 worked great, just had to manually lock in the hubs, which meant I couldn’t drive in mu slippers….. Life is hard.

We headed up Smithbrook road near Stevens pass again, lots more snow this time!

But first a quick stop at Stevens Pass ski area, they were letting people sled! Not kicking people out, which is unheard of in my experience. So we stopped and had lunch and did some sledding.

Lunch at Stevens
Sledding!

 

After lunch and some fun we headed up Smithbrook road. We had to push a couple cars up the road to a wide spot to get turned around and headed back down so we could sneak past them.

Camp spot!

Snow was pretty deep where we stopped to camp. Pretty spot and fluffy, but polished really slick from traffic up the road.

Nice little trip, it got cold, we had a nice fire, and enjoyed a lot of sledding!

First Snow Trip of the Year!

The weather called for a good sized winter storm to hit the local mountains, so what do we do? Pack up and head out to try to find snow!

Snow level was still pretty high, higher than the ski area, but we found the highest spot we could pretty easily get to up a forest service road. We had been up there before, but never that high, there are a couple of steep switch backs that had always held us back. So I grabbed a new pair of tire chains on my way home from work and we headed out for an adventure.

Turning off the highway onto dirt it was still raining. We need to get higher!

Turning onto the FS Road

Not long after it started snowing, not hard, but not sticking yet. After getting through the switch backs we made it to 4600′. Not much higher we could easily go, so we found a flat ish wide spot and called it good for the night. IT was snowing and sticking at this point.

Parking for the night

We played in the snow until it got dark and headed inside for dinner. Made a little fire and went to bed for the night.  In the morning I could hear the snow hitting the roof vents, good sign! But I had not checked the fuel for the heater before we left….. It was empty. I had extra, but it took a good 45 minutes to get the lines primed again.

Pretty Morning View
Winter wonderland!

It had snowed bout 3″ over night and was still coming down hard. After a quick breakfast we did some sledding and whatnot. Kid and dog had a great time throwing snow around.

We decided we should probably head down the hill before it got too much more snow. Only one car had come by in the morning, and it was a little slick.

Heading down

Road looked a little different on the way down! Lots more snow. No issues going down the hill, just idled down in first gear. As it turns out in 2WD the whole time…. The front axle is not engaging, one more thing to be fixed. But overall a great trip and fun to play in the snow!