This Saturday Martin and I headed out along the Coquihalla highway for a guide book classic tour: Zoa Peak.

Despite the ~3 hour drive (leaving time for a quick charge and a Tim Hortons!) we didn’t have to leave excessively early, and arrived at the trailhead at around 10am.

We started up the pipeline road behind several other groups, and within a few minutes I was already having trouble with my skins. I had transported them in the trunk of Martin’s car and, because the interior temperature was ~20C, they were much warmer than the snow. On every step I was effectively melting a thin layer of snow, which was then sticking straight to the skins. Unfortunately the skin was was no help in this situation, so the only solution was to stop every few minutes and scrape the fresh snow off; hoping that eventually the skins would cool down enough not to pick up any more.

Coming up through the forest we came across this wizened old tree, which I thought looked pretty cool. It made me think of a goat’s horns, or maybe those of Pan, the Greek god of the wild!

Out on the ridge there were also a number of rimed-up trees that make a kind of modern art when you take a closeup:

Once out of the trees the peaks of Thar, Nak and Yak came into view across the valley, forming the perfect backdrop to get some well-earned summit selfies.

In the end we did not go all the way to Zoa peak itself, but elected to stop at the first sub-peak, intending to ski back along the ridge and do some yoyos through the mellow, treed slopes on the northern aspects.

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