Today I left the Diamond Head parking lot around 10:15. This morning it was possible to ski from the lot. It was stormy and snowing at the lot, where there were two large BC Parks Ranger pickups. Where the summer trail branches off just past the Red Heather shelter, they stayed on the road while I took the summer trail.

About 3km from the cabin I overtook someone on snowshoes. Since the freshly broken trail was above a lot of fresh snow, he'd been punching craters through the soft ski trail. This mean skiing on the unbroken snow between the craters, and this snow would collapse unpredictably down to the level of the craters. Past him, I was on wonderfully smooth ski tracks and caught up to the Parks party soon after.

I thanked them for breaking trail, and mentioned the snowshoer coming was wrecking the track. They said he was with them. Oops. And that they were a rescue party on the way to Elfin Shelter taking snowshoes to a group on foot that had been stranded there since Sunday. Oops.

I broke trail for a little while and two of the rescue party plus me soon reached the cabin at about 2:00pm.

After such a stormy approach I was kind of wet, and looked forward to some heat to dry out. However, the group had been unable to start the propane heater. So much for that. The rescue staff asked if they were ready to start out. No, what they had in mind was that the rescue party would stay overnight and everyone would go out tomorrow. The rescue staff explained that doing so would mean breaking trail from scratch. They told the group the storm was to continue for days. They said it would be dark in a couple of hours, and given half an hour to get ready to travel, it left only one and a half hours of daylight. So they discussed headlamps, avalanche transceivers etc. while a Ranger worked on the heater.

Apparently the group had walked on a solid broken trail to Elfin on Saturday. There was enough fresh snow on Sunday that when they tried to leave, they couldn't follow the route. They tried to get the dog to sniff it out, but the dog failed. They decided to retreat to the cabin rather than get lost.

Now except for the windblown portions, the old trail could be seen and followed today despite the blizzard conditions. But I guess if you weren't familiar with the route you might not be able to connect those sections, and you wouldn't know if the trail you were following was the right one. However, if you had, say, a smartphone with a map of the area and the main trail shown, you could easily stay on track.

I had a bit to eat, put on some dry mitts and headgear, and headed out. The longer since our inbound travel, the more the trail was filled in, so it amounted to some trailbreaking all the way out. I followed the summer trail down and didn't take the skins off until Red Heather.

It would be interesting to know how the dog fared, since it's girth spoke to some successful food mooching. And since dogs aren't supposed to be there, I'd be curious to know if anything was said about it.

I skied all the way down except for that steeper slope just below the viewpoint, and from above the first switchback.

The Park Rangers and Search & Rescue staff must have put in an extremely long day by the time they got out tonight.

Great report.

I hope they've learned their lesson. Map/compass maybe a gps should have helped them to get out from that situation. People rely way to much on marked trails as substitute for knowing how to navigate with the use of a map and a compass. They blindly follow the trail wherever the trail takes them. However they made the right decision to return to the cabin and wait for help.

Great report, a pleasure to read

Hopefully this won't turn into a map&compass vs gps topic. Not to dismiss at all your valid comments, my opinion is that a gps would have been more useful than map&compass in this particular situation.

I didn't mention that the winter route poles are not in yet. Poles would have allowed the group to follow the route, but they would have had to be exactly on top of the old solid buried trail. The fresh snow was too deep to allow movement on foot once they got off that trail. So the challenge was to follow the buried footpath.

In such whiteout conditions, the old track was often invisible unless you were a few feet to the side of it. (Ironically it was easier to break trail on skis outside the old trail than in it.) And in the sections where the wind blows across the track it was completely filled in.

If you were using a map&compass, you'd need to be taking bearings and calculating your speed. I think it would have been very difficult to be even in the vicinity of the trail, let alone follow its convolutions.

A gps on the other hand, looks after bearings and speed of travel. You'd be able to see which side of the probable location of the trail you're at, and how far away it is. Therefore moving to one side or the other until you can see or feel the trail under the snow would have been fairly easy.

The other issue was the weather. No doubt in a blizzard a gps would have been clumsy to use, but dealing with a paper map would have been almost impossible. Which brings up another point. If you're going to go some place on foot in winter conditions, you should do a pretty good job of checking the weather forecast and judging it conservatively.

I know the route pretty well, so any place I couldn't see or feel the trail, I knew exactly where to pick it up again. I didn't realize how much I exerted myself yesterday, since today I feel like I've been hit by a small truck. Part of that stems from it being my first ski trip of the year. Nice to be warm and dry inside today.

Thought I'd mention the group had two vehicles. A red K-car (!) at the parking lot, and an old white camper van with a peace symbol painted on it down by the houses. Cool.

A map and compass combined with the altimeter of your gps are great tools to help you navigate in the backcountry. So the gps can be complementary to the map and compass as well. Some ppl use only a map or only a compass or only a gps, or none or all 3. Something is better than nothing that's for sure.

How come you didn't say something to the guy on snowshoes, but then decided to tell some rangers he was wrecking the track? LOL!

"MOOOOOOOM! Billy's snowshoeing in the ski track!"

Map and compass? How about a typewriter and a telegram?

Poor dog, got dumb owners. Should have rescued the dog and left those hippies there until next summer.

Some hilarious comments around here.

I know you wrote a good story but all I saw was...
"Snow at the parking lot.... skin track.... breaking trail.... more snow...I skied..."

It was an interesting story! But to echo Steventy, when you say you skiied from the parking lot, what were lower conditions like on the trail? Any rocks poking through?

Doesn't matter I suppose. I'm off to tropical climes for a week. Should be more snow by the time I return.

Just curious about the ski conditions, you mentioned you skied downhill to the first switchback, i presume this is the first switchback on the logging road from the parking lot, hence a reasonably long downhill run? Would you say this area is worth heading to this weekend for some descent touring/turns or would there be a better destination that you would recommended given the current conditions...(I haven't skied Elfin lakes before)...?

It was obvious the conditions they would encounter if they had checked a weather forecast.

GPS, altimeter, compass.
All useless if you don't use the tool you were born with, your brain.

The questions about the snow conditions deserve a response. Although the Parks/rescue crew skied all the way from the parking lot, I put my skis on a little farther up the road. On the way down, I skied down to the Howe Sound lookout, walked down that one steeper slope just below it, and then skied down to the top of the steeper slope just above that first switchback above the parking lot. Some places I had to ski down the side of the road to avoid rocks exposed under trees.

However, conditions were changing rapidly and will have done so since then and before the weekend. But you can be sure that, say, above the waterfall there will be plenty of snow for skiing this weekend.

perfect post by all