Brew Hut Ski Trip

I've been downhill skiing at resorts since I was 12. My friend Evan has gotten really involved in backcountry skiing in the last few years, and has been trying to convince me to try it for a while now! I went on an early season day trip with him last November and the next step after that was a weekend trip.

This March, Evan organized a great trip for some of our friends to Brew Hut, which is a VOC cabin in the Whistler Valley. It's roughly on the opposite side of Highway 99 as Black Tusk. We rented our skis and avalanche gear from MEC. We decided to get alpine touring (AT) skis, which can either have a free heel for climbing with skins, or you can lock the heel down and they behave just like downhill skis. I had just taken the AST-1 avalanche course so I was keen to get out and put some of that knowledge into practice.

SATURDAY: We were going to leave at 6:20am on Saturday morning, but unfortunately our driver (Bob) got food poisioning the night before (he's okay now, he didn't die). Fortunately we were able to secure a last-minute ride with Peter Anderson, another VOC member who was heading up to Brew Hut with us. We had a very comfortable ride up to Squamish, where we met up with the other car.

We were only able to drive as far as the Cat skiing operation at 1.6km up Chance Creek FSR. The snow started there, so that's where we parked and put the skins on our skis! We started skiing up around 10am. Our starting elevation was 430m, and we were planning on taking the Roe Creek access.

The first 1.4km were fairly steep and bumpy logging road. We were passed by quite a few snowmobiles. Once we turned onto Roe Creek FSR, the grade got a lot less steep, and there were even a few short downhill sections. We stopped for a half-lunch on the Roe Creek bridge.

From the bridge, we began a more steady climb up, paralleling Roe Creek. It soon became apparent that Jodi's rental boots were too small. She had major foot problems as we climbed, but she persevered and we made it to the end of the logging road and the start of the trailhead (1040m) around 2pm. At this point we left the wide, open road and entered a medium-dense forest. The trail was a single (well-marked by VOC volunteers!) track up which had been generously broken earlier in the day by a BCMC group. It was at a good grade, and there were only a few short sections that were difficult to climb up due to steepness.

As the day wore on, clouds began to move in and we had a few snow flurries. We broke out of the forest and into the alpine meadow around 5pm, although unfortunately Jodi's boots were more painful than ever now! We took lots of breaks and steadily made our way upwards, arriving victoriously at Brew Hut (1686m elevation - a gain of 1200m, and around 13km distance) at around 6:45pm! The rest of the group had filtered in ahead of us and there was a nice warm fire already going.

We dropped our packs off in the hut, took the skins off our skis, and admired the incredible views all around. There was still about an hour of daylight left, and the clouds began to clear off. After it got dark, the stars came out and we could see the lights from Whistler and Blackcomb.

Brew Hut is a wonderful, cosy place to hang out after a hard day of skiing! There were a few older Brew Huts that had collapsed over the years, but this one was build solidly in a great location. We unrolled our sleeping bags in the loft upstairs, and cooked a filling meal of spaghetti and soup mix. The hut got very warm, very fast, with the fire and lots of stoves going at once! We were all tired so it was an early night to bed.

SUNDAY: The next morning was cold and clear, with blue skies and views all around. We saw some of the scenery that we had missed the night before. Although we were tired, there was no question that we were going to do some skiing before heading down! We took everything except our avalanche gear out of our packs, and skinned up a nearby ridge. Evan and Peter Anderson dug an avalanche test pit and did a few tests to evaluate the snow stability. I had taken the AST-1 course, so I understood what they were doing, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable making a call with my extremely limited experience, so it was nice having some experienced people there to learn from.

The stability looked quite good so we decided to ski a run that was as steep as a hard blue. Everyone went (one at a time), and we all got some great backcountry powder. There were only a few wipeouts, and they were all funny so it was okay.

At the bottom of the run, some people headed back up to the hut to pack, while Evan, Peter, Ran and I skiied further down to Brew Lake for an extra few sweet turns. We skinned back up to the hut, and packed our bags for the ski down. We all left in small groups, spaced out (fastest people left last). I started down with Jodi and Julie around 1pm.

Midway through the forest section, Evan, Ran and Peter met up with us. We skiied down to the road together, and then Evan went ahead to unlock his car. The ski out the road was uneventful, as it was mostly easy and gentle downhill (there were a few short uphill sections). Jodi was glad to get down to the car and get her boots off - one size larger next time! We were down around 4:30pm, so it took us about 8h45m to get up, and 3h30m to ski down. All in all a great weekend, and a great introduction to backcountry skiing - thanks Evan!