Blog
spring
winter seems to have a habit of taking over my life and i don't get around to updating websites and such much. so follow me on instagram - @justin_lamoureux and my facebook athlete page.
Yeah this past winter wasn't exactly one for the books. Coastal BC had a very interesting time of not much snow which made accessing the alpine (where it was decent) very hard and made for some long days. Wasn't overly exciting at home, but good times were still had, just a little different. I had some pretty fun trips to the interior of BC. The most interesting was a splitboarding/camping mission in the bugaboos for 6 days. yup, haven't posted photos of that yet either. soon.
also went up to Mike Weigele's heli skiing to take my CSGA lead guide course/exam. Super fun 10 days of mostly heli touring (get dropped off in the morning, tour then get a pick up late afternoon). Which you can check out some of it at : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.788301854617912.1073741836.472...
But it's summertime now, hanging with my family, building stuff at 1080wood.com, working on some other projects and trying to plan a trip down south to get some summertime winter in.
enjoy the sunshine!
jl
Backcountry Fix
With starting up some splitboard camps with Altus mountain guides (altusmountainguides.com) I wanted to continue to share some of the info learned through my time splitboarding. So here's the first backcountry fix..
You're skinning up to a new line, way in the backcountry, you slip a little and catch yourself with a pole. SNAP!! Your pole is in 2 pieces. What to do? Call it for the day or try and fix it and keep the day going?
Having dealt with this a few times here's a Backcountry Fix for the pole to keep the day going. While a little bulky, it works surprisingly well.
You need duct tape or first aid tape (you have some right?), some pinky/finger sized branches, hopefully a few ski straps and a friend to lend an extra hand.
1. Line up the pieces and put a wrap of tape to keep them that way
2. Cut enough branches about the size and length of your fingers.
3. Start a partial wrap of tape on the pole then line up the branches and give them a good tight wrap. Get enough branches to encircle the pole (usually 5-6 pieces).
4. Start wrapping tape on the pole, then over the branches, then back onto the other portion of the pole. This will help keep both poles from separating.
5. if you have ski straps wrap them tightly around the branches to add some extra structural strength. If you don't have them, just go for lots of tape.
6. Keep the day going!
Norway!
Rapping into my first ever turns in Norway!
Northern Norway is unbelievable for splitboarding and riding steep lines. I got to meet my friends Jonas Hagstrom and Miikka Haast there this may and we toured for 11 days straight. It was insane. There's 2 different trip reports floating in the internet at the moment (and i'm a bit lazy to reload the photos)
the short one is on Spark R&D's website.... http://sparkrandd.com/2014/07/trip-report-ullrs-playground/
the much longer and photo filled one on the Arcteryx site ( it's in 3 parts):
http://blog.arcteryx.com/norway-trip-through-ullrs-playground-part-1
http://blog.arcteryx.com/part-2-norway-trip-through-ullrs-playground
http://blog.arcteryx.com/part-3-norway-trip-through-ullrs-playground
or straight to the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k_3hYbyXJ4
enjoy the summer !
jl
Mcbride traverse
With a high pressure coming along this week I thought finally posting our Mcbride traverse would help some other parties who are heading out there.
Steve Whithall, Nic butler, Colin bakker and myself set out to do it in 3 days. Guide book says 6-8 so 3 seemed like a good number. If the weather was good, no problem. If the weather was bad, slight problem.
For those of you who don't know the mcbride traverse, it starts on Blackcomb and you do half the spearhead traverse then drop down east and do a big horseshoe traverse to garibaldi lake. all done it's about 70km (give or take)
day 1(april 9):
Nic, Colin and I are late. or i should say i'm late. my back is screwed up, we nearly ran out of gas getting to whistler and I forgot my pass. Steve didn't look impressed when we finally met him at Glacier creek lodge.
The spearhead is pretty easy and well known to us so we cruised along without much thought. With my back hurting I decided to start the tour and make a decision as the day progressed. Being familiar with the spearhead i knew if i had to turn back or bail it would be no problem. But the day went along as planned and my back was manageable so when we got to the naden glacier i decided to keep going on.
Our mix of sun and clouds had decided to turn into absolute flat light which made the decent down the Naden very slow. Eventually we made it down to Check creek and decided to pitch the tents for the night. We were slightly behind but not too bad. However with the poor light and ominous looking clouds above us, I'd already decided to start rationing food as we might be out an extra day.. thankfully i tend to pack a lot of food, but I like to eat.
Day 2:
Woke up to sun and clouds and looking good. Steve had felt kind of sick the day before but was feeling much better and my back was still manageable so we tore down camp and headed up the actual Mcbride Glacier. This is the first major climb of the trip (in glorious surroundings) and by the time we hit the col of sir richard 1000m higher we would be in a whiteout.
stop. maybe it'll clear.
nope. ok, let's rope up and traverse over to wolverine pass in a the whiteout. 2km in almost 3hours later. we popped out of the clouds. The run down to wolverine pass is south facing, so if youre doing this traverse plan accordingly. thankfully for us the day hadn't really had much sun so we just dropped in and enjoyed the soft turns.
Some steep climbing led us up to the snowbowl glacier and a storm cloud heading towards us. With it being after 6pm by this point we decided to pitch the camp in case those clouds had some grunt to them.
Obviously by this point we knew 3 days wasnt going to happen. Thankfully I'd already started rationing my food. 1 little Clif bar shot block every hour was my food highlight for the day. Fuel reserves would be a concern though as the trip progressed. you need fuel to make water..
Day 3:
we'd gotten some weather forecasts off spotty cell coverage and thought it would be quite bad today. However it turned out to be decent, so we packed up and headed out. Snowbowl was pretty straigh forward and as we progressed through the day the light got better. We'd heard that the fordger glacier, which was upcoming, was one of the crux portions of the trip but under mostly sunny skies it was pretty easy to pick our way across the crevasses.
The traverse of fordger was spectacular. nice holes, nice granite spires up on the ridges and good light. was a good time.
A quick run down to drop pass and back in the fog. really?
sit. wait. let's climb up a bit, maybe it'll get us out of the fog. no.
The climb out of drop pass is rather large, fairly steep and pretty solidly solar. With the fog obscuring our view and it being pretty warm out, there was no way for us to continue. Sit and wait.
The sun! Run! nope. sucker hole. we made it about 100 vertical meters before being forced to seek refuge on a little ledge below some cliffs. Regardless, by this point the snow had gotten too soft to continue. So we waited, and waited. Hoping for the fog to lift or the snow to settle in the afternoon "shade". The fog never lifted and the snow didn't get harder. Time to pitch camp again.
day 4:
Glorious sunshine!!
this is the day we were wanting all along. Views for miles and quick travelling. We cramponed (ski or boot depending on who) up from drop pass and made our way towards hour peak. There was a section coming that had been dubbed the 'terror traverse' that we had some concerns about (having not seen it yet). It's a fairly steep traverse under cliffs and cornices and on a big slope that's above cliff bands. but the terror traverse ended up being pretty mellow. However if done in a North-south direction, it could be fun times since you'd be climbing and if it was icy with huge overhanging cornices above... it'd be pretty scary.
The traverse around hour peak is pretty straight forward. a fun solar slopes to watch out for depending on the time of day but for us it was super easy.
As we made our way to Luxor and the glorious looking crosscut ridge, I noticed that isosceles peak looked way to easy not to climb up on our way by. With the weather slowling our progress we hadn't had time to really get on top of anything. The guys would wait while I ran up it on my own. With the weird winter we had on the coast it felt good to be right on the tippy top of a mountain. I was just going after the best riding line and didn't care much about peaks this winter.
There's a sweet wave/windlip feature to ride under crosscut ridge which made my day. Not that the views and traveling didn't make the day, but i like the downhill riding more than anything else.
We made our way to grey pass and our final big climb of the trip. The north facing glacier looked like the friendliest uphill so off we went. A few hours of straightforward crevasse dodging and we were up top.
The view down to garibaldi lake was awesome. After some debate about spending the night up high or down by lake, the line down looked to good to wait until morning. A fun 1000m vertical drop of crevasses dodging and pow turns and we were at the lake.
The snow was isothermal down at lake level so we decided to wait until the morning to make use of frozen snow to cross the lake. If you've never crosses this lake, it's quite long and quite boring. All that was left was to rally down the garibaldi lake trail and a few kms of hiking on dirt and we were done.
While it was a bit longer than we intended, the weather really holds the cards when trying to move fast, it was a great trip with the guys. It was great that none of us had done the traverse before and we were the first ones on it during that good(?; decent..) weather spell so we had no tracks to follow. Kind of ruins heading somewhere for the first time when you're following tracks I find. Lots of terrain back there and plenty of lines to head back for. Can't wait for the next time!
if interested there's a whole bunch of photos up on my facebook page...
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.573062809475152.1073741832.472546679526766&type=1
gear used:
-arcteryx altra 85 pack
-arcteryx caden jacket and stinger pants and arcteryx layers, gloves etc...
-spark magneto bindings and sabertooth crampons
-clif bars and shot bloks were key to keeping me going on my rationing of food
-32 lashed boots
-g3 full carbon black sheep splitboard and skins (just to try it all out)
-k2 protoype flicklock poles
jl
Splitboard camps!!
Want to learn how to splitboard? Want to get better at splitboarding? make safer decisions in the backcountry? Then come to our splitboard camp! Altus Mountain Guides and myself are doing a few splitboard camps this spring.
We've got 2 different camps, each running 3 days long. Level 1 is basically an intro to splitboarding and level 2 is for the rider who's been splitboarding but wants to up their big mountain skills. For full camp descriptions please check the links below to both camps.
The camps are sponsored by Arcteryx, G3 and Clif bar. Arcteryx is throwing some gear for each camper, plus a mega prize that we will raffle off between the campers. G3 also has swag for all the campers, a set of skins for the raffle, and they also sent us three of next year's Black Sheep X3 carbon fibre 162cm splitboards (setup with skins and Spark Magneto bindings) for campers to demo. These boards are LIGHT! Clif bar has some delicious and nutricious organic treats for you to snack on and keep the energy levels high while you're riding and learning all day.
So come riding and learn some stuff!
justin
links to the camps:
Level 1 - http://altusmountainguides.com/learn/backcountry-snowboarding-camp-level...
Level 2 - http://altusmountainguides.com/learn/5308/
Oct 2, the new season starts!!
I'd say this would be great mid winter day, but instead it's the best October 2nd of my life.
A freak storm in early october dropped over a meter in the alpine in just a few days. Jamie Bond (doglotion.com) and myself decided to hike, skin and swim our way up to the top of a line. We'd heard of a few other people in the area in the preceding days but new snow had obliterated any tracks. And we were definitely not alone. Couple guys in front of us decided to stop below the chute and only get a few turns in and another 2 guys were behind us, who followed our swimming trench up to the top of the chute. Not to let a good trail go to waste, nevermind the epic powder in early October, I 'convinced' Jamie a second lap was in order.
Felt amazing to be back on my board. I'm absolutely lit up from having gotten such a good day this early in the year.
Seems winter has started. or at very least a really, really good taste of it. Enjoy the quick video edit.
jl
The Backyard Project
my site has been quiet this year due to a new filming endeavor that I created. It's called "The Backyard Project". And this is what its about.
Our society deems whatever we have is never good enough. Marketing is essentially built on this concept. Action sports offer this is in droves. Magazines and videos are filled with far off and exotic destinations. You surf in California? You should head to Hawaii. You’re from Hawaii? You need to head to Indonesia. You skateboard in Vancouver, head to California, then Barcelona, then Australia. Deeper and further, something is better over there. Biking, climbing, kayaking, kiteboarding, skiing, snowboarding.. We’re all fed by the industry that somewhere else is better. We’re fed a dream that is unrealistic to the masses. Helicopters filming helicopters? Multi-month long travelling trips? The industry has glorified the unattainable.
I’ve lived in both Squamish and Whistler for 12 years, and while it could be called the hub of the winter sports industry, even here “you need to head to Alaska. Or maybe Europe”. We have all forgotten what can lie in the backyard.
Every year, nearly the whole snow industry drives up the sea to sky highway en-route to ride the Whistler backcountry. Snowmobiles are the primary mode of transportation and they make short work of travelling the backcountry. Having lived here for a long while, we now go out with a plan of what cliffs to hit and what lines we want to ride again. It’s like the backcountry is an extension of the ski hill. Every mountain has been ridden, every cliff has been shot, and every jump filmed. Or have they?
I step out of my house in Squamish and every day I’m greeted by mountains. Mountains in every direction. About 30 of them can be seen right from my backyard. I’ve never met anyone who’s ridden them all. You can’t snowmobile to the top. Some are just below treeline and don’t seem like “plumb” lines. You have to find your way through the maze of logging roads, learn the local conditions and slog and climb your way to the top. But the payoff is the unknown. It’s being skunked for days then finally unlocking a mountain and scoring. It’s about finding ‘Little Alaska’ or the “Chuting Gallery” which are hiding in plain sight. It’s the dream that everyone can pursue, but very few do as it’s only the backyard and obviously it’s better somewhere else.
This is a project to find what really does lie around the corner. Hopefully inspire others to follow suite. Obviously, my locale has some pretty amazing mountains but this concept could even be done (albeit on a smaller scale), for example, at my parent’s house in Quebec. This can be done anywhere. Walk out the door, pick mountain, hill (whatever) and ride a line you’ve never ridden. You might say it sucks but until you go, you won't know.
jl
joy of air
recently I got to work with Bryan Smith from reelwater productions on a short film for Arc'teryx called "the joy of air". It's a fantastic few minutes of epic. beyond stoked to have been a part of it.
you can enjoy it here:
http://www.arcteryx.com/Video.aspx?EN&video=The-Joy-of-Air
2012 moving picture show
better late then never I guess. finally got some of my footage from the 2012 season together. I didn't seem to remember I owned cameras last year. I'd forget them at home, forget to charge batteries, or my favorite - forget to turn it on when it's on your head! sometimes you get too focused on what you're about to do and you forget about the little box on your head. but sometimes it's good to just have your own memories.
enjoy
jl
good morning -28C!
woooo. was a little chilly this morning. thanksfully there was no wind so wasn't actually really all that bad. or maybe I grew up in this type of weather a few hours south of here so I know what to wear. However, even waxing with the coldest wax known to man it only took a few runs for the snow to rip into my base. The photo below is the base of the board I had stone ground yesterday. It looked new this morning and now not so new. The little black shadow line where the edge and ptex meet is actually a divet where the ptex has been chewed away by the snow.
no sense in trying to stone grind this guy again. I'm going to run it for practise then hop on my other board for the contest runs. hopefully thats going to work out and not rip apart my other board as well. Pipe is pretty good, just bullet proof icy as you can image from it raining this past weekend to -28 today. qualifiers are tomorrow at around noon for the guys and in the morning for the ladies.
it being so cold today, my phone wasn't wanting to cooperate but I managed to snag a phot of my Finnish friend markus malin cruisin through the pipe. granted it is a serious phone shot..
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