Apex Mountain (BC) backcountry - February 25, 2005
While checking in to the Ramada, we decided to use the free internet service in the lobby, and typed in "Manning Park sick descents" and hit "I'm feeling lucky". This brought us to doglotion.com (!). I suppose soon this page you're reading will be the number one hit for "Manning Park sick descents".
After finding out there was a ski resort called Apex just near Penticton, just before leaving in the morning we decided to again use the free internet to check snow conditions. Manning Park Resort had a 34cm base. Apex had a 113cm base. Some messing around with toporama showed that there were some slightly higher peaks surrounding the ski resort with some open terrain. The decision was made.
30km out of town, we pulled into the lot at the base of the mountain, which has almost 2000ft of vertical. It was sunny and warm. The snowpack looked more like 34cm than 113cm, but there was some good news: One ride lift tickets were only $10.70.
Soon we were skiing south from the summit on slushifying snow and dirt, and ducking under ski area boundary ropes, until we picked up a cat track (they do backcountry sight-seeing cat tours). This led us to the next peak to the south, where we skied a north-facing treed slope on funky Okanagan powder.
Next we skirted the ridgeline over to the open bowl below the real Apex peak. Here we dropped in, with Bill and Vincent taking a steep entrance. The top was a little wind-crusted, but down lower it was nice powder. Not quite as good as Rogers Pass or Chatter Creek, but better than we expected.
Bill and Vincent booted back up, while I skinned up a gentler aspect. It was a tie. 2 more tourers arrived at this time, spoiling our secret stash. This was the first time we had ever seen anyone back here! After another good powder run, we headed back out of the bowl, and down a ridge back into the resort boundary. The snow here, though shaded and powdery, had some kind of nasty crust underneath, and skiing was difficult. Finally, we joined with a long cat track that led us back to the base of a chairlift that was nowhere near where we were parked. So we used our one-ride tickets to go to the top of this chair, and get back over to the base lodge by 3pm. $10.70 for 3000 vertical feet of lift-served, and a few hours of touring - not bad.
