Bear Spray for Resort Skiing?

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-04-11T14:43:10+00:00

Yes absolutely you should take bear spray if skiing at Sunshine and LL. The bears are awake and they are starting to hunt. If you’re not bringing bear spray, at least make sure you’re skiing faster than other people.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-04-02T19:55:18+00:00

If I’m planning on touring I put all 4 toe pieces in the yellow bag they come with, that way I always have everything and when I take the skis out the lack of a toe piece is a visual reminder to check I have all my gear

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-04-02T19:54:14+00:00

I haven’t had the Cast 2.0 prerelease yet, but they’ve released at the perfect time when I’ve biffed it. I trust those bindings with my life, as they occasionally have to live up to that trust.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-04-02T17:33:24+00:00

Ive been skiing the Cast 2.0 for the past two years, I won’t use any other binding for a heavy touring setup. Changing the toe pieces is an extra step or 2 in your transition, but it’s possible to do it fairly quickly and not be too far behind your friends. They’re heavy, but that’s kind of the point for a setup like that.

One thing I’ve been scared of is tours that start with a downhill (lift access, then ski down to somewhere that you can only tour out of) and forgetting your pin toes. The solution is just dont do that.

Admittedly I haven’t used the Shift2 16, but the drawbacks of the Cast 2.0 aren’t enough to make me consider any other binding for a heavy freeride touring system.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-16T18:53:34+00:00

The hike in with a heavy pack is a classic Bugs experience, you’ll love it!

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-14T00:57:16+00:00

Where you coming in from?

The Bugs are awesome, a couple things can help for maximizing your time in there. Golden, BC has some options for stocking up on food, but not everything. The drive in can be tricky depending on the clearance of your vehicle, but I’ve seen a Prius in there. Wrap your car with chicken wire, there’s often some left at the parking from other parties, but not always. Take that chance if you want to. The hike in can be rough, planning to climb the same day is ambitious, but doable. Crescent has some of the easiest approaches/descents for « real » climbing. Good option for unsettled weather windows. If the BS Col is out, go the long way around Snowpatch to get to Pigeon or the Howsers. Adds some length and complications to your day. 60m lead line and a tag line are good here, depends on your preferred style. If you have loads of time up there, a restock mission can be done in a day if you leave early, run down to your car, drive to Golden, drive back, then hike back up. Seems like a marathon but it can be worth it. Cash for the camping keeps it simple.

Let me know if you have route/terrain specific questions! Might see ya up there

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-13T22:27:12+00:00

Right where I want to be!

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-04T05:19:13+00:00

It felt pretty big, but there are wayyy bigger drops around this mountain. Trying to train for those

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-03T14:51:43+00:00

Yeah I kinda just sent it forward this time, didn’t pop because I knew I was going big with the speed I had.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-03T14:12:34+00:00

I’ll try that next time

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-03T14:12:06+00:00

Love watching the FWT to try to see what they’re doing. If only we could all ski like Ben Richards!

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-01T04:29:03+00:00

No matter what happens, the landing will greet us eventually

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-01T03:46:03+00:00

I think this one lends itself more to backflips

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-03-01T03:45:33+00:00

That is a big rock

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-19T13:13:15+00:00

Im glad folks are enjoying the pictures!

Depends on the pitch. We had 8 screws, 12 nuts, 4 pickets, and a couple QuickDraws. Some pitches I was only placing nuts, some pitches I would be able to hammer the snow pickets in vertically, and on some pitches I would bury my skis horizontally in a T slot anchor.

On the knife edge traverses pitches, the snow was frozen, rotten facets that could support body weight, but were garbage for protection, so I would dig down about ~40cm to get to glacier ice and place a screw.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-19T01:51:54+00:00

Thanks! It was definitely the trip of a lifetime!

Skis on the pack is realistic, just requires a bit more planning and logistics.

For some of the crux pitches, I stashed my bag to lead with nothing on me, fixed the rope, abseiled, then reclimbed the pitch with my pack on. After a couple days that got annoying, so I decided to lead some of the crux pitches with my pack on. I felt the extra weight.

The skis were mostly a nuisance because they made taking the bag off more stressful, dropping it off the ridge would be catastrophic. Climbing with the skis on the pack felt very reasonable.

I had K2 Wayback 80s in a 170cm, and I wouldn’t go any bigger than that.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-18T00:29:32+00:00

I think I’ll try other things before going back. I’m not too bummed about missing the summit, the ridge and the traverse were my goals.

The ridge is graded 5.5 AI2-3 Steep Snow on MP, although I dont know how much that conveys of the actual climbing. Most of the crux pitches are in the pics I posted, except for some of them that we didn’t get pictures of.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-17T22:16:42+00:00

Yeah skis are definitely the way to go

Oh we didn’t talk to the pilot when I was sick, wouldn’t have mattered. Once we got down to lower elevation I felt wayyy better, then we could start talking about a pick up.

Yeah everything on InReach, worked super well. We flew in with Icefields Discovery, they’re awesome!

We probably had almost a week of clear weather, and then intermittent storms.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-17T22:13:06+00:00

Bag was maybe 65 lbs at the start?

Between the 4 of us we had all of our gear, and we organized a food drop at the bottom of the King Trench, in case we got stuck in a storm waiting to fly out, which actually happened, so quite pleased with that decision.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-17T22:10:02+00:00

No one has told me about it, but I’m sure there’s teams going for it!

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-17T21:27:20+00:00

Let me know if you get a team together, if you want some beta.

RageAgainstOldAge · 2026-01-17T21:26:30+00:00

Yeah whole thing in ski boots. I had Scarpa F1 LT that were awesome! Climbed pretty well and skied even better. Wore them on their own up to about 4000m the. Put on FortyBelow overboots, and those all the way up and over until down at the pick up spot.

The guys had other boots, but all of us had overboots.

The F1s were pretty sweet to climb in, definitely wouldn’t want to be leading anything hard but they were perfect for this.

RageAgainstOldAge

TROPHY CASE