Dean Perez: Brew Hut Area Skiing- January 11-12, 2014

Monday, January 13, 2014

Brew Hut Area Skiing- January 11-12, 2014

When the avalanche bulletin screams “HIGH” in both alpine and treeline, and the forecast looks like it was written by someone trying to talk you out of going outside, naturally, we decided it was the perfect weekend for a ski tour.

With dreams of mediocre visibility and heavy snow, we aimed for a moderate terrain objective in the Brew Hut area via Roe Creek. Nothing says type-2 fun quite like a bushy, snow-choked logging road followed by a hut approach that makes you question your life choices.

Day 1: “It only took 10 hours!”

We drove my brave little 2WD car as far as the catskiing shed, where we could just barely put skis on—because hiking in ski boots is where I draw the line. It was raining when we started skinning, then transitioned to “puking snow” in the forest, classic Coast Mountains welcome.

Once we hit Branch R-200, the real magic began. The snow was heavy and deep, like carry-a-small-moose-on-each-ski deep. We immediately lost the trail out of the cutblock and instead bushwhacked our way below it through a maze of micro terrain that seemed personally offended by our presence.

We postholed for hours with skis on. At one point, I checked my GPS and realized we’d moved 400 metres in what felt like half a lifetime. It took us 3-4 hours just to cover 1km to Brew Creek. We arrived at the lake in the dark, soaked, and chilled, but at least the moonlight was kind enough to show us the final 200m of suffering without needing a headlamp.

Final approach time? 10 hours. Not quite VOC’s legendary 12-hour Brew Epic, but hey, there’s always next time.

Day 2: Brew, Malt, and a Side of Hop(s)

The wind howled all night like it was auditioning for a horror movie. We waited out the worst of it and emerged from the hut in what could generously be described as “not total whiteout.” Encouraged by views as far as Mount Brew, we dropped some mellow laps on the North aspect, then headed to the summit of Brew.

From there, we skied the South face (decent turns!) and made our way around to the Malt-Brew col, then followed the SE ridge to Malt Peak. Another peak in the bag, we returned to the hut via a bench beneath Brew’s South Face.

Feeling cocky and not yet broken, we set our sights on Hops Peak during the ski out. That’s where the whiteout returned with vengeance, and so did our karma. We promptly dropped into the wrong drainage, fully south of Hops and west of Brew Lake. Realizing we were way off, we had to skin back up almost 1km to regain the ridge.

Visibility on the descent to Brew Lake was apocalyptic. At one point, Alexis simply vanished into the mist like a backcountry ghost, I found him 10m below, flailing in his skis like a drunken spider.

Eventually, we hit the Brew Creek drainage, picked up some faint trail markers, and clawed our way through the cutblock and back onto the logging road.

Skiing out on the road? Hilarious. No glide, no speed, just the feeling of slowly sinking into sticky snow while wondering how many calories one can burn trying to shuffle 5km on skis.

We, of course, finished with headlamps, because how else could this possibly end?

Great outing with friends, bad outing for leg muscles