Welcome to my first post of 2025! As mentioned in my previous end of year post, I’m planning to go super hard on skiing this winter, to ensure I am adequately prepared for my two planned trips to the Canadian Rockies in March/April. As for posts, I plan do a general monthly post focused on my ski trips that month, as well as dedicated posts to longer trips. For January, I did three ski trips, each 1-2 days long, all focused on touring/backcountry, with a bit of resort skiing thrown in. I did plan to do a fourth trip at the end of the month, but I unfortunately suffered an annoying injury at the end of my third trip, which, while not serious, caused me to miss a week. I also unexpectedly lost my job mid-January, which has been a bit stressful especially given the economic pain we expect to see in Canada shortly due to a certain world leader’s obnoxious tariffs, but on the bright side this gives me a bit more flexibility for skiing as I’m not forced to only ski weekends.
My Touring Setup
Back to skiing. I’m not sure I’ve gone over my backcountry gear yet, but I was able to secure a pretty sweet touring setup towards the end of the previous season, and also picked up a few additional pieces at the end of 2024. I’ve gone over my gear in this video, and also discuss it briefly below.
My skis are Armada Locators, 171cm long with 96mm underfoot. Not as wide as some of the powder skis out there, but these are by far the widest skis I’ve used, and they’re a perfect balance between the uphill and downhill aspects of touring, probably slightly more optimal towards the uphill. I got probably the lightest and most pricey touring bindings, Marker Kingpin 13. These bindings are super light and are really optimal for uphill travel. They do compromise a bit on release though compared to a standard resort binding. My boots are Tecnica Zero G boots, super duper light and a solid touring boot. These boots, while my correct shoe size, required a lot of adjustments to fit the height and width of my foot. Shoutout to Skiis and Biikes in Toronto for doing a great job with the adjustments. I highly recommend them to anyone in Ontario looking for ski/snowboard boot fitting. I also didn’t mention that I got most of this gear 50% off during an end of season sale, save the boots, but the adjustments (I went back three times) were free as I bought the boots from them. All in, this setup will be perfect for my goals moving forward, which include ski mountaineering. I don’t plan to focus on deep powder skiing, but these skis will do a fine job in that kind of terrain as well.
Just before the ski season started, I picked up a few more items from MEC. My climbing skins are a mohair mix by Black Diamond. Cutting the skins to fit my skis (absolutely should have bought a narrower skin!) was a bit annoying as the tool that came with the skins did not work at all, so I used an exacto-knife. Turned out much better than expected though it was a bit stressful! I also bought some adjustable Black Diamond Expedition 3 ski poles, as well as the Barryvox Tour Package, which includes an avalanche transceiver, shovel, and probe. The avy gear won’t see much use until I get out west to ski, though I was able to brush up on using the gear right here in Ontario in January! See below.
Whiteface (New York) (January 5-6)
I did take the touring gear out for a spin at a resort a couple hours from Toronto in late December, but my first touring session with my gear was at Whiteface Mountain in New York. My plan was to do an uphill session at the resort (runs from about 6am to 8:30am before lifts open, $25 USD) followed by a day of resort skiing on the Saturday, and then skin up the Whiteface toll road on the other side of the mountain on Sunday before driving home. This road, which allows people to drive almost to the summit in the summer and fall, is covered in snow in the winter and it’s a nice easy ski tour with little to no terrain risks to worry about. All in all, this trip would serve as a great first touring weekend to get accustomed to my gear a bit more, including my skins which I had not used yet.
I booked an AirBNB which was in a fantastic spot, about 5 mins from Whiteface, and also steps away from the Poormans Trail, which is a cross-country ski/snowshoe/hiking trail than runs through the X woods and comes out close to the start of the Whiteface Toll Road! I thought it would be cool to ski right out of my AirBNB when I went up to do the toll road. I left after work around 3pm and the drive was pretty smooth until just after crossing the border, where it was snowing and the roads were pretty slick. I really took my time here and managed to make it to the AirBNB a bit later than expected, but safe.
After a very short night’s sleep, I got up and, while still dark, made my way over to Whiteface resort and found parking easily. The uphill page on the resort website indicated that uphill travellers would need to check in with ski patrol prior to starting out. In addition, I had to pick up my passes for both the uphill and the downhill later in the day. Despite having never been to Whiteface resort before (other than briefly traversing a ski run while climbing the peak a couple winters prior), I was able to figure everything out in the dark and luckily there were people just ahead of me to follow on the skin up. The day’s route climbed the Boreen and Wilmington Trail runs and there were quite a few steeper sections which I had to switchback up a little bit. I was able to get good purchase with my skins and even had to use my edges a little bit on the switchbacks. Unfortunately, I lost the snow baskets on my new poles on the way up – I didn’t fasten them properly it seemed.
After a little over an hour and a half of climbing, I reached the top of the Lookout Mountain chairlift and it was time to transition. I piled on the layers at this point as well – I run pretty warm so I dropped a ton of layers while climbing, but the wind was pretty chilly at the top. It took about 15 minutes to transition and I began my descent down the same route. Unfortunately I couldn’t find my baskets – I think the ski patrol picked them up – but getting first tracks was pretty awesome.
After a short rest, including dropping off my skins at the car and picking up a couple more layers, I was back on the slopes for some downhill. I skied about five hours, taking a short break for a snack in the chalet, and it was a pretty solid day at Whiteface. Very cold, and there were a few runs with almost zero visibility (due to snowmaking) but I overall felt really good and it was a great day.
Whiteface Uphill Ski (Training Peaks)
Whiteface Downhill (Training Peaks)
The next day I planned to skin up the Whiteface Memorial Highway (or toll road). I thought about possibly doing two laps if things went well, and got started at about 9am, after struggling mightily putting on my boots. I later realized that putting the boots in walk mode made putting them on/taking them off much easier. The snow base was pretty good down low and there was a bit of a skin track to follow. I passed a couple of hikers on the way who weren’t wearing snowshoes and were walking in the skin tracks, and gently advised them to make their own trail as postholes are not fun for skiers to deal with. They weren’t aware and were more than happy to oblige.
The road had a very gentle angle and it was a nice easy tour up, until I caught up with the skier ahead of me and all of a sudden I had to deal with trail breaking, including through some pretty deep drifts. At one point on the road, at one of the hairpin turns, there was a pretty large spot of bare pavement which had been exposed by the winds. I was able to make it most of the way up, before arriving at a section of bare pavement which stretched the width of the road. With this, and my back not feeling particularly great, I decided to transition to downhill mode. It was quite chilly and windy at the top like the previous day so I made sure to layer up quite a bit. The other skier caught up and she mentioned she would continue on (removing her skis) and venture off towards Esther possibly.
The descent was not particularly fun. It was difficult getting any speed higher up with no skin track, and I tried to stay on the icy sections as much as possible. About a third of the way down, it got a lot better and I rode “french fry style” all the way back to the car. In total, 1h 53 min climb, 14 min transition, and 51 min descent. I wasn’t kidding when I said it was a slow descent! After getting back to my car and struggling to remove my boots (I actually sat in the car with my boots on blasting heat to warm up) I hit the road and headed back home.
Overall, not a bad weekend of skiing but definitely had some back discomfort which pushed me into visiting Shoppers on the way home in Kingston to buy a heating pad.
Whiteface Toll Road (Training Peaks)
Limberlost (Ontario) (January 11)
The following weekend, I headed up to Huntsville, Ontario (about three hours north of Toronto) to check out Limberlost Forest, a publicly accessible private wilderness area that has recently been developed as a solid touring spot in Ontario, but also offers snowshoeing as well as summer activities like hiking and biking. The West Wind Highlands Ski Touring Association (WWHSTA) has worked with Limberlost to do glade work and prepare the terrain in the area for backcountry skiing, a lot of which is situated at the old Top of the World Ski Hill, which opened in 1934 and closed in the 1970s, but has since been reclaimed by nature.
WWHSTA was running an orientation event at Limberlost on the 11th of January, and I saw that they do several other ski touring events in Ontario in other locations, so I decided to grab a membership so I could attend the Limberlost event as well as other events in the future (accessing the property itself is free of charge, made possible by revenue from the various accommodations onsite, like cottages and campsites. After signing up and introducing myself to the president of WWHSTA, Jeff, I made plans to travel up there. I thought it would be good to get a night of winter camping in as well, and conveniently a site visit with (now former) work came up in Orillia the day before, about an hour from Huntsville, so I scheduled the site Friday afternoon, and booked a campsite at nearby Arrowhead Provincial Park for Friday night.
After the site I grabbed a few things at the grocery store (instant oatmeal and noodles) and headed up to the park. I was able to find my site with little difficulty, but it was challenging setting up my tent with a nearly non existent snow base and frozen ground. I ended up setting up a bit into the woods where there was enough snow to stake my tent down properly (reminder to buy a small hammer) and then proceeded to pull out my stove to cook dinner. To my horror, I realized I left my pot at home, so I was forced to eat beans out of a can and spinach out of the bag, a flashback to my old stove-free days. Sleep was a bit uncomfortable as it always is in a tent, but at least I was super toasty in my -17C bag.
It snowed a few inches overnight (I could hear the snow hitting my tent) and I had to dig myself out a bit which was fun. I packed up and left pretty quickly as I had no way to boil water for my instant oatmeal that I had just bought, and went to McDonalds in Huntsville for breakfast. From there, it was about a 20 minute drive to Limberlost, a bit slower than planned given the conditions. I was very thankful I decided to stay up north and not drive in from Toronto in the morning!
I arrived and met a bunch of the people that would be on the tour, including Addie, who is the snowsports coordinator for the Alpine Club of Canada’s Toronto section. I had been in contact with her regarding an event that would be the very next day and it was great to meet her in person. The touring was pretty fun – there wasn’t as much snow as we liked for the glade skiing but we got a good overview of the area and where the good places to ski were. The main skiing area, where the old resort used to be, featured a lodge at the top with some historical plaques (including one which vastly overestimated the elevation of Limberlost) which were pretty cool to look at, and an old (non-functional) t-bar which is believed to be the oldest still standing in North America. We did a bunch of laps in this area, and also ventured a little ways down the road (there was plenty of snow to ski the roads) to another area. Pretty fun day though the lack of snow meant that I dinged up my skis a little bit, which was unfortunate. I also lost another snow basket for my poles (I tried slapping on baskets which were originally for hiking poles). It turned out speaking with a splitboarder on the tour that I probably didn’t tighten them on properly.
Definitely plan to come back quite a bit this season! Not as much vertical as places in New York or New England, but a nice little spot not too far from home.
Limberlost Morning Skiing (Training Peaks)
Limberlost Afternoon Skiing (Training Peaks)
“Almost an AST-1” Alpine Club Day Trip (January 12)
The day after Limberlost, I joined a dozen folks from the Alpine Club of Canada’s Toronto Section for an “AST” session just north of Orangeville, about 1.5 hours from Toronto. I put “AST” in quotation marks as the instructor for the session, Addie (who was running the session) is not a guide and she hasn’t even done an AST-1. Nevertheless, she did a great job going through the material and it was a great refresher. I wasn’t the only one at this session who had done an AST-1 previously and we were all a bit rusty.
Biggest highlight of the day was finding an area on a small hill which had a wind-loaded slab and somewhat resembled a cornice! The snow here was pretty deep, well over a meter, and it was a great place to practice rescue digging, actually bury transceivers to to proper searching, probing for an actual person, and examining the layers in the snow and practising column tests (limited somewhat by not having a snow saw at our disposal – probes don’t cut very well!). Overall, a solid day!
Stowe (Vermont) (January 19-20)
The following weekend I drove down to Vermont to do a bit more sidecountry and backcountry skiing at Stowe, situated on the slopes of Mount Mansfield.. I purchased a fantastic book “Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast” by David Goodman a few months ago, and there are a ton of great options listed in the Stowe area. As I would be skiing alone, I opted to choose a route that was a bit on the easier end, and one of the more popular, the Skytop Trail, which is accessible from the Stowe cross-country skiing center.
As I had just lost my job, I elected to drive down to Vermont on Saturday morning and come back Sunday evening, staying just the one night to save a bit on accommodations. I ambitiously planned to pack three ski sessions into this trip – two uphill sessions at Stowe resort (one Saturday evening and one Sunday morning) as well as the Skytop tour. Because my checkin time at my AirBNB was at 3pm and I left at 7am, I was able to take my time driving down to Vermont, which was great for being able to stretch and take a walk at rest stops. I made it to Jericho, where my AirBNB was located, a bit early, so i made a quick stop to top off my tank as well as pick up some snacks. After checking in and having a quick snack, I drove over to Stowe (about 50 minute drive) to do my evening ski tour.
Stowe is great since uphill skiing at the resort is free, and is offered every evening. I arrived at the resort in the dark, and had a bit of difficulty finding where the toll road (which would be the route of that evening) started, but was able to get going in good time. The ski up was pretty relaxing and much easier than the Whiteface uphill. It was also a pretty warm night. Partway up, just below the chapel, I ran into a group who said I was only a third of the way up and that one could in theory ski to the summit. I wasn’t sure coming in where I would turn around, but decided that I would turn around at 7:30pm, or when I reached the end of the road, whichever came sooner.
It was generally a good skin up, but I developed some blisters on the insides of both my heels, and foolishly (mainly because it was dark and I was in the middle of the hill) pushed on without addressing them. Visibility also reduced quite a bit near the top due to blowing snow (maybe due to snowmaking?). After about 1 hour 40 minutes, I reached the top of the Upper Liftline chairlift and began transitioning to downhill mode.
The downhill was pretty unpleasant. The soles of my feet were killing me for some reason, the blisters were painful, and to add insult to injury, my headlamp started to die about a third of the way down. I picked up my pace and was able to get to the parking lot before the light went out fully.
Stowe Evening Uphill (Training Peaks)
My blisters were annoying enough that I decided to forgo the morning resort uphill and just do the Skytop trail. This way, I could minimize (ideally) the damage to my heels and spend a bit more time doing actual backcountry skiing before driving home. I checked out of my AirBNB and once again made the 50 minute drive back to the resort (the cross-country ski center is only a couple minutes away). Luckily, parking was free, but I did need to pay $25 for a backcountry pass, which wasn’t too bad. I was also able to grab a bit of duct tape (objectively a terrible choice) from the office to cover up my blisters (I had a bit of moleskin as well and knew it wouldn’t hold on its own).
Once I had paid, it was a quick walk across the parking lot to gear up and I was off. I had pre-drawn the route in OnX based on the map in the Goodman book, and intended to skin up the Burt trail via the groomed Catamount Trail, and descend Skytop in the counterclockwise direction before reconnecting with the Catamount Trail back to the car. However I went the opposite direction, and it was still a great tour. While my blisters eventually started nagging me again (the duct tape clearly did not do its job properly), the conditions were excellent and the trail was very easy to follow once I got off the groomed cross-country trails. Up at the top, it was a winter wonderland with a ton of powder and a nice quiet experience. I ran into another skier from Connecticut who was going more or less the same direction as me but was planning to drop into the glades a bit earlier.
Eventually I hit an area called Lightning Knoll which offered a great view of nearby Dewey Mountain as well as Mansfield. It was a bit unclear as to where the trail proceeded from here, with a steep narrow chute one way and a tree descent another way. I opted to sidestep down the chute, and when I pointed my tips down to get to the bottom faster, I ended up wiping out – mainly because I was still in walk mode.
It was at this point I took my skins off and transitioned to downhill mode, before tentatively skiing down a short pitch. I ran into a few guys skinning up in the direction I initially intended. They weren’t sure which direction was optimal, but I’d like to try the opposite direction next time. The descent was pretty fun, I initially started staying close to the Burt trail before adventuring out into the glades and got some turns in the powder. I stopped periodically to check my speed as well as make sure I was staying close to the trail, but somehow ended up in a ravine with some huge boulders. As a result, I had to take my skis off and slog through waist deep powder to climb up to the trail which was only a few meters away. From here, I stayed close to the trail again. The rest of the descent was very pleasant and got much easier on the groomed trails, though I had to briefly skin up to the parking lot. Overall, a really awesome ski tour and perfectly suited to my skill level. Would highly recommend!
Skytop Trail Ski Tour (Training Peaks)
As a result of my heel blister, I sadly had to scrap my plans to ski the following weekend to let my blister heal. I ended up going to the doctor a couple days after getting home and getting a prescription for some antibiotics and cream to treat a possible infection. I also was unable to wear shoes for a week, which wasn’t a huge deal as I wasn’t working. I was able to get out and do some hills in my camp booties/slippers which was a bit dicey given they have no grip on ice, finally healed enough to wear shoes 9 days after getting the blister, and was able to get a cheeky little “ski tour” at my local park in Riverdale midweek. Fingers crossed that the skiing for the first weekend of February will go off with no issues!
Veg 'n' Alpine 
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