Nine of us met Friday evening at Wells Gray Inn in Clearwater after an uneventful drive.    Saturday morning at 8:30 am in the lobby, we met with Ian and Jean-Francois, one of our guides, and signed waivers and organized the shuttle. Our overnight gear and food was taken up by helicopter so we were only skiing with day packs.  Jean-Francois, or  JF, was one of the same guides we had before.  Wells Gray is 20% the size of Switzerland and only the southern portion is developed; the rest is wild.

We drove to the parking lot (Ian has an exclusive lease with Wells Gray to manage the cabins) where Ian keeps the ancient (1965) snocat and waited for John, Chip and Dave to do the shuttle.   We left  There were lots of noisy snowmobiles around us, but they were not allowed in the park.  We managed with Ian's help to get into the snowcat:

We then had a bumpy, noisy ride to the trailhead where we skinned up and skied the 3 kilometres up to Trophy Hut arriving there in the afternoon.

where we had transceiver practice.  The following days Saturday and Sunday, we had fabulous ski trips around the hut. 

We made ourselves at home in the hut.

 It snowed every day and every day was trail breaking

On Sunday, Steve, the other guide arrived.  Tuesday, with the guides breaking trail, we skinned up and climbed up from the hut and descended the drainage to Big Tree.

 

Unfortunately, we could not enjoy the views as the weather was deteriorating and we had to leave Mr. Cabbage Head behind.

 We then descended and  went up over Eagle Pass where we were met by high winds and really poor visibility and flat light but we all managed to get down to the trees where we continued over to Discovery Hut, arriving there at 4 pm. 

That was enough skiing for one day. 

The next two days, we skied around Discovery Hut before skiing out on Friday. 

 On the day of the ski out, on the advice of the guides, we left at 7 am.  This was quite a long day (22km) consisting of a short climb up from the hut, lunch at Phillips Lakes 1 and 2

 and then passing two other smaller lakes, before connecting with a windy trail down the mountain to the wonderful 11km cruise on a road and then back to the cars at 3 pm.  Thanks Celine for the meal she prepared but did not eat.

(We saw a black wolf on the way out). Thanks also to our wonderful trail breaking and enthusiastic guides: Steve Konik and Jean Francois. 

The food and company was great.  Thanks to all for the pics and great food.  John, Nancy, Carmie, Bernie, Kim , Chip, David, Margaret. Christine, coordinator.