This past weekend I made my way up to the Waddington Hut in British Columbia. BC is full of incredible huts and every time I visit one I have a blast. I’d never been to the Waddington Hut before but it’s been on the list for a while. It was great to explore a new area and meet a bunch of new people.
Boarding down the south facing slopes of Frodo in the sunrise.
We arrived at the trailhead on Friday around 2:00 pm, and made it up to the hut in four hours. We expected there to be several other groups but arrived to only find one, a nice surprise. The next day dawned with good weather so we headed up to Mt. Frodo, and Mt. Peregrine, small peaks above the hut. The north faces held nice pow and we made a few laps.
That night a few more groups arrived bringing the total to 30 people. The Waddington Hut is fairly small and it doesn’t have a stove or heater, so it was great to have the extra bodies to warm the place up. One group even hauled up a giant propane canister and heater which helped even more. 30 people was just about the hut’s capacity. Over the years I’ve learned to go to huts expecting them to be overcrowded, especially on weekends. It’s most definitely not a wilderness experience but it’s fun to enjoy the camaraderie of a bunch of other powder hungry skiers.
Drying gear with the luxurious propane heater.
Skinning up to Frodo-Gandalf col on the first day.
Bobby slashing pow on our second run down Frodo.
Elliot enjoying north facing powder.
Sunday morning, in a bid to head a little further out and avoid the other skiers, we woke at 5 am, and headed out. We climbed to a low point on Mt. Frodo once again and dropped down the south face into the adjacent valley. The steep north facing lines rising out of the valley had teased us the day before. We managed to make five laps on incredible steep north facing shots. We headed back to the hut shortly before sunset and I certainly felt the day in my sore legs.
Sunrise on our second ski day, looking at the lines we would put tracks in later in the day.
Kyle scouting the drop in with clouds moving in behind.
Monday morning we woke late, packed up, and headed out. The trail out went surprisingly quickly. Most of it was downhill. We made short work of the drive and made it back to Bellingham in time for Casa Que Pasa burritos. I broke my personal record and finished one and a half of their delicious monsters. Once again, of course, the stellar British Columbia hut system delivers. Now why can’t we have this in Washington?
Map below shows hut location in BC.
Louie Dawson earned his Bachelor Degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University in 2014. When he’s not skiing Mount Baker or somewhere equally as snowy, he’s thinking about new products to make ski mountaineering more fun and safe.
