Local Insights from Canada’s South Coast

A team of two in Canada’s South Coast Range have a compelling newsletter—The Weekly South Coast Conditions Report—to assist those touring in the region to make better informed choices regarding the local snowpack and conditions. Which overall, should increase the fun factor.

It’s a small sample size, but dreaming abounds here at The High Route. Sure, we love our home ranges, but planning for and visiting new zones, particularly far away zones, helps with the motivation. Yet stepping foot in a place you’ve never skied, even with decent planning, is daunting. All of us check the local avalanche forecast—but having a “connection” with a local who gets out nearly every day is a luxury many of us don’t have. 

Evan Stevens, an IFMGA guide, and Eric Carter, a full-time mountain athlete, are Squsmish, B.C. residents who have begun a noteworthy newsletter. The newsletter, Weekly South Coast Ski Conditions Report, is an interesting conditions-forecast model. The duo is out and about in the field almost daily, so their on-the-ground findings are of use to others looking for updates who may not have the ability to collect real-time information or, in other words, are stuck behind a desk, a keyboard, and any occupation precluding them from being in the conditions and forecast know. 

The mission, according to the newsletter’s website, “is to give ski tourers and ski mountaineers on the South Coast of British Columbia as much information as possible while making decisions around the best and safest places to ski!”