Does anyone have experience skiing in the Shannon Creek Watershed area?  With access from the Gondola and winter on the horizon I'm wondering if it's a worthwhile trip.

Any info helps!

Cheers,

Rob

Skied up there once around 2000 or 2001.  We drove to the old boulder blockade, hiked for a bit and then skied to the very back end of the valley.  From there the best areas looked to be the Stadium Glacier area, or the basin below the north face of Ledge, which was what we chose.  The runs were decent - not super long but in a nice setting and back then we certainly had the place to ourselves.    

Getting from the end of the road to the alpine requires some moderately aggressive skinning, as the terrain is a bit steep, scrappy and treed.  However, if you have stable conditions and a good snow depth it shouldn't be a problem for an experienced backcountry slider. 

Nice, thanks for the info Todd!

I'm interested to see how it works with the new Gondola as they keep advertising for backcountry skiing potentials.  That said, I do see that the first ride up wouldn't be until 9:30AM which is a bit of a challenge when it comes to trying for an early start..

Best,

Rob

It would be good with a 3 or 4 meter snowpack. I went up last year by driving up Stawamus/Indian FSR and skinned up Shannon Branch.  There was a big dump but no base. The skiing sucked. The trail up the west ridge of Habrich was a no go because it is not trimmed back for skiing. I went up the Habrich spur and it was a washed out creek bed beyond the trail to the south face. It needs an excavator up there to fix up the road. I didn't explore the road up towards Goat Ridge because at the time I don't think the excavator had done too much work up that way. There wasn't enough snow last year. Maybe this year it will work out better.