Zupjok Peak - Coquihalla - Backcountry Skiing

Quick skiing break along the Coquihalla driving from Vancouver to Kelowna. The food truck at Zopkios was up and running with hours 8 AM to 7 PM

GPS GPX

Mount Baker looking good from the highway

Snow was looking pretty thin, especially at Box Canyon, on the drive up but Zopkios seemed to hold onto enough for a couple more weeks 

Open and enticing flowing creeks

The summit of Zupjok was our jobjective

Cool view looking at the highway North to South

The needle ridge and peak route

Skinning and already in the Alpine 

Summit of Zupjok. 1835m

Looking north towards Llama and Alpaca. This route would make a great ridge ski on a nice day when the snowpack is too touchy for anything steep 

Guanaco Peak at 2127 metres

This saddle is a key mark on Baldwin's map. To create a cool loop from ridge north of Zupjok, you should ski to Llama and take a couple lines that drop to 1400m then you contour at that elevation before climbing again to the saddle. The ski down looked doable but also looked pretty dense and tricky to navigate micro terrain. It would be best with more of a snowpack

We also tried to look for a ski line to the west from Zupjok summit but it was pretty overgrown and convex with limited vision from the summit. The route would take you into the Anderson River drainage and near the ridge exit from Iago but again I think a healthier snowpack would be ideal. I would also want to scout out the line from the downslope side of Iago. 

We had a decent ski run out in terrible snow conditions the lower down you got. On the ridge and in the Alpine was good spring conditions but suddenly it became isothermal beneath the cliffs and very tricky to ski. We went east of the uptrack a long the SW ridge a long the ski line that was pictured into Gaia

This was the photo from continuing back on the drive and looking at what I believe is the fast forward and rewind zones near Coquihalla Lakes. I had been here once before in mid February but it was looking quite thin this time for April 

A great day and best driving back ever - wahoo