Elfin Lakes Hut Overnight

I'll start this post with saying we are a little bit behind on our posts... we are working to correct that.  For the next while, we will be writing a little bit in the past :)

A couple of weeks ago we decided to take a group of friends (some experienced and some with little backcountry/winter experience) to Elfin Lakes Shelter.  We figured it was the perfect place to introduce people to the backcountry - a beautiful snowshoe through the sub-alpine to a heated hut.

We headed out from Vancouver at 5am to beat the rush to the hut - I've heard rumors of 100+ people in the 34 bed hut.  The weather was grey and dull and started snowing hard before we reached the parking lot.  At the lower parking lot we chained up and left the two Jettas to get to the top lot. We set off in the snow! First stop was the Red Heather day shelter where we rested up and had a snack. I love snacks.

On the trail up to the Elfin shelter, we ran into this guy and couldn't resist asking him for a picture.

  Even though it was grey and snowing, the terrain was still beautiful.

  We got a little cold as the wind picked up on Paul's Ridge, so we pressed on for the hut.

Finally we reached the hut and had snacks (snacks!) and grabbed bunks before the crowds showed up. We were lucky and got eight of the last ten or twelve spaces. By the end of the evening there were probably close to fifty people.

After a fantastic dinner and a couple of games of Dutch Blitz (my new favourite game!) I got ready for bed and headed outside for a bit. It was starting to clear!

When I got up in the morning, the fog was rolling in but the mountains looked perfect! We rounded up everyone to take a look before it got clouded in.

It was cold (probably -15) but still and beautiful. Matt's knee had been bothering him the day before so Alex and I decided we would ski some laps on the way home while Matt hung out with the snowshoers. The powder was amazing! We ran 4 laps in two hours breaking trail the whole time, but oh was it worth it!

We ended up running into the snowshoers at the top of one of our runs and Matt decided to join us for a few.  Alex's track is in the centre/rightish of the picture, Matt's are on the left and mine are to the right of Alex's.

We all enjoyed perfect conditions on a wonderful day!

Now that this has turned into a photo blog, one last one. Matt took this when we stopped to take off our chains on the way down.

 
I hope everyone had a good time!