Crazy but true, in the not too distant past, people skied without the advantage of high-speed quads and 8-person gondolas. I suppose in some weird pursuit of this romantic past, I agreed to go on a backcountry expedition with Scott, Dave and Nicola into the Diamondhead area of Garibaldi Provincial Park.
Granted, as backcountry expeditions go, this is pretty gentle. As only a day-trip out of Vancouver, it was a relatively easy undertaking. Everyone else was suitably equipped, and Scott tracked down the various rental equipment I needed and - between him and David, picked it up over the course of friday evening: boots, skis, skins, avalanche beacon, probe, shovel, etc. As I was to quickly discover, backcountry skiing is not for the light-traveller, and the mentality of "if you think you might need it then bring it" mentality is key to surviving the wilds of winter.
Anyhoo, after spending considerable time gathering tracking and collecting equipment, loading it into the car and navigating around ditched vehicles, we finally made it to the parking lot at Diamondhead. Here we are getting ready in the parking lot...
The next few hours is a blur of sweat, as I chuffed up the 10 km or so to the Red Heather Meadows. Midway or so, we stopped for a snack. Much to Nicola's chagrin, we weren't the only ones who planned for a snack... a couple of wiley Whiskey Jacks had their eye on our oatmeal cookies too. Here's one of them camped out on Scott's ski poles waiting for us to lose our guard...
Once we escaped the clutches of the wiley Whiskey Jacks, we continued on our route up the mountain. It was a lovely, sunny day. Until we reached the top of the mountain, where we were just in time to ski into the shadow of a very very dark cloud...
But other than this oddly dark cloud that was very persistently clinging to the hill we were intent on climbing, it was a remarkably lovely day. We stopped for lunch close to the top and Dave made a very cosy and comfortable lunch bench for us to relax on. He even brought up a foam to line the snow bench with, which meant our bums were quite a comfortable temperature. It doesn't sound like much, but after a morning of exertion it's a luxury indeed. 
After a high calorie lunch of sandwiches, landjager sausage, cookies, chocolate bars, chocolate milk and other yummy goodies, we continued uphill until we reached the crest of the hill, where we pulled the skins off the bottom of our skis and enjoyed the ride down the backside slope of the mountain. 
We were virtually the only people skiing down the backside of the hill, which was pretty easy to tell because the snow was completely fresh and untracked. The views were beautiful (despite the lurking black cloud that refused to disappear) and it was pretty darned fun cruising down the mountain in the deep powder.
Ok, so the advantages to backcountry skiing is (1) a fantastic workout, (2) peace and quiet, (3) enjoying nature in a winter setting.
The disadadvantages are (1) spending most of one's time climbing up the hill, because you can get down the hill so darned fast... and (2) carrying a LOT of equipment. Was it a great day? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Absolutely. But it's going to take a bit of time for me to organize myself enough where I feel I'm not constantly futching about with my backpack, or my skis, or or my clothes, or my buckles... or rifling through my gear to find the one thing that I actually need at that moment.
And as Scott said, the skiing part of the day is really pretty secondary. The point is to be up in the mountains, enjoying the place and enjoying the moment. And we all did plenty of that.
