Big white Back country

Unless you want to die, don't do it. If you get stuck in a tree well no one will come for you. About 2 weeks ago, a guy died in a tree well in Gem Lake. Best best is to hike East peak (about a 2 hour hike maybe) and ski down to the cliff chair.

do this so much fun

I skied 10 lines off the back of the gem  since Saturday.

The terrain sees a complex loading pattern,  (leeward, as well as heavily cross loaded) there are many pockets of unsupported wind slab. The wind that is hammering you when you are on the gem chair, is depositing the snow on the backside. With this new snow, and forecast, the current window of good stability is over.

You have to hike out. 15-40min depending on trail breaking, 2km of hiking on flat or mostly trending down.  you'll want touring gear, skins etc. It would be a long walk on foot.  Or you boot pack back up the same way you came down. Take a look at a topo map, the route is obvious and well marked.

Good news is, the snow stays fresh and deep forever in there, and visibility is good, even when it's white out at the top of the chair. Plus it's steep and the trees are spaced better than on the front side of the hill.  Kinda like a better version of the back of the bullet.

The route back brings you back inbounds at the corner of moonlight run.

I am going to Hi-jack this thread to ask... How is the "in bounds" BC terrain at Big White? I know Big White has some awesome tree skiing, but does it have any big open bowls or peaks you can hike too? I tried looking for videos of this stuff online & only found park videos.

Some help?

There is a ton of tree skiing, gentle gradient right up to some nice steep stuff dropping down to the Powder chair. There are a couple of bowl type areas, one over at the top of Gem Lake which isn't massive in all honesty, and another at 'The Cliff'. That is a nice steep bowl with a few chutes if you hike around the top of the bowl, nothing too hectic, but lots of fun, just little short if anything. What you can do is from the top of the T bar hike around the cliff and parachute bowl (all the same area) and follow the ridge to 'East Peak' a stand alone peak that takes about 45-60 mins to boot up, there are some nice lines down there back to the cliff chair.

Legit i picked up a pair touring binding and am ready to check out east peak and back side of gem.

Never skied it myself but in all honestly it hardly looks worth it. From what I have been told, there is a nicer bowl over to the skiers left of east peak if you have touring bindings and skins, and East Peak itself is a great Slackcountry favourite. Apparently back of the Gem isn't worth the hassle, but that's just what I've been told.

what exactly is in bounds backcountry terrain?

Yeah Eastpeaks, sick, its normally only like a 20-25 min hike though

the back side of Gem can be sketchy as fuck at times (the patrol calls it Area 51) because the snow pack is rarely stable there. Your best bet for good lines is to either boot pack to the top of east peak and drop back down towards the Cliff chair, or if you have touring gear follow the ridge line of east peak and drop into smokers bowl (if your back is facing the cliff chair at the top of east peak, this is the bowl to your right). The better lines are found at the far skier's-left edge of smokers bowl. For the most part Big Whites back country is pretty tame but if you hunt around there are some great spots to build big ass booters. 

Hey new to kelowna, here for school. Spent last winter in Nelson and looking for some new ski/splitboard touring buddies! AST1 and experienced, Shoot me an email I'm off every weekend and would like to spend most of them touring, but can't do it alone! Cheers.

George

What school you at? Hit up the Varsity outdoors club (VOCO) at UBCO. Lots of homies in that club into ski touring