News/Reports
Ilgachuz Range in winter
We are fortunate to have this image from the Bella Coola Blog of Sunday, December 18, 2011
The following are the comments on the picture:
Itcha and Ilgachuz Mountain Ranges
At the risk of messing up real bad in spelling and describing the location of another range of important mountains in the West Chilcotin after last weekend’s attempt at describing and spelling the Ilgachuz Range, I had to take the plunge because the photo I was able to get today of the nearly perfect view easterly from the top of the Tweedsmuir Ski Clubski hill was too good to pass up .
The Ilgachuz Range is on the left and the Itcha Range is on the right.While the Ilgachuzs are North of Anahim Lake, the Itchas are 43 km Northeast of Anahim Lake. Both look really impressive in the winter after a fresh snowfall.On the weather front, I gave up with Bella Coola Valley weather after 48 hours of wet snow and well over 100 mm of cold rain, I went to East Branch which is in Tweedsmuir Park at the top of the Highway 20 hill.
In a space of an hour’s travel the temperature changed from 0 C with heavy cloud to -10 C and as blue as you see in the photo, that’s the beauty of the rain shadow effect of the Coast Mountains and Bella Coola, you can always escape into the sun by going east.
The rainstorm in Bella Coola brought about 50 cm of powder snow to the East Branch area, with a base at the ski hill of 142 cm (56″), conditions are in good shape for snowboarding, cross country skiing and snowmobiling at East Branch. Meanwhile the temperature continues to hang around 0 C and 1 C in the Bella Coola Valley.