Pat is a good friend of ours from back east who Brenda and I have dearly missed skiing with since leaving Montreal. He was in the pass with some friends of his from Calgary -- a hard charging yet good natured group of guys. It was a pleasure to ski with them and to hang out in the hot tub at the hotel.
The original weekend plan was to spend Friday through Saturday at the Asulkan hut with an ACC group and then to meet Pat and spend an additional two days skiing in Rogers Pass.
Unfortunately the avalanche forecast was diabolical.
Most people on the ACC trip figured that they had better things to do than spend the weekend dodging avalanches. Eventually Brenda and I withdrew from the trip as well since there was no one else left. It actually worked out well because it gave me an extra day to prepare for a hellish business trip this week. We could also meet Pat a day earlier than had been originally planned.
With it's lower angled terrain and tight trees McGill shoulder seemed a good choice given the avalanche conditions. However our original assessment of the snow pack wasn't terribly promising -- we got several easy shears on the new snow as well as on the crappy hoar frost layer which is causing so much trouble throughout the region. Fortunately everything stayed together and we had a couple of days of wonderful skiing.
And there were some absolutely priceless crashes. Truly spectacular. Picture an out-of-control, one legged pirouette that concludes with the skier traveling backwards and then catching the tail of his ski causing the ski tip to snap backwards and knock the skier right on the noggin! It just doesn't get any better than that.
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