The season to date in a single image. Very little snow in November and December followed by near continuous snowfall through much of January that pushed the avalanche hazard into the extreme zone. Things settled down last week and we were lured back to Rogers Pass.
We met Ross, Marni, and Deanna on Saturday morning. Most permit areas were closed (again) so we headed up behind the hotel to Ursus Trees and found some of the best skiing of the season. Marni and Deanna are long time Canmore residents and kept running into people they knew; especially Marni who has history of climbing and skiing that spans decades. Brenda and I recognized Heather from our Selkirk Lodge trip several years ago and had a good laugh over The Great Sandwich Bag Incident. Crikey we learned some colorful language that day courtesy of the hideous Grania.
Sunday dawned clear and cold. We again skied behind the hotel and ground our way up Grizzly Shoulder towards the Little Sifton Col.
No matter how many times we come this way it always takes our breath away to pop out onto Grizzly Ridge after toiling in the trees and take in the magnificent 360 degree views.
Grizzly
Tupper
Rogers, Swiss Peaks, Hermit
At the col we decided to climb the extra hundred meters or so to the top of Little Sifton. Oh man this sucked! The tiny bit of extra elevation put us right into the teeth of the wind (just listen to it in the video) and we were frozen to the core in moments. Both Nick and Ross got minor frostbite patches on their faces. Sorry guys, bad idea. We skied off the summit as quickly as possible with our skins tied into knots from the howling wind and quickly dropped behind the col into the Hermit side.
This took us out of the wind and into the late afternoon sun which made all the difference. Thankful to be warm again we whooped our way down through the fluffy snow.
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