Bonney Glacier

We had only gone up Loop Brook on days with poor visibility, the treeline skiing being one of the better options when things are clagged in at Rogers Pass. On my last visit I resolved to come back on a sunny day to do a bit of exploring. Inspired by recent photos from fellow Kelowna blogger Loïc we ventured up there on a glorious day over the weekend before Easter. With the warm temperatures we were looking for that mythical high, north, and sheltered terrain that would still be holding cold snow.



Climbing up above the moraines we then made a high traverse across the glacier towards the Bonney-Green col. Following an old skin track for a while we noticed that a mouse had also been using the track; the prints looked so sharp in the fine snow, we joked that the mouse must be running along just ahead of us. This went on for a few hundred meters until we came across the very mouse itself. Well, ex-mouse anyway. Poor thing looked like he'd just keeled over a few minutes ago. Still warm (yes I checked).



As we climbed higher the snow started to dry out. We hadn't figured out exactly how we were going to ski back down, so just as the sun began to disappear behind some high clouds we sneaked through a rock band at around 2400m and started to look for an exit. A rocky rib looked to offer the shaded run that we were after.





Not entirely sure that it would go, we nevertheless ripped off the skins and headed down. Wowee! 500 meters of cold light snow all the way down to the head of the valley.





Where we came across "interesting mouse incident" number two. Not sure if this is clear in the photo (click to enlarge) but mouse tracks come in from the left, wing and tail impression, no mouse tracks leaving the scene.



The rodents are taking a beating in Loop Brook.