Kokanee Glacier

After trying unsuccessfully to get into the Kokanee Glacier Cabin for over a decade we've now been lucky enough to visit twice in three years. This time courtesy of Rick at the local ski shop. Dollar for dollar this must be the best backcountry hut experience you can have. The terrain is superb and varied with lots of different aspects. And the cabin is astounding. Although must admit we miss having a sauna. First world problems.

Ursus Trees

A short day at Ursus Trees with Nick and Margaret.

The Fingers

A snowy and wet day on The Fingers near Revelstoke. We're still finding our bearings here. I think this was the skier's leftmost "finger".

Corbin Pass

We've visited several new destinations this season. We continued with a trip to Corbin Pass on Saturday. The trailhead is at the brake check just west of the Glacier Park west boundary. From there we followed a network of logging roads leading to the ridge crest.



At the top we looked down into the Tangiers Valley for the first time and on the other side had a good view down onto two of the snow sheds on the Trans Canada.



We really weren't expecting much on the day. It was kind of an explore for next time sort of outing. But we followed an old up track did manage to find some fun skiing.





Not quite sure where we would end up at the end of the day one of the logging roads provided a nice handrail back to car.

Burnt Knob near The Fingers, Revelstoke

A local landmark just 10 minutes drive from town that begins at the Mount MacPherson cross country ski centre. In this photo The Fingers are on the left and Burnt Knob is somewhere off to the right.




Today it was Damon who had to bail not far from the car because his knee was bothering him. The Greenberg's were dropping like flies. We had driven together so he called Jayne for a lift and we gave him our key to get his stuff out of the car. He would leave the key in our super-secret hiding place behind the front license plate.



Some time later we got a text from Damon:

"Dropped key behind front grill"

Uh-oh. The messages continued as we climbed.

"Working on it"

"Can't find it"

"Giving up. Going home."

And finally:

"Good luck"

We pictured Damon down there in the parking lot. A look of disbelief on his face. Ineffectually poking around at the front grill. We could only laugh. Anyway we weren't too worried cuz, hey, look at all this, just a short drive from town.



The ski down was a lot of fun. I was on my new (old) AT setup just for kicks and really enjoyed it. I just need to learn how to make parallel turns without looking like a World War II tail gunner.

Back at the car we dug out the snow from between the front wheels, slid underneath on our backs with a headlamp, located the key and luckily managed to fish it out with a bit of hooked wire from a repair kit. I think I crawled in pee. A small price to pay.

Bonney West Moraines

The day started with six of us but Evan aggravated a shin problem and had to go back with Brenda and Damon. Steve, Nick and I continued up onto the west moraine.





It's often cold up here below the big north facing glacier. Today we were absolutely frigid with numb fingers and toes. We made one run on the moraine and then climbed back up to skier's right onto the rocky rib below Parsons Peak. There was fresh snow hiding up here and some good turns back down to valley.





On the way out we hugged the lower slopes of Mount Green and Ross Peak in an effort to avoid the Elephants Trunk. Normally we avoid these slopes because of the avalanche hazard from above. It was a but of a thrash but worked out well and deposited us a few hundred metres downstream from the Elephants Trunk.



Where we still had to take the skis off for a couple of stream crossings.

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Fun day.

Balu Pass with Margaret

Margaret joined us for a deliberately low-key day. We went up and over Balu Pass to explore the Cougar Valley below the pass.





We'd only come this way once before when doing the Three Pass Traverse. At the tine we hadn't really taken much note the skiing potential. But when visiting the nearby Nakimu Caves this summer we realized that there should be some reasonable turns. We didn't really hit it right and ended up on a rib on some solar effected crappy snow. Which was fine. We enjoyed the warm sunshine and it was nice to just hang out.

Returning back over the pass we took this photo of 8812 bowl. Holy tracks!