Asulkan Cabin

We were at the Asulkan Cabin last weekend with the ACC. Given the conditions so far this season we hoped for great things, but in the end it was a more typical February weekend with mediocre visibility and higher avalanche hazard. Still pretty darn good!



We got in some skiing above the hut on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning dawned with heavy snow and high winds so we spent most of the day in the Toilet Bowl adjacent to the summer trail. Very good skiing but the steeper leeward slopes were getting a little touchy.



No matter how good the skiing is, doing short laps over and over again below tree line isn't exactly inspiring, so it was with some relief that we woke up on Sunday to a brief weather window that allowed us to get back above the hut.





Some new friends, some old friends, and plenty of good food and drink.

Ross Peak

The foot bridge over Loop Brook was a unique way to start our day on Ross Peak. No plow no plow no plow...



A steep climb up the shoulder of Ross brought us to a sunny lunch spot with great views down to our tracks on the Lily Glacier from the day before.





After lunch we thrashed across a gully and continued on upwards until breaking out onto the upper reaches of the slide path.



The skiing on the upper part was excellent.





The lower part was much tighter with gullies and small trees that made it a challenge to find a good line.



It would probably be better in a bigger snow year. Still, no complaints. It was a fine day of exploring on some new terrain.

Lily Glacier

Up to the Lily Glacier from Loop Brook. It's a spectacular setting. We did a couple of laps on the upper glacier and then put the skins back on to climb up over a shoulder for another run down to the toe of the moraine.







We've skied on the Lily a few times before but only after coming over from Sapphire Col or Dome-Rampart. It's definitely worth coming up directly from Loop Brook. A fine day out.

Napoleon Spur on Cheops

Bishop: "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones".
Curate: "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"

Napolean Spur on Sunday. And yes, parts of it were excellent. The middle bit mostly. Getting there and getting back were pretty grim. But the most redeeming aspect of the day was that we had never been here before. Again.



Departing from the NRC parking lot we followed The Worst Track in the World too far to climber's right. We knew that we should have been trending further to the south but it was so hard to leave the existing skin track. Well, for some of us anyway. Ahem. We amused ourselves by felling some of the innumerable tree bombs along the way.





Eventually we found our way to some very nice open tree skiing where we did a couple of laps.



We had intended to descend back directly to the Asulkan parking lot at the end of the day and then hitch a ride (or ski) back to the cars. However we quickly realized that the snow on this south facing aspect was sporting a diabolical death crust from the warm temperatures mid-week. So instead we took a descending line to skier's left trying to short cut back towards the north as much as possible. Let's just say that it was character building at best. Nevertheless it was great to explore a new place and the skiing here would be excellent under better conditions.

Vaux Moraines

We paid a visit to the Vaux Moraines this weekend. This is the primarily west facing terrain between West Terminal and Sir Donald.



Our first time here and already the third new area we have visited in Rogers Pass this winter. We're usually lucky to check out even one new area each season! That's what stability and visibility will bring you.

On the way in the heel piece on Nick's Dynafit binding bit the dust. He somehow managed to lash his heel down with a boot lace and strap for the descent. The second time we've seen a Dynafit break recently.

It was another stellar day and this called for an extended lunch in the sunshine.



After lunch we climbed up just a little further to get right on top of the moraine.



From here we had a glorious run in the warm sun.



Amazingly for January the lower slopes that angled slightly more southerly had become wet in the afternoon soon. We bailed on that and climbed back up for a second run on the shady strip adjacent to the ridge of Terminal.



Wrapped it all up with poutine and a cuppa at The Nomad. More please.

Wheeler Hut with the ACC

Safe. Fun. Educational. Pick any two.

Brenda organized the second annual Beginner Backcountry trip for the ACC this weekend. Held at the Wheeler Hut it was grand affair with 4 trip leaders, 14 participants, and an organized dinner for everyone.

Despite the beginner tag there was a wide range of experience levels on the trip and it was a challenge to manage everyone's expectations. Combined with the fact that there is no true "beginner" terrain in Rogers Pass makes this a tricky trip to organize. Brenda did a great job and everyone had a fun (and safe and educational) weekend. Good visibility and stable conditions helped too!

Lookout Col Traverse

One more weekend of good stability in Rogers Pass before the avalanche hazard would begin peaking again mid-week. Oddly we had never done the Lookout Col Traverse, a very popular tour, so we headed up towards the toe of the Illecillewaet on Saturday morning with that goal in mind.



The direct route to Lookout Col follows the roly-poly terrain on climbers right adjacent to the big lateral moraine. It can be tedious work and we never seem to put in a decent track this way. So instead we opted to try one of the more central ramps which angle from lower left to upper right. You can kind of make out the ramps in this photo:



Yeah that sucked. We half climbed a waterfall, ended up too high, and had to drop down around the toe of the glacier before climbing back up to the col. Now we know. Off with the skins and down the other side into terra incognita.



Wow, it was a whole new world to us. First a long steep run into broad bowl that was bordered on one side by some very skiable looking broad chutes. Then we made our way across the gentle reaches of the lower bowl and into the trees on skiers left which mark the edge of The Ravens slide paths.



Skins on for a short climb up through the trees before popping out high up on the Ravens, giving a unique view down into the Asulkan Valley. It looked like a ski run at the local resort.



Boot top powder all the way down from here and then the way too familiar track back to the railbed.

A grand day out. Why haven't we done this before?

Stanley Mitchell Hut

They say that a legitimate adventure has no predetermined outcome. To look at it from a slightly different angle, perhaps the idea of a true "adventure" has more to do with the nature of the participants than the actual objective itself. That's why our own humble definition of an adventure includes a visit to the Stanley Mitchell Hut during the short, dark, and cold days of late December. I mean it's not exactly hard core in the grand scheme of things right? But for us the promise of toasting our hands in front of a warm fire at the end of the day was never a sure thing until we actually laid eyes on the hut.

We did this trip a couple of years ago. I had never been so cold in my entire life. This time it was -18C for our 5:45AM departure from the parking lot. Not exactly balmy but considerably warmer than the -33C of last time.



Even so Brenda still had to break out the Backcountry Burka to keep her schnoz from getting frostbitten.



It took us over four hours to reach the shelter at Takakkaw Falls where we made some hot tea and refilled our thermoses.



There were a couple of pieces of firewood so we sparked up the ancient woodstove. It produced more smoke than heat but it did warm us up a little as we reapplied wax to the skis. We didn't see any sign of a larger wood supply. It would be a cold place to spend the night.



From the shelter we enjoyed the sun for a few kilometres before reaching the trees and beginning the true climb up into the Little Yoho Valley.



Finally reaching the hut at 3:30 we were pretty cold and tired but very happy to be there.



The next day we toured up towards Emerald Pass with Kevin, Brendan, and Jeremy from Calgary who we had met at the hut the previous night.



We even found some decent skiing in a steep little gully that had filled in with blowing snow.



This being New Year's Eve we celebrated in fine fashion with the Calgary Crew. As usual our own supply of booze was overshadowed by the massive quantities that everyone else had managed to haul in. There were even some fireworks to light up the midnight sky. Okay it wasn't quite midnight. We were all tired.



We closed up the hut the next morning.



And headed back home.



An adventure? Sure it was.

NRC

NRC is probably the most accessible bit of skiing real estate in Rogers Pass; straight up from the car and straight back down again. However we don't ski here very often. It gives us the heebie-jeebies. I really don't know if this feeling is justified or not since the place certainly gets skied regularly by a lot of other people. But whenever we're at NRC all I can think of is the several hours we'll spend skiing up and down a giant avalanche path. Anyway, with the good and stable conditions we decided that it would be a good day to visit NRC.

It was freezing cold and blustery and just plain nasty as we geared up in the parking lot just below the Rogers Pass summit. It didn't fill us with much hope for the day. But as we climbed the wind died and slowly but surely we began to leave the clouds below us.





A leisurely lunch was called for. We soaked up the sun and marvelled at the vista unfolding around us.



Cheops


After lunch we climbed up to around 2300m before finally pulling the plug as the snow become scoured and decidedly slabby. Some day I'd love to get to the top of this feature to look over towards the south side of McDonald. Skins off for the straight run back down to the car.

Brenda (Nick's photo)


Andrew (Nick's photo)


Nick on telemark gear. Who knew?

Cheops North 5

Stability, visibility, powder: the rule is generally to pick any two. Magically, mystically, all three conditions aligned a couple of days before Christmas.

The north side of Mount Cheops sports a number of gullies dropping down into the Connaught Drainage. I think the lowest (The Hourglass) is #1 and the highest is #6 (not sure about that). Occasionally we've seen lines of tracks dropping down the higher numbered gullies. To us these 1000m descents have always looked really impressive and so intimidating.

Upper Cheops Gullies


But by now we had run out of excuses, so with the almost perfect conditions we finally had a go at what we think was Cheops #5.

Descent route


Up to Balu Pass we went, hung a left and struggled up the shallow faceted snow of the lower ridge before topping out on a broad plateau. There seemed to be at least two entrances. We took the first available and found our way easily into the upper bowl.

Nick just above the entrance


Having a good look at the entrance to #6 we decided instead to explore the less intimidating options further right.

Entrance to Cheops #6


The terrain opened up below us and we had a great look at the upper reaches of the descent.

Brenda with the descent route behind her


Wow! A fabulous leg-burning descent in a truly spectacular setting.

Nick


We were so happy to finally ski this line and felt privileged to have done it under conditions that didn't give us the heebie-jeebies. Okay there were a few heebie-jeebies but it wouldn't be a real adventure otherwise. That's the great thing about being average weekend warriors, we're easily thrilled!

Putting the skins back on after the run, a couple skied past on their way out. We overheard one of them exclaim "Holy cow! Look what those guys skied!". Whoever you were, thanks, you made our day!