Youngs Peak

I pulled into the Asulkan parking lot all by myself on Thursday night; Brenda had to work the next day, and much to her chagrin, I didn't want to give up on the idea of skiing on Friday. Nick would join me the next morning.

It was quite pleasant hanging out in the van; a bit of dinner, Tom Patey's "One Man's Mountains" providing a good read, various Marley brothers playing on the stereo. It was a real coup when I discovered the hip flask in the bottom of the food bin.

Nick and I made our way up the Asulkan Valley the next morning. There is still lots of snow but there were a few places where we were reminded that spring is well on its way.



We stopped for a bit of lunch at the hut and noticed a solitary figure up on the Youngs Peak headwall. As we were leaving we came across a video camera perched on the rocks outside the hut, filming, and deliberately aimed at the headwall. Kind of a neat idea. We idly wondered if it was Greg Hill up there.

Turns out that's exactly who it was. He stopped to say hello on his way back down to the hut. By the time we got to the summit of Youngs there he was right behind us again.



By this point in his day he had already climbed 9500' or something after doing 23,000' the previous day. We ultimately did a 6200' (1900m) and considered that to be a big day! The headwall was still holding good snow and we managed to squeeze in a couple of really nice runs each in between Greg Hill's numerous tracks.





On our way back down the snow transitioned from shallow powder into a tricky crust before finally softening into creamy spring-like corn by the time we were behind the Pterodactyl. It even held up well through the mouse trap as we dodged the avalanche debris back down into the valley.

A nice day out and one well worthy of being our last of the season if that does turn out to the case. There are some more photos here.

Connaught

The effort-to-reward ratio on Saturday had been a bit silly; Bruins Pass was a long way to go for some so-so north facing terrain. So after a couple of beers with the animals in the hotel...



...we decided to stay another night. Nick came back up and we went straight back into the Connaught to the north facing fans on Cheops. We first skied up into the north facing bowl seen in this photo from yesterday.



After cutting back and forth across the lower fan we worked our way up onto a moraine. Generally we avoid moraines, they're always problematic, but this seemed the wisest place to be. We had stopped for a quick bite and were just taking in the surroundings when a terrific "Craaack!" jolted us to the core. An avalanche had cut loose from the top of Cheops and was thundering down the face on the opposite side of the bowl from us. There was a brief brown-trousers moment before we realized that we were in a safe place. We snapped a few photos of the ensuing powder cloud and aftermath from our ridiculous vantage point.







Then skied the fan below a couple of times.



And worked our way over to the next fan on lookers-left and had a good long ski down here too.



Turns-to-effort ratio? Excellent. Let's go home.

Bruins Pass

Minus 12C, blue skies, and hardly a soul at the Visitors Center on Saturday morning (April 10).



We skied up behind the hotel, hoping that the fresh snow which had fallen during the week was still holding up on the north side of Bruins Pass.

Grizzly slide path had cut loose sometime during the previous week and come down well below the usual skin track.





Glad we weren't hanging around when that sucker came down. Continuing up the valley it remained quite cold, but any snow facing the sun was quickly getting wet.



We popped over Bruins Pass and took in the always stunning vista of the northern Selkirks. Skins off and down we went. Not quite the deep fluffy powder that we had hoped for; not great, but still pretty good.



Back up to the pass for a look down into 8812 bowl.



Looks stupendous, right? Sadly we were an hour too late. The sun was no longer shining directly onto this south facing slope and the surface had re-frozen into telemarker death crust. It wasn't pretty, but, it was still very pretty.



Have you ever seen "The Man Who Skied Down Everest"?



He's still skiing, albeit with a smaller chute these days:



More photos. There's even one of me!

Vista Lodge

Hut trip number eleven with these guys? Or maybe it's number twelve. Or maybe I'm deliberately losing count so as to not put too fine a point on how long we've been doing this.

The usual suspects were there - Mike L, Smiley (Mike R), Paul, Mr 10% (Martin), The Professor (Dave), Ross, Furious D (Damon), and Louis. This was Norm's first ski trip with us. I know Norm from Montreal. Our last trip together was about 10 years ago; a disastrous attempt on Mounts Haddo and Aberdeen.

Vista is a great little hut; cozy, certainly smaller than Sorcerer or Campbell, but nicely rustic, with a good sauna heated to mind bending temperatures by a giant wood stove dubbed the "hippy killer" by our custodian. The only drawback is the long, long walk to the outhouse :)



The week started with warm spring-like temperatures but it very quickly turned into winter again. We received 40 or 50cms of snow over the first couple of days, and then each day brought a few more centimeters of snow mixed with periods of mostly clear skies.

We explored our new surroundings very cautiously; you know it's time to be careful when the previous week's avalanche forecast includes a link to the Hawaii Tourism Association's webpage as a suggestion on how to manage risk. Eventually we got a handle on which slopes were holding together and which were best avoided.



Ridge on Vista


We explored the adjacent drainages, summited a few peaks, had some good long days and then some good short ones allowing more time for eating, drinking, and unwinding in the sauna. Martin's daily hour-long cycles of intense sauna heat and jubilant snow rolling were awe inspiring.

We had possibly the best name game ever. Damon's previous best performance (a "Sitting Bull" pantomime from a few years ago) was topped by his clue "Female body part. And lots of it!".

(Any ideas? Think James Bond.)

The weather took a turn for the worse on our fly-out day. We all sat around expectantly in hurry-up-and-wait mode until 4 o'clock when we finally got two flights out in a mad rush of activity. Brenda, Ross, and I stayed stayed for an extra night and had one more magical evening of fine powder skiing in silent surroundings.

Back at the hut we found that Eileen, bless her, had left fresh pizza dough for us, rising in a giant bowl in the kitchen. There was enough dough for about 6 regular sized pizzas so we created two of the biggest pizzas I've ever seen. We did our best to get them down, but combined with our ill-conceived attempt to finish off the last of the booze, it was a losing battle.

We flew out the next morning under under cold blue skies and with acres of untracked snow beneath us. It was hard to leave.



Photos.

Edit on April 12:
As Martin mentions Brenda and I got engaged at the hut :)

Asulkan

This weekend at the Asulkan Cabin brought us some Very Good Things.

Charlie.


The first significant snowfall in months (causing almost the entire west side of the Asulkan Valley to pull out on Friday night).



Superb, but conservative, skiing.



The best crash ever, earning Steve the new nickname of "Tomahawk".



And, last but not least, new foamies! Thanks to the ACC maintenance crew.

Hermit

There was an interesting graph posted on the bulletin board at the Visitors Centre on Saturday. Something like this:



It showed height of snowpack vs time as measured at the Fidelity Research Station near Rogers Pass. The upper line shows the record high snowpack recorded, the lower line shows the record low, and the middle line shows this year. It all looked so promising back in November!

We haven't been backcounty skiing for a couple of weeks now; lying low while the avalanche hazard has gone through the roof. We finally ventured forth with Fred into Hermit Meadows on Saturday. It was blazing hot on these south facing slopes and we suffered on the way up.





It took a supreme effort to toil for that last long hour up to Tupper Ridge. The snow was still cold behind Tupper and we had one good run on the gentle north facing bowl.



Up to the ridge again and then back the way we came to battle the wet grabby snow with gritted teeth. It wasn't too bad at first, but as we descended lower we got into areas that had already been in the shade for a couple of hours that had developed a nasty crust. Oh it was diabolical. The worst conditions I've ever had in Rogers Pass bar none! Hard crust on top with wet and sometime bottomless rotten snow underneath. It was hopeless. We had to literally side slip most of the way down; all attempts to turn resulted in an immediate punishing crash. I shudder just to think back.

Ah well. We picked our way down and arrived at the car at dusk, alive and well to fight another day.

Sapphire Col Traverse (Lily Glacier)

We skied up the Asulkan Valley last Saturday morning (Feb 13th). Usually when we come this way we're going to the hut with overnight packs; this time it was a pleasure to be traveling light and moving quickly.

We followed a well-worn skin track through the mousetrap and then began breaking trail up to climbers left of the cleaver. The forecast wasn't great so we were trying to leave some options open. We could come back the way we came; or we could sneak over the top of the cleaver to the Dome Glacier; or, more ambitiously, we could ski over Sapphire Col and exit out the Lily Glacier and Loop Brook (we had shuttled a car just in case).

Several hours later, with our heads down into the biting wind, we made the last long pull across the upper glacier to the col. When we arrived the visibility was crapping out and we couldn't see the steep slope that drops down to the Lily. Resigned to returning the way that we had just come, we ducked into the hut for a hot drink and something to eat. The respite from the wind made the tiny hut seem cozy and warm at first but it didn't take long for the cold to get into our bones and we figured we'd better get a move on.

By the time we looked outside it had cleared just barely enough to see down to the Lily. Time was getting on but we thought we'd be okay if we didn't dawdle. Seemed like a good plan at the time! Down we went.

We soon realized that this slope wasn't exactly the most stable piece of terrain we'd seen today. It took an age to pick our way down. Then the tedious haul across the flats seemed to take forever as these things do when you're in a rush. Finally the Lily started steepening into the long gentle run that we knew from our only previous visit. But something was a little different this time...

Crevasses. Or, more precisely, semi-bridged-difficult-to-see-in-the-fading-light crevasses stretching across much of the glacier. Our previous visit had been in April but here we were in February, hence the encroaching darkness, and in a year with a below average snow pack.

We hummed and hawed. We debated options. We went left. We went right. We checked the time. A lot. We picked our way down. It was by the light of three headlamps that we arrived back at the car.

Not a single photo; all three of us forgot our cameras.

March 7th: Just found a photo on Brenda's camera that she took when we got back to the car.

Zoa Peak and Manning Park

Wes and Tina, who we met last weekend at Baldy, invited us to join them at Manning Park on Sunday. We were keen to ski at a new place but less keen on the 5:00am start that it required. So to break up the drive we went to Zoa Peak on Saturday which in a roundabout way allowed us to get to Manning on Saturday night with minimal extra driving. Zoa is at "B" and Manning is at "C" on this map.



Google Street View has recently become available in our area. This is the Zoa trailhead in summer. The snowy peaks on the left are Nak and Thor Thar. Zoa is the rather unimpressive looking ridge on the right.


View Larger Map

Zoa is an okay destination for an easy non-committing kind of day. The north facing slopes off the summit only provide about 200m of vertical, maybe less. We saw some neat hoar frost on the trees on the way up.



The ski out on the road cut can be either a mellow slide home or diabolical survival ski. Today was the latter on re-frozen snowmobile tracks. Yech.

Continuing on our way we eventually found the Cambie Creek trailhead in Manning and settled down in the parking lot for the night. In the morning we were surprised to find some sort of outdoor education camp set up just on the other side of the parking lot snowbank.



As we were having breakfast they trooped by en masse to go watch the Olympic torch pass by on the highway. Meh. I'm fed up with the Olympics.

Joined by Sandy, Wes, Sid, and Tina, we skied up the Fat Dog ski trail for several kilometers before heading up a small knoll. There was some mellow skiing from the top and we just enjoyed being out somewhere new.

I'm not sure this location would be worth another 3 hour drive from Kelowna, not when we could be in Rogers Pass with the same amount of driving. But as always it was just good to be out skiing.

Mount Baldy

We went lift skiing at Silverstar on Friday night for 5 bucks. Good deal eh? But then we spent many times that on beer at the pub afterward. Mmm... Back Hand of God.

On Sunday we tagged along on an ACC trip to Mount Baldy, a relatively small ski resort south of Kelowna quite near to the US border.



It's an interesting hill with an old time feel much like the small resorts in the Eastern Townships near Montreal. A one ride lift ticket can be had with minimal fuss for $13 allowing quick access to the summit.

We skied some really gentle terrain. It was the wise choice given the size of the group and the skiing level, but the slow pace and the limited vertical left me with that "mall funk", a pervading feeling of lethargy and sapped energy which usually occurs whenever I spend any time inside a shopping mall.

Nevertheless we enjoyed our day; we got to see a new place and met some very nice folks who we may ski with next weekend on an exploratory trip to Manning Park.

Bruins Pass and Sifton Traverse

Weeks of persistent valley cloud in the Okanagan had left us craving sunlight. Saturday had a promising forecast and as we toured up the Connaught drainage that promise became a reality; bright sunshine warmed both our faces and our souls.



We climbed up Bruins Ridge and had a short run down the cold and shady north side before climbing back up and skiing down 8812 bowl.



The avalanche control teams sometimes go through an exercise of "ranging" their guns. This was going on full-tilt Saturday afternoon as the air was rent apart by the BOOM! of the Howitzers and the WHOOSH! of shells flying through the air. One can't help but feel a visceral response to such power and potential destruction despite knowing perfectly well that they weren't firing anywhere near us. We occasionally smiled at each other a bit uneasily.

Fred and Steve joined us on Sunday for a trip up and over Sifton Col and back down Hermit Meadows. The day started out brilliantly again and then clouded over and snowed a bit by mid-morning, but the visibility held and we enjoyed the 1400m run back down Hermit Meadows.

This is the descent just below Sifton Col. I remember this gave us the heebie-jeebies the first time we skied it. Didn't seem so bad today.

Fairy Meadows

Fairy Meadows for 400 bucks over the holidays? Wow that's cheap, I thought. Someone is going to get a screaming deal there.

Wait a minute...I'm "someone". That could be me!

So to make a long story short (since interactions with the ACC often lead to long stories and this was no exception) it turned out that yes, we are in fact "some people", and we found ourselves goggling the scenery on the first flight into Fairy Meadows of the 2009 ski season. To we lucky chosen few went the dubious honour of several tedious hours of digging; hut, outhouse, chimney, woodshed, and sauna. What a job.





Nevertheless we did get some turns in on our first day and thus began a super week. There was a group of six from Washington and Oregon, three from Golden/Canmore, and another group of eight, including the ACC work crew, also from Canmore. They were an eclectic group of great people and we really enjoyed everyone's company. I knew one person, Helen, from a previous trip to Fairy Meadows in the summer of 2000 when I was taking a course and Helen was one of the guides.

Brenda and I spent the first few days skiing on our own. We'll admit to feeling a little overwhelmed at first; we were less familiar with the terrain and it seemed like everyone was charging all over the place doing these huge lines while we were pottering around trying to get a handle on things. But we found our bearings and in retrospect it was good to be making our own decisions over those first few days, and we enjoyed ourselves.



The week settled into that familiar and pleasurable hut routine of a long day of skiing followed by a long evening (especially this time of year) of cooking, eating, unwinding in the sauna, and working through the alcohol supply with some determination before being overtaken by utter exhaustion.



It was back to reality last week; first with work, and then getting waylaid with a nasty cold as the activities of the past few weeks finally caught up with me. Although we only returned from the hut a week a go it already seems like a distant memory.



More photos here.

Bonney Moraines

Saturday morning at the Visitor Centre and we were hemming and hawing with indecision. The morning forecast had changed significantly from the day before; increasing cloudiness and flurries rather than blue skies. What to do? Go up into the alpine but risk getting stuck in flat light, or ski the trees where visibility wasn't going to be an issue but possibly miss out on the chance to get up really high? We chose the trees and headed for Loop Brook.

In the end there was a mixed bag of weather and human nature being what it is we questioned our decision all day! The valley fog lifted, returned again, and then burned off completely to leave some patches of blue sky peaking out from behind the clouds.

Ross Peak


Oh man it took forever to get up into the moraines. I haven't been cycling to work for a few weeks and I'm sure I felt it in my legs breaking trail. Thankfully Nick did most of the hard work.

We spent quite a while doing some compression tests and a Rutschblock. Not that we had reason to suspect the slope but the snowpack has certainly become more complex over the last couple of weeks and we wanted to get a handle on things (btw we were getting moderate results in the 40-55cm range which seems to confirm what the professionals are seeing).

The skiing was really good; wind-effected powder that exploded in chunks all around us. We did a couple of runs and then thrashed around a bit in the trees getting back to the "Elephants Trunk". I think descending via the Lily Glacier moraines on far skiers right is definitely the better option. It was nearly dark by the time we got back to the cars. Not a spectacular day by most measures but any day out in the mountains with friends is always a good one. A veggie burger at the Nomad and we all headed home. Some photos here.

Malakwa

Malakwa on Saturday with a group from the Alpine Club.

Er, yeah, that's about it really. I'm completely devoid of content material. No witty anecdotes. No little tidbits of information. Nothing. I haven't even got my own photos. Here's one from Nick:



Worst post ever...

Ursus Trees and Puff Daddy

Ursus Trees on Saturday with Steve and Nick. We left the parking lot at the same time as several large groups and there must have been 25 people strung out along the track. It was crazy. Thankfully for everyone a lot of folks went up Grizzly Shoulder and others peeled off to various destinations along the way until eventually we were breaking trail up Ursus Minor Ridge. Coming down it was the same story as it has been all season -- great skiing. We headed back early in order to be at the Visitor Centre in time for a "Winter Permit Orientation Session".

Ah yes, the bureaucracy of skiing in Roger Pass. There have been many changes to the permit system since last winter. One is that there is now an Annual Winter Permit that allows entry into the Winter Restricted Areas without having to obtain a daily permit. To get the pass you need to attend one of the orientation sessions. The permit is associated to your vehicle by license plate and has two parts: one with your photo on it that you carry on your person, and the other that you leave in your car.

It's hard to say at this point whether or not this is an actual improvement for skiers or if it's just a sop to the powers-that-be. On the one hand it will be convenient to not have to line up for a daily permit when intending to ski in a permit area (now officially called a "Winter Restricted Access" area). But that will only be the case when every member of the party has an Annual Winter Permit since those without an Annual Permit still require a daily permit. As well, the Winter Restricted Access areas will only be pronounced open or closed at around 7:30 each morning. Since there is limited cell phone coverage in the area (depends on your carrier) you pretty much have to be at the Visitors Centre to get the information anyway.

Dystopian nightmare? Remains to be seen. At least they're not charging us for any of these additional permits yet.

On Sunday Brenda and I went up Grizzly Shoulder with the idea of skiing Puff Daddy back down to the highway. We'd been there twice before; one time was great and the other time it was a fiasco. This time it was a little of both!

At first we recognized the terrain and enjoyed some nice skiing, but soon we were drawn into a steep gnarly gully and we realized that all was not well with the world. We were pretty committed at that point but the fear of a repeat fiasco drove us to put our skins on and thrash back up through some cliffs in the hope of finding a better way.

To make a long story short...

Yay! We found the twin slide paths that provide excellent skiing and popped out on the highway between the Visitors Centre and the Hermit trailhead.



I think the moral of the story is that it's pretty hard to go too far to skiers left on Puff Daddy.

Last thing of note. The hotel is much improved again this year (not that we stayed there, but we will). The buffet is cheaper, there's a well thought out dinner menu, and the pub fare looks great.

Alas there's much less weirdness. I kinda miss the weirdness.

Moe: "Nobody wants to hang out in a dank pit no more."
Carl: "You ain't thinkin' of gettin' rid of the dank are you Moe?"
Moe: "Ah maybe I am."
Carl: "Oh but Moe! The dank, the dank!?"

Malakwa

Harsh 6:00am alarms ringing in the darkness. A freezing cold house since the heat hasn't come on yet. Groans from underneath the covers. Severe misgivings about about going skiing today.

Day trips to Malakwa start with a real...whimper.

This was our first trip to Malakwa since January 2008. Access is dependent upon the logging company plowing the access road and it wasn't maintained last year. The kilometer 15 pullout was jammed with a dozen vehicles by 9:30 so we continued on to around kilometer 16 and had the place to ourselves. There isn't as much open skiing as there is around 15k, but the tree skiing is excellent.

It's been an incredible start to the season. Two meters of snow at treeline in mid-November? Wow.

Après-ski drinkies at The Burner featured Mount Begbie's Attila the Honey. I'm no expert (Pat?) put this is a good beer.

No pictures (of beer or skiing). Camera on the fritz. Again.

Asulkan Cabin

The most uneventful start to the season ever?

No mud. No sticks or rocks. No cow patties. No goofing around on daft patches of machine-made snow. No doubting the sanity of trying to push in some early skiing.

We simply drove to the pass, climbed to the hut, skied in midseason-like snow, and went home. What could be easier? I don't get it. No complaints though. A terrific start.