Glacier Circle Cabin

We sat dejectedly on our packs as the mist swirled thickly around us. Loops of wet purple rope lay between us in the snow. We were somewhere on the Illecillewaet Glacier, it was the Victoria Day long weekend, and it was still a very, very long way to the Glacier Circle Cabin.



This would almost certainly be our last ski trip of the season. Giving up now would be a disappointing way to end seven months of skiing. Besides, we were really looking forward to having a couple of days at the hut. So we pressed on. Occasionally there was a brief glimpse of Mt. Macoun and we quickly took a compass bearing (and tons of photos) but mainly we were navigating by GPS.



Traveling further and further onto the icefield a little seed of doubt began to grow in our minds; we weren't entirely confident of being able to find our way down the other side once we got there. Brenda and I had been this way once before but that had been on a beautiful summer's day. We weren't sure of being able to repeat it in a complete whiteout. There is an alternative descent via the Witch Tower to the west but that would add a few kilometers of unfamiliar terrain to the journey. Better the devil you know as they say.

After many hours the GPS told us that we had reached the high point near Macoun. Very tired, we stripped off our skins, and not without a little trepidation, began skiing down in roughly the right direction. The angle was gentle at first and we slowly lost elevation, peering through the mist, keeping a wary eye for crevasses. As the glacier rolled off and our speed began to pick up there seemed to be a slight brightening around us; the mist kind of changed from grey to white. We kept going. Now the visibility was definitely improving as we could just make out the ridge coming down from Macoun. The more elevation we lost the better it became. Then quite suddenly we dropped out of the cloud and there was the Deville Glacier across the valley, Mount Fox and Mount Selwyn, everything! It was amazing. The transition was so sudden, and so magical after being worried for hours. We were elated.







We weren't there yet of course. Snow that transitioned from slush to ice in the space of six inches provided it's share of heartbreaking moments with our big packs, and finding our way down the ramp wasn't quite as straightforward as we had hoped.



But before long, just as a snow squall began dumping thick wet snow flakes on us, there was the cabin, and we were sooo happy to be there.



It's a magical spot glacier circle; the history, the isolation, the stunning scenery, the effort it takes just to get there; all make it an exceptional place to visit. We stayed for two nights and reveled in every moment. We drank gallons of tea, chopped wood, dried our boots in front of the wood stove, watched some interesting ducks on the half frozen lake, took naps, and watched through the open door as snow squalls whirled passed the cabin.

And as if it couldn't get more idyllic, at least for me, I came across a book named "Among the Selkirk Glaciers" by William Spotswood Green. I had been looking for this book for years and had assumed that it was simply unavailable. First published in 1890 it's an account of a visit by the very first climber and explorer to visit Rogers Pass just a few years after the area became accessible by train. He was the first to survey and map the Illecillewaet and Asulkan drainages and made the first ascent of Mount Bonney among others. It was fascinating to read about his adventures 120 years ago in the very places that we had just traveled over to get to the cabin. I tracked down the publisher and now have my own copy to marvel over at home.

The discovery of an old pipe and tobacco had us trying to emulate Chic Scott's iconic photo of Ron Robinson, Dave Smith, Don Gardner and himself at Glacier Circle Cabin in 1973.





Those guys define cool. We on the other hand...

Our second morning at the cabin dawned with blue skies and we chose to try and return by the Witch Tower. It was a stunning setting. Avalanches regularly came down off Fox as we kicked steps in slush-over-ice with sweat streaming down our faces in the hot sun. We gave Fox a wide berth.







The Witch Tower route is far more straight forward than the Macoun route, but it's really steep and feels more exposed than the Macoun side. You'd definitely want good stability to come this way. This gives a rough idea of our route in and out.



After a few hours we joined our original track from two days ago and made our way back across the glacier. The return journey has much more downhill and what had taken us hours to climb up we gleefully skied back down in a matter of minutes. Things were getting pretty marginal by the time we got near treeline and it turned into real character building stuff as we got near the highway.





Nevertheless it was a great trip to a great place with great people. Thanks to Nick and Steve and everyone else for a great winter in sometimes trying conditions. We look forward to next year and let's all pray that we don't hear the acronym PWL any time soon. Only five months until ski season!

South Twin / Columbia Icefields

from    Ross
to      Andrew
date    Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 12:12 PM
subject Re: Columbia
Yes it's a bit of work, however you know that you'll have to do it 
sooner or later and face it, you're not getting younger!

Ross doesn't do subtle; but I will admit that this little barb finally did convince me (ie: provoke me) into making a trip with him to the Columbia Icefields. Remarkably Brenda was keen as well and two weeks later, under towering packs, we made our way towards the upper reaches of the Athabasca Glacier to access the Columbia Icefields beyond.



The route up the Athabasca forces you along a narrow bench that threads its way between an icefall on the left and hanging seracs on the right. During our ski up the glacier we hadn't seen any activity from the seracs, and there was little sign of any recent debris. Predictably, just as we were making final preparation to dash underneath the seracs, a large chunk crashed down onto the glacier. Followed by another a few minutes later. You can make out the dust cloud.



Needless to say we sprinted across to the other side. After this there wasn't much else to do except put our heads down and endure the long tough grind further and further up onto the icefield. This we did this for next several hours. Thankfully the ever expanding vista of spectacular scenery distracted us from our heavy loads. It's an amazing place on a massive scale; everything is just so far away.



After 10 hours of toil we finally ran out of steam. In an ocean of white the very spot that we were standing seemed as good a place as any to set up camp so we shrugged off our leaden packs and dug in the tent.



We had an excellent supper and we were all in bed before it was dark. Ross had warned us of the potential for really cold temperatures and I had borrowed an expedition grade sleeping bag so voluminous that it single handedly endangered the world's Eider duck population. It was a cozy night. The morning dawned cold and clear giving us a great view of South Twin, our destination for the day.



North Twin is on the right and South Twin is on the left. The route crosses the glaciated face of North Twin from right to left and climbs to the col between the two peaks. From there we would drop down and then climb back up South Twin along it's right skyline.

That's pretty much how things went except that it all took about three times longer than even our most conservative estimates. Everything is just...so....BIG. And far away. The place is colossal. It took ages just to get to North Twin. The traverse across the face seemed to go on for hours. The drop down into the col and the climb back out seemed an eternity. By the time we had swapped skis for crampons below the summit ridge we were having serious doubts about the endeavor.



The altitude and hot sun began to take their toll. We soldiered on in the quiet heat with tongues hanging out of our mouths, up and over one heart breaking false summit after another.



Finally, at 4:00, my altimeter read 3540 meters and there was nowhere else to go but down.



I wouldn't say that we were elated or anything. Quietly satisfied perhaps? I suspect we were all thinking that it was a long, long way back home!

I won't prolong this blog post with too many details of getting back down. We left the summit under a warm afternoon sun and by the time we reached the tent it was nearly dark and we were wearing every stitch of clothing against the biting wind. Dinner, gallons of hot tea, and sweet, sweet bed.

It was an easy trip out the next day; blissfully downhill most of the way. We delighted, and I mean really delighted, the folks in the snocoaches.



And then the final grind up the snocoach road back to the car.



Climbing peaks on the Columbia Icefields is like repeatedly banging your head against a wall...it feels really good when you stop. So good that I think Ross could provoke me into going again next year. How many 11,000'ers are there Ross?

Complete photos are here.

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.