Shane headed back to Calgary last night. Adam and I turned off the alarm and slept til 8:30. We weren't exactly motivated - defeat, coupled with being tired and sore along with knowledge of the warm temperatures yesterday led to a very leisurely departure.

I headed to the only place that was close that would hopefully still have good snow - Zander's Zip was the only chute off of Moose Peak that didn't have tracks in it. The day turned worse when we found that a snowshoer had poached the up track from the road, across the small lake. It took a small turn for the better when they turned around part way up to the base of the Moose Chute. The up track was icy and the snowshoer wasn't the only poacher. The other one had four legs and probably wouldn't have said "meow" if we'd met. Slowly, painfully, but steadily we gained the top of Moose Peak. With dead calm winds and sunny skies with minimal clouds, we spent over an hour on the summit soaking in the views and reflecting on yesterday. The views to the Herbst Glacier and Galloway bowl were a bit tinged with a bit of regret - the forecast was right. The views down the Akamina Pass also had a bit of regret too - with blue skies we could have found something to ride down there.

Before even dropping in for the first turns of the day, we were also quite sure that winter was over for the moment. We could see the results of the warm weather on exposed aspects, had climbed up through the protected aspects and still seen bad things, and knew that there were a lot of tracks hiding in the usual spots. Until the snow flies again, this place is done.

We picked our way through the cliff bands to the top of Zander's Zip. For a few fleeting seconds all negativity was removed. I chased Adam down through some powder without a care in the world, but soon enough the effects of yesterday's warmth was encountered. Some cautious turns soon led us to the lake and back to the cross country snowboard. The day wasn't quite over yet though - we'd noticed what looked like a snowboard track on the ridge beside the Rowe Bowl. A very odd choice given recent weather. I had to investigate since I was positive I hadn't seen a skin track in there this morning (or yesterday, or last week, or since I'd been up there almost a month ago - the wind and sun had ruined it and there hasn't been enough snow to fix it since). The investigation revealed a boot pack. We were dumfounded. Someone had bootpacked the whole thing - what looked like a snowboard track up on the ridge was actually the up. We saw no evidence of a descent - maybe a snowboarder was still climbing this late in the day, maybe the bootpacker had keeled over, or maybe a special agent from the department of homeland security was climbing back up to the top of this Canadian peak to rendezvous with his Blackhawk?

A measly 2,670 feet. I'm licking my wounds and sulking for a few days then off to the Kootenays for a Yurt trip with the Moose & co.

Karma almost got this snowshoer - poaching and messing up our up track - they almost fell through this snow bridge.


Another poacher. Cougar? Lynx? House cat?


The plinko line through the cliff bands of the upper Herbst probably could have had our tracks on them today.


These were the bowls across the valley yesterday. Like most around here, there are cliff bands running across them that may have prevented most lines.


Lemming Lane was tracked out, now it's full of frozen debris from several point releases.


Vandals are everywhere... this one's for you Moose!

Adam and Shane arrived late Friday night and drew straws over the foldout couch vs. the floor with mat and sleeping bag. We made plans today for a trip to the Galloway Bowl after discarding Agassiz Glacier as too far for a single night trip. We similarly discarded Lone Mountain as it's also quite far and could be a long walk for marginal turns. The possibility of poor snow existed due to the lower elevations and unknown quantity or quality of alpine terrain. Galloway Bowl offers up a 1,000 foot descent from 8,000 feet on a pure north aspect. It also has some backup tree runs nearby with a nw aspect.

We loaded up at the buffet breakfast before loading the heavy packs and starting out from the parking lot. Just as we were leaving an avalanche forecaster with the park pulled up to do the weather observations. We chatted and I made the mistake of divulging our plans. I don't hide the fact that we travel to the states - yes it's probably technically illegal, but it's a bit more grey than it seems at first glance. My park and the one south of the border are part of an international peace park. There are hiking trails, including the aptly named Boundary Trail that meanders back and forth across the 49th without a requirement to clear customs. In the summer if you rent a canoe and paddle to the far end of Cameron Lake, you also cross the same line. I've run into both park forecasters on the wrong side of the line before and they've their discussed day trips south of the line. I even have a picture of a pit the one dug in Amercia for his recent Avalanche forecast in Canada. They've discouraged it as an activity that one shouldn't undertake, but never expressly forbidden it and I don't think they could enforce it even if they wanted to. One also needs to consider the geography at play as well - upon crossing the 49th here, you are a minimum of 2-3 days of difficult travel by foot through mountainous terrain to the nearest form of civilization in the winter. I don't think that loading up a back pack with 3 days of food and a few pounds of illicit cargo wouldn't appeal to most smugglers?

Anyhow, this particular morning the forecaster decided to plant a seed of fear about being barred from entering the states if we were caught and went as far as to suggest that he'd talked to a group of American researchers who had a Blackhawk helicopter hover over their heads a few days ago. He even threw in that the forecast was calling for an inversion and the upper elevations of the Galloway Bowl wouldn't be very good. Ironically enough, Adam and I, along with two others have first tracks in the Galloway Bowl, but it was this same forecaster who suggested the name for it, assisted with travel plans, and congratulated us after the fact with the words "Skookum job lads".

In view of all of this, I stopped at the Akamina Pass trail head, which is a scant 15 minutes from the parking lot and decided to make sure everyone was still comfortable with the mission. The risk was generally agreed to be extremely minute, but the consequences of being barred from entering or working in the States led us to plan b - Lone Mountain.

We headed west down the pass and then starting a slow climbing traverse of Mt. Rowe. We needed to travel about 4 miles and we didn't think gaining the 8,000 foot summit of Rowe and then following the ups and downs of the ridge only to wind up around the 7,200 foot drop into the Blakistan Creek drainage made much sense, so once we hit 7,200 feet our slow climbing traverse turned into a side hill walk. This continued until we encountered the bowl, which looked small enough on the maps, but to follow this elevation all the way around it would add considerable time and effort. It was about a 4-500 foot descent down into the treed bowl and then an equivalent climb up the far side. After a bit of debate, we opted to split ski the descent. A few crashes and a couple of linked turns later we were at the bottom in the canyon style creek bed and starting to gain the other side. I was in the lead breaking trail, when I found my path blocked by a branch - not that uncommon - breaking them off or ducking under them is as routine as anything. This one snapped where I wasn't expecting it to and the remainder came back to hit me in the chest with thud. Whew, lucky that didn't have anything sharp on it... I continued on up the steeper section in search of a natural ramp we'd spied from the other side of the bowl. A few minutes later I pulled out my gps to see where I was in relation to the ramp. It was then I learned that the screen on the gps was shattered. Shit!

Both Shane and Adam own a gps as well - complete with topo data and they'd both brought them on the trip - but they were back at the hotel. My paper map was also there - with the planned trip to the Galloway Bowl, I didn't feel the need to bring a paper back up - I know the terrain there pretty well. The clouds were low and we weighed our options. We were confident we could find the drop spot, but exploring Lone Mountain area without a map in cloudy conditions didn't sound like a lot of fun. The forecast was for clearing skies, but what if they didn't? Looking across the valley revealed some quasi-alpine bowls, but nothing that screamed out come ride me. Looking at our watches, we figured we could descend to the valley, pick up the Akamina Pass Trail, make it back to Cameron Lake, up the Summit Ridge and down into Boundary Creek area - more or less our original plan.

The creek bed canyon proved flat on the bottom with steep walls. We slowly picked our way up and out of the canyon, traversed a bit, switched over to snowboard mode and attempted to traverse back towards the east. However the canyon had other plans and despite our best traverse efforts soon lured us in once again. Attempts to ride the creek bed out were met with open water and a ton of dead fall. We skinned up and out of the canyon again where we elected to split ski through alder, more dead fall, small creeks and various other obstacles. Upon reaching the valley floor we bisected it and couldn't find the Akamina Pass Trail. At around 2:30 we finally stopped for lunch. Getting the 50 lb packs off was a treat. Camp here, explore whatever we could see tomorrow? Keep moving east? We slogged through more challenging terrain before finally coming across the Wall Lake trail. A lot more walking brought us to the boundary cut line running to Forum Ridge. Continuing to follow the trail would take us to the road, which would still require a walk to get to Cameron Lake, so we opted for the cut line with plans to descend from the base of Forum Ridge to the lake. It's a route I'd never taken before but had heard of people skinning up. I expected a flattish descent in split ski mode but of course did not get it. We should have snowboarded it but didn't - just par for the course today. At 5pm we finally staggered to the lake. The same lake that is a 30-40 minute walk from the parking lot. The same lake that the moose has one skinned in just over 10 minutes (albeit not with a 50 lb pack)

Exhausted we briefly debated gaining Summit Ridge and pitching a tent up there. With an hour of daylight left, setting up camp and cooking in the dark that close to the parking lot seemed trivial. The allure of real food and a hot shower proved too strong. We pulled the pin and skinned back to the vehicles.

It's hard not to second guess the decisions... should we have stuck to the original plan? Should we have brought an extra gps? A paper map? Continued without navigation on the second plan? Camped in the valley? Camped at Cameron Lake? Blackhawk helicopters? In retrospect, I remember hearing a helicopter once in 3 years and 60+ days in my park.

A definite learning experience and by far the hardest 2,860 feet of my life. Outside of a short lunch break and a couple of times we switched from skins to boards, the packs were on our backs for over 9 hours.

It still works. It logged data right up to impact where it must have turned itself off. A replacement is already on order. It will stay in the same outside pocket for easy reference, but I will remember to place the screen in towards me!


Heavy packs! Getting ready for the first snowboard "turns" of the day.


The bottom canyon was hell with open water and dead fall.


I got lucky here and stayed on my feet when this snow bridge collapsed. I was smart enough not to be trying the balance beam over creeks.


Heavy packs and split ski descents equals spectacular crashes. You often needed to unstrap from your pack before you could right yourself.


Three Robertson screws and a multi-driver provided access for a quick pit stop.


The end of the line. Our planned drop point was through 094 to EdwinLoneDrop - then around the ridge of Festeuburt to the base of Lone Mountain. We could have potentially explored the bowls near the bottom of screen on the south side of the pass, but they didn't look overly appealing.

I took the last three days off. A holiday from a holiday? Things pile up in your absence and it takes a while to get caught back up. I was worried when I saw the weather station reporting plus 3 Celsius yesterday as there's been no new snow lately. I came out late last night with the plan to get an early start... although it was 9AM before I started the cross country snowboard. I had plans for 3-4 laps off of Moose Peak since the up was already in and it was lightly tracked thanks to a smaller than normal day on Monday.

I became worried that it'd been poached during my hiatus when I saw tracks exiting from where the up starts to climb again from the bench that is Summit Saddle. Why they were exiting there was a mystery, but the only way to solve it was to keep climbing. I soon stumbled across what I think was a pit dug by the forecasters here in the park. It was just short of the point where you cross the Moose Chute. Thankfully they stayed off the up on their descent, but it looked like they skied over to Summit Lake after? Dunno. Just glad to see they left me the goods!

Despite warm temperatures and largely sunny skies the past 3 days, things stood up well. The first lap I enjoyed turns in the treed triangle above the cliff band before picking my way through the cliffs and down into the chute that is just beside Zander's Zip. It's quite v shaped - much like the Moose Chute - so it's probably a two to three person maximum as well except on the deepest of days. It's a new one for me and I've coined it Zipper Left.

On the second climb just after refueling at the food cache, I heard something snap. Things have been breaking quite a bit lately. I just had my pack repaired by an "industrial seamstress" the other day. This time it was the climbing bar on the left ski. So much for 3-4 laps? I wasn't far from the flatter summer trail section of the up where I normally put the bars down anyway, but there are sections of the climb where not having the bar sucked. I tried lopsided and didn't enjoy it. I also tried stretching it out with no bars on either foot and didn't like that it either. I probably could have toughed it out for my 3-4 laps, but with a planned camping mission this weekend, I didn't really want to strain or pull a muscle, so I went slow and rested quite a bit in the steep sections.

I soon found myself at the point where Tyler, the Moose and I dropped on the first lap Monday. I opted to avoid the very steep section above here and drop towards the Piggot Chute. I figured I might as well get the other remaining chutes on this face. One which Y's into Piggot proper, and then the adjoining one lower down. The adjoining one is right when Piggot opens up, so it's hard to force yourself over. It's actually a very thin band of trees separating them and it looks like the Moose veered over into the lower section on Monday. Named them The Piggot Y and Piggot Left since it's pretty much all the same chute anyway....

Down at the bottom, the watch was showing just over 4,000 feet and 1PM. I didn't feel like climbing the whole thing again, but it was way too early for a departure. I climbed back up to the cache, loaded up the pack and told myself I would point it downhill when the watch said 5,000 feet. It soon did and I found some good turns in the trees from a spot most people probably wouldn't pick to drop from just shy of the saddle. Total up today was 5,100 feet thanks to the extra bit of vertical you pick up on the cross country snowboard to the parking lot.

Shot from the Moose Chute crossing, this is the slight downhill section where the Moose probably lost my Voile strap. It seems either the forecasters found something they didn't like in their pit or more likely, they know this is our terrain and decided to steer clear.


Mt. Chapman in the back, hoar factory in the front.


One of the possible destinations for tomorrow's camping trip - the Agassiz Glacier is hiding out of sight down there under Kinnerly Peak (the closer pyramid shaped one). I believe the one in the back is Kintla, which is actually a bit taller.


The Galloway Bowl is another possible camping destination. It's a much shorter walk than the Agassiz Glacier.


Broken climbing bar.


I have the pieces, but they're useless. Luckily I travel with the extra board. I think I'll rob the hardware off the Spearhead and put it on the Khyber.


I'm convinced there's a line off the Moose Peak into what we call Moose Bowl. This isn't it.


Piggot Left offered up untouched and surprisingly good snow.


A bad photo looking back up Zipper Left. It turns into not much more than a creek bed down low.


The lace retention clip on my Driver X's broke a while ago. There's no easy fix for this as the piece is riveted on and you can imagine how long it'd take to get a replacement piece from Burton. Is it time to finally bite the bullet and jump on the Dynafit bandwagon?


Two days worth of tracks - Piggot Proper, Piggot Y into Proper, then over into Piggot Left, Zipper Left, and Moose Chute. In the very middle is Zander's Zip which hasn't seen tracks in almost a month!

Tyler called last night looking to get out for his second day of the year. His first was way back in October. I'd already had a date with the Moose for today and knew that the two were probably not a good fit for uphill, but figured a slower lap or two would be ok, then we could bag another one or two when fatigue set in. Tyler crashed on the couch last night and we met the Moose for 8am at the upper parking lot.

We headed for his name sake and it quickly became apparent that I'd misjudged the situation. I felt bad for everyone involved, but there's no undo button. We dropped Piggot at about 12:15 or so and found terrific turns down to the bottom. Tyler bailed after the first lap and the Moose I scurried up for a second. This time we did some "preventative maintenance" on the Moose Chute and enjoyed what might have been the best lap of the year. It was nicely filled in and we did our best to make sure we slashed the hoar out of any pockets.

It was 2:30 and that would normally mean ample time for at least another lap, but the Moose had a time constraint today, so we pulled the pin and cross country snowboarded back to the vehicle. Total up was 4,390, but we had an early enough start that 3 laps would have been a gimme and 4 would have been a very good possibility, even with the no-head-lamp exit time constraint. Two laps are better than none I guess and hopefully everyone was more or less stoked with the outcome.

I'm still getting used to the timing of the shutter on the new small camera. It's burst mode isn't quite quick enough to hold down the shutter and hope for the best. Tyler in between turns.


Tyler just a split second before a slash.


Mandatory photo op.


The view from Moose Peak of the Knobs (Summit and Warden's) along with the Herbst Glacier trying to hide in the clouds.

Adam came out for his second day of the season and we awoke to a few inches of new snow in town, with maybe a bit more at the upper parking lot. It continued to snow as we cross country snowboarded to the far end of the lake, but by the time we were half way up Grizzly Pass the snow had stopped and the blue skies looked like they were on their way in.

We headed up the south side of pass towards the smaller of the two chutes I'd seen on the ridge. The plan was to take a look and bag it if it looked good and if not, just enjoy a longer powder run down to the meadows. With only a bit of exploring, I found the entrance, but from the angles I could see it almost looked like there was a small mandatory at the bottom. I didn't have the image on the camera anymore, but from memory, I was pretty positive it went and that there was only two chutes on the ridge. By process of elimination this had to be the one, right? None of this gave Adam a whole bunch of confidence when I offered to let him have first tracks. I'd also given him the Venture to try today - nothing like making your first turns of the day on a new (rockered) board on only your second day of the season into the unknown. He made a couple of timid turns into the chute until his line of sight permitted him to confirm there was no mandatory, then stepped on the gas pedal and charged the rest of it and the slope beneath. I was right behind him and felt a bit timid myself being back on a cambered board. A few turns and it felt like home being back on the Khyber though. Adam named this one Indecision Chute for fairly obvious reasons.

From the bottom of the meadows, we opted to recycle my up to the Herbst thanks to the mostly blue skies. With snow in the forecast for today, we were stoked to be able to get up high and enjoy the views. Near the top of the ramp, we opted to boot pack rather than put in switchbacks and we gained the ridge in no time. From there we continued to skin up with plans on getting up above at least one of the cliff bands. The weather had other plans and with the ceiling dropping, we were turned back at about the same height as I'd made it to solo. I headed for the other exit that dumps directly into the meadows this time. It has a bit of a tight choke with blue ice on the one side which concerned me a bit, but once above it and looking down, I was a lot more confident. Even if there was ice beneath the choke, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. In the end there was no ice and soft turns were enjoyed down to the meadow. I named this exit the Herbst Hallway and after talking a bit we decided to go back the for the only remaining chute on this ridge.

I put in the up to gain Grizzly Pass then tied into the first up of the day. A few switchbacks higher brought us to Big Decision. We'd named it before we even started to climb - it seemed to fit given the Indecision name for the smaller one. It's a bigger chute with larger consequences on a poor stability day (which today wasn't). It looked to be a straight shot when viewed from the bottom, with just one piece of rock to maneuver around. As it turns out, Big Decision was a very apt name when viewed from the top. That one piece of rock turned out to be a very pointy mandatory and the path beside it was very tight and in very close proximity to a cliff band that was littered with icicles. The big decision in this case was will this snow hold? Can I get a turn in before the choke? And what's around the corner? In the end, there were too many questions so the Big Decision was to leave it for another day when there's either more snow or we have a rope. Plan B involved descending what we'd just climbed and then dumping into the trees which we'd skinned up through to gain the pass. This resulted in probably the best snow of the day.

Once again down in the meadows, I opted to recycle the up to East Knob from a few days ago. We soon crossed the border and headed for the bowling alley. We found an untracked lane with great powder all the way down to the lake. Once down and skinning back across the lake, we saw evidence of quite a few groups making laps off the knob today. Talking to the Moose tonight, he'd counted about 15 people including his own group today. That might make it one of the busiest days I've seen n my park, although today I spent most of my time in that other park south of the border.

Total up today was 5,510 feet, probable first descents were 2, and number of people seen where we were riding was 0. Today put me over 200,000 feet for the season. It was my 42nd of the year and I rode 22 of 31 days in January.

Adam gains the south side of Grizzly Pass en route to Indecision Chute.


Indecision in action! "Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the chute - you go first, I'll take your picture, oh yeah, there might be a mandatory, but I think it goes!"


Right about now he can see that it does go...


... so he went (just a little too fast for the small camera to catch him)


My track left of the tree island, Adam's right of it and those sweet turns on the far right are my split ski ones from yesterday


Big Decision from beneath. It's steeper and looks to be an easy line with only one rock to dodge


Booting up the ramp just shy of the ridge.


Losing the blue as Adam skins up the Herbst Glacier.


Adam coming down the Herbst Hallway just above the choke with the blue ice on his right.


Big Decision from the top.


Adam taking a look from another angle.


The ice band we were concerned about along with jagged rocks to a mostly blind landing.


Google earth screen cap of most of today's turns.

I travel with backups of just about everything - two boards, extra bindings, two pairs of poles, etc. I managed to forget both pairs of poles this morning, so after arriving at the trail head at 9:15 with the Moose and Mrs. Moose, I had to bail and return at 10:00 with the poles. They'd made a partial lap off the Knob before joining me in heading up Grizzly Pass. We tried a lap off the head wall with little success as the wind had messed things up.

We gained the pass again and then dropped down to the meadows. I split skied the whole thing and linked turns. We recycled the up towards Herbst Glacier until we gained the Warden's Knob where we soon found a tree that the Moose like. For reasons still not clear, he climbed it and I took a picture.

We dropped down the east aspect to the creek and found much better snow. From there we recycled my other up of a few days ago and dropped to the north, finding much better snow. One final climb up from boundary creek to the Knob and a lap down the Landing Strip where things are starting to get pretty tracked out, but there were still pockets of soft. Total up was 5,460 feet.

Looking down on the lake from the first drop.


The Moose getting an extra 15 feet of vertical.


There are some big cliffs and chutes on the east aspect of the Warden's Knob.

The winds picked up over night and were forecast to be active during the day along with mostly clear skies. I decided to head for the Galloway Bowl with hopes of getting some views to the Herbst Glacier that weren't afforded last spring when we made the trek for the first time ever.

I recycled the up and dropped from the same spot on the backside of the knob. The wind had beat me and the open slope was mostly toast already. This time I descended until I couldn't anymore rather than traversing over towards Herbst. Skins on I was relying on memory and a handful of gps waypoints from last spring. I really need to get the US topo data soon! I got a bit off track and gained some elevation, only to have to give it away. In the dense forest at the bottom of the valley it's virtually impossible to see any landmarks. There are numerous creeks to cross, most of which are at the bottoms of fairly steep banks.

Soon enough I started to gain the ridge, which we didn't name last year, so I'm going to call it H.S. Ridge. That may or may not stand for Homeland Security Ridge. The wind hadn't been able to penetrate down into the forest so trail breaking was light to moderate. Eventually the distinctive east ridge appeared followed shortly by the buttress at the top of the Galloway bowl. I made my way to the bottom and debated making a lap. It's an extra 1,000 feet of trail breaking and it'd be a shame to come all this way and not bag it, but time wasn't on my side. I opted to head down via the same exit we'd taken last spring. It was also left unnamed, but given that it's on the H.S. Ridge, it's only natural to call it H.S. Chute. Could that be the Holy Shit Chute? There is one a bit to the south that looks to have a pretty big mandatory in the middle of it. This one goes all the way and is probably called Homeland Security Chute. I grabbed some nice photos of Herbst Glacier before enjoying great turns all the way down.

I opted to take a different route back home this time. I had broken in the up from the Grizzly Pass meadow a few days ago so all I needed to do was skirt the one high point between me and the meadow and then recycle the up. A couple of creek crossings led me to the base of the high point and I changed my mind - rather than going around it, I was going to climb it. I soon gained the top of it, named it Warden's Knob (we once ran into park warden's on the wrong side of the 49 - they were on their way back from skiing this feature), and made a half dozen turns down to the meadow. The up track soon became filled with hard slab, while the adjoining snow was scoured, but with a very light wind crust. It was easier to re-break than to deal with the side slipping when the skin track wide hard slab would break with each step. Not what I'd hoped for as it burned time and energy - both things I was running short on.

I finally crested Summit Ridge and headed for the Hook. It offered up more good turns thanks to the shelter. I bailed on the open slopes that normally greet you at the end of the Hook and instead traversed over to just beside Christmas Tree Hell before enjoying a few more sheltered powder turns down the lake.

The wind on the lake was down right miserable - goggles and big gloves until I hit the shore. Head lamp came on near the Akamina Pass trail head and I finally arrived at the vehicle after 13.9 miles and 6,270 feet.

Herbst Glacier from the road before the lake. It's right there in plain view, but doesn't look feasible. It's an illusion due to the ridge blending into the actual face.


Hoar was growing again. The current storm snow buried a layer as well. Hopefully the wind strips it all clean back to the melt/freeze crust.


The Galloway Bowl and Chapman Peak.


Partway up H.S. Ridge provides this view of Herbst Glacier. The ramp I climbed a couple of days ago is to the lookers right of the vertical tree band.


If the skies were blue I don't know that I could have resisted tracking it. I could have saved some time on the way out by not going up Warden's Knob.


Starting earlier might help, eh? Just shy of 4,000 feet to get here.


From the top of H.S. Ridge, the complete view of Mt. Custer, the Herbst Glacier, and the Warden's Knob.


A closer view of the east side of Warden's Knob. I dropped the other side down to Grizzly Pass meadows.


I crossed a lot of creeks today usually tip toeing on narrow snow bridges. Falling in isn't an option!


There's always a way across, sometimes it takes a while to find it.


From the top of Warden's Knob, a view up to the col that would give you Chapman.


Also from the top of Warden's Knob, a view up at the Herbst Glacier.


Looking up from Grizzly Pass meadows at the Herbst Glacier.


Next time I'm up there, I'm taking this exit rather than the ramp.


About half a dozen turns coming off Warden's Knob. There's far less relief dropping this side, but it does get you closer to home. The other side will have to wait for another day.


Google Earth screen cap.

Greg Hill famously climbed 1,000,000 feet in a season a few years ago. He skis big lines and climbs like a mountain goat, but now he's on a new quest.....

2,000,000 feet in a calendar year starting as of January 1st, 2010. The math is stunning - 365 days means if he skied every single day he'd need 5,480 each time. Even with a planned trip to the southern hemisphere, riding every single day isn't going to happen.

He is an inspiration to the entire touring community and some day, somewhere, in some hemisphere, I'd like to share a skin track with him. I know the Moose would as well. With a lofty goal like he has this year, I think we'll need to starting punching out 5 digit days on a fairly regular basis though before we get our shot...

The forecast was for clear skies and calm winds, so I continued with yesterday's theme of exploring new areas. I headed for the small zone I'd missed seeing for several years until I took a closer look from the top of Moose Peak with the dslr. I headed up Akamina Pass and took the summer trail towards Forum Lake.

The Moose tracked out Lemming Lane on Sunday and had said he saw people in this zone - as I neared and saw what looked like snowboard and ski tracks I wondered if the people he saw was actually the Moose Posse. Once I started up the skin track I quickly dismissed that idea as it was very shallow and very poacher friendly. Definitely not a Moose up. It was a short climb to the col where I peaked down at Wall Lake and tried to remember where that chute was. I couldn't find anything that for sure went, so I continued on up the ridge towards the triangle. The group from Sunday was dropping quite low, but the more interesting terrain is up higher. I started skinning up and quickly got forced into boot packing. I switched back to skins once before going back to boot packing again. The snow was quite faceted around the rocks and made for slow progress. Once I gained the high point of what I'm going to call the Alpine Triangle (homage to the Tree Triangle in the Asulkan Valley at Rogers Pass), I decided to keep on exploring. The chute run I wanted would have been fun but it will have to wait for another day as I elected to continue the ridge walk.

The Akamina Ridge is supposed to be one of the better ridge walks in the Rockies. I'd never been up before - summer or winter. Super scoured and monster cornices were the norms. Nearing the first high point, I saw the summit of Custer and quickly realized it'll never see turns from the top. After the first high point, there were three more to gain and descend from. It was a lot of walking and down climbing, but it allowed to me to scout terrain to the south that I've been obsessing over via Google Earth and topo maps. So much beautiful terrain. Definitely some disappointments (the Rockies will do that to you), but still lots of rideable terrain that I'll wager has never seen turns. I even found the Pterodactyl of my park - well technically it's in the adjoining BC provincial park, but that one's mine too.

I soon found my way down to the top of Bennet Pass which I'd ridden from the bottom up on Thanksgiving this year. This time there was enough snow to ride it from the top, but it was corniced in spots and I was worried about dust on crust. I found a route to down climb and came up against the hardest snow of the day. Slowly but surely I found my way to a point where I could finally convert to downhill mode. The first ten or so turns had me puckering and wishing I had an ice axe, but this soon gave way to glorious powder. I rode all the way down to Wall Lake and then took the very long cross country snowboard back to the vehicle. I was able to de-skin and slide sideways down the Akamina Pass trail and with some double poling managed to keep sliding sideways almost all the way to the vehicle. A long day with not many turns, but some amazing views. Total up was 4,230 feet and distance covered was a half marathon (13.1 miles!) I also managed to break the lower lace retention thing on my boot in the morning while gearing up and during the course of the day, also managed to break the upper strap on my pack. The pack was an easy fix, but the boots will turn out to be a pain in the ass.

The Alpine Triangle had some tracks, but the more interesting features are accessed by climbing higher along the ridge.


Bennet Pass as seen from the col.


Nearing the top of the boot pack


High points 2, 3, and 4 as seen from below the first one.


Chapman and that one with the near sheer face before the summit is Custer.


From the first high point looking North to Mt. Rowe, Lineham and Blakistan. I've got 2 of the 3 bagged.


Looking up to high point #2 - this was the most difficult of the bunch.


If you look closely you can find Galloway Bowl in the middle of the picture.


A more complete view of Mt. Custer and the summit cap.


The next several photos are panning to the right or west....












When will I put tracks on here? Agassiz Glacier.... soon I hope.


2,000 foot northerly aspect tree shot anyone? Looks like maybe one cliff band.


Too Tight Ridge, Moose Peak, Carthew, Alderson, etc.


Long Knife, King Edward, Starvation and the local Pterodactyl (a prominent rock feature in the Asulkan Valley at Rogers Pass) equivalent


A closer view of the local feature. You don't even need a passport to visit as this one is north of the 49th. Long Knife to the south is close to the border.


Peering over the cornice into Bennet Pass.


Ski straps are super useful - it fixed my broken pack clasp.


The map. In hindsight, I should have bagged the summit of Forum Peak too, but it was 1/2 mile each way. It would have been nice to have the photo looking down onto Cameron Lake though.

The new feed can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Treepilotca

If you're not reading via RSS, you can continue to access the site normally at http://www.treepilot.ca/

One of my goals this winter is to explore new areas in my park. Lapping powder is fun, but with increased fitness it can tend to be become repetitive. I set out today to explore an area technically outside of my park as it's south of the 49th.

Herbst Glacier looked promising on the topo maps - it's a north east aspect off of Mt. Custer. It's a bit of a walk but that's why it's likely not seen tracks before. I left the vehicle at 9 and recycled the up from yesterday before dropping down into Boundary Creek. I started a traverse near about 3/4 of the way to the bottom rather than following it right down like we did last year for the Galloway Bowl. I soon ran out of traverse capability and switched to skins. I followed the contour around and soon arrived at the meadow beneath Grizzly Pass.

I trended to the climber's left and followed the large timber up and past a large horizontal cliff band. I soon found a natural ramp that permitted me to get past the next cliff band. It steepened up quite a bit and required numerous switchbacks, but the new storm snow was bonding quite nicely up here on this aspect. I eventually gained a ridge that gave me my first good look at the face in question. As is often the case, the face gets less and less steep looking the closer you get. There were some moraine looking features and a couple of recent loose snow avalanches were noted.

I followed the prominent rib up towards the base of the next cliff bands. I soon spied a couloir that dropped from the ridge. It looked to be the only line up to the visible ridge. There were some lines that would require some navigation through various cliff bands, but they seemed to terminate up high with impassible terrain. I departed the rib and headed towards the middle of the slope with plans for a closer look at the couloir. I put switchbacks into the loose snow bed surface and found the snow to be very soft. As I got closer, I could see a couple of thin rock bands hiding under the surface of the couloir and elected to stop the climb for today. It was almost completely blue and eerily calm. It's not often that my park (or the one south of the 49th) isn't windy, but this was the second straight day. With some more snow and a partner, I believe this couloir will see tracks this year.

I enjoyed terrific powder turns down the moraine before I descended down the steep ramp, hung a left and headed towards a gap in the lowest cliff band then down to the meadow. I was still on the wrong side of the knob and needed to gain the ridge to get home. There's some nice open spaces on this side of Summit Ridge and I slowly but surely busted in the required up. Near the top I was starting to feel it. I was just shy of 5,000 feet and about 70% of that was trail breaking. I opted for another lap and once again enjoyed more great powder turns down to the meadow. It seems the storm snow has consolidated a bit as I never felt a crust on this lap either. Once switched over and pointed back up hill, I thoroughly enjoyed the second climb thanks to my efforts on the first climb.

On top of Summit Ridge, I crossed back into my park and country, making sure to declare the powder turns I'd gotten while out of the country. I headed to the Scimitar and had a blast on the way down until I hit the apron above the peninsula. It had acquired a few death cookies, but they were confined to a fairly short band of elevation. Once through them it was all blower back down to the lake. One final switchover and then the long walk back to the vehicle. Total up today 6,180 and distance covered was 12.8 miles.

It was cold this morning with the weather station reporting -17C at 6,000 feet at 9am. At this point I've cross country snowboarded 2.5 miles and gained only about 100 feet or so.


From the top of the knob looking across Boundary Creek at the Galloway Bowl.


Grizzly Pass is the low point at the bottom of the picture, Herbst Glacier is behind and above the ridge that's just higher than the tree branch on the right.


Nearing the meadow beneath Grizzly Pass, the ridge from the last picture is suddenly a lot bigger looking!


Above the lowest cliff band and heading towards the ramp that leads through the next one.


The ramp.


It was steeper than it looked in the previous picture.


My first full look at the face of Mr. Custer. The true summit is higher and not visible from here.


It warmed up quite a bit during the day. No more icy beard.


Chapman Peak is just over 9,400 feet and looks like it would be a relatively easy summit - provided there was enough snow. Seems to be quite a few bare spots up the route that goes in behind the ridge where that massive rock walled couloir is. It goes, but I think you'd need to rappel into it - assuming you could gain the back side of that ridge.


Open terrain is always bigger than it looks. What looked like a short walk from the first ridge, turned out to be a bit of a walk. Moose Peak is the first high point on the left.


The only route up I could see. Two rock bands thinly covered down low and one right at the entrance.


Looking back up at my descent track.


Looking across the valley to my first drop of the day off the backside of the knob.


From the meadows beneath Grizzly Pass looking up at what I needed to gain, twice as it turned out, to get home.


Partway up, my track down from the Herbst Glacier is visible just in the the sun near the shadow line. The lowest cliff band is also visible - scale is hard to see, but they were 20 footers for sure. The route up Chapman is also in view. If you can gain that col, it looks to be a simple walk up the ridge.


Etiquette! I despise people who ride down up tracks. I also don't like seeing turns on, through or even near an up. In this case I ollied the up and caused no damage.


There's usually a border marker visible, but I guess we're having a good snow year. When's the last time you took a leak right on an international border? You can see the border cut line down the valley as well.


My gps doesn't have American topographic data (yet - gotta get it on order), so this screen cap of a free pdf will have to suffice.


Google earth screen cap.

After taking yesterday off to watch Treepilot Jr. link turns at his second snowboard lesson, I met up with the Moose and his skier friend Brian this morning at the usual spot. I was running a bit late, but we were starting the cross country snowboard by just before 9AM.

The park had gotten some snow that missed the surrounding ski hills. The weather station was reporting about 15 cms of new, but we found 25 to 30 up high. It was super light stuff over top of a thin layer of old consolidated snow, over top of a solid crust. The first few climbs were quite difficult with a lot of slipping and sliding, but the three of us eventually hammered out a pretty good up.

I made two laps down the landing strip, and one down the bowling alley. Brian was spent and headed back to the vehicle so the Moose and I made another lap coming down Knob North. Blower snow on all four laps, but I found myself holding back a bit due to buried cookies. Conditions should improve as this storm snow sets up a bit. I debated a fifth lap, but elected to save some for tomorrow. The days are getting noticeably longer - it was 4pm when I started the exit and there's enough light that you could still be riding up til 5:30pm.

No pictures today but another 6,270 added to the tally and I hit the halfway mark for 5,000+ days with #25.

I met Dave H. and Rich in town early and we were the first group to leave the parking lot up high at 7:30am. We were headed north to explore a new zone around Wolf Peak. There was supposedly a cabin somewhere up there too.

From the parking lot, we gained Cornice Ridge, then Buzz's ridge, then followed it around until we hit the high spot that I'd split skied from yesterday. We descended north from here through a nice chute with some decent snow, then toured straight north along a ridge that tees into a bowl above Waldie Lake. Google Earth and the topo maps suggested this might have a few entry points. We pretty much stumbled on a very promising one as soon as we gained the top. Dave took a few cautious steps down into the bowl and dug a pit. CTE(2) down 30 sudden planar followed by a few pretty clean CTM's down 60 and 80 or so fueled the retreat. It was a short shot, but had exposure on the fall line. We poked around a bit more and found a protected entrance via some trees. Nothing ended up moving and we enjoyed playing on the natural gullies down to the bottom of the bowl.

We toured north following the creek to Waldie Lake. There's no flat terrain beside the east and west edges of the lake as the mountain meets the lake, so any cabin would have to be at the north end - a half mile walk. We headed across the lake and soon found no cabin. Looking at the maps, we think it's closer to the end of the logging road, which is another mile and about 500 feet lower than the north end of the lake. Since we weren't planning on spending the night, the search for the cabin was abandoned and we stopped for lunch. This area offered up lines everywhere we looked - several big chutes and one large un-kootenay looking rock feature that would be more at home in Roger's Pass.

We headed east up to the smaller un-named lake under Wolf Peak and set our sites on the summit of Wolf. Yet more lines revealed themselves and we soon were nearing the summit. Once gaining the final ridge we saw that the summit is split into two pieces by a small channel. We opted for the northern summit and after picking our way through a few rocky bits descended down the north face and wrapped around to the east towards Pristine Pass. From there we toured up to the high point on the ridge between Pristine Pass and Windy Ridge. Several very appealing lines were encountered on the north face of this ridge, but we were running short on daylight. We dropped south towards the power lines and enjoyed some wide open old growth trees. Soon we ran out of usable down hill and switched to ski mode sans skins. Under the buzzing power lines and then out via someone's up track. 10 minutes of poling and we were at the Creston side parking lot. Thumbs illuminated by headlamp and the three of us were quickly given a ride back to the vehicle on the top of the pass. Total up today was 5,310 feet, we covered 11.3 miles, and found so many new things to go back and bag on another day.

Dave took this from where we dropped off the north side of Buzz's ridge. The prominent diagonal ridge is the one we followed up to Waldie Bowl. Wolf Peak is near the middle of the picture and the cut block from the exit is visible on the right edge of the photo.


Dave enjoys some turns in the small chute off the north side of Buzz's.


Switching over at the bottom of the first drop.


Top of the ridge looking down onto Waldie Lake


Room for a ton of turns in this large couloir.


Dave and Rich scoping out potential entrances to the bowl.


Dave took one for the team and dug this pit without a rope or harness.


This one looked enticing, but appeared to have a mandatory on the exit.


While skinning to the lake, we found this gem.


Dave snapped this picture of Rich and I on Waldie Lake heading north.


This shot reminds me of my park, but it's Wolf Peak far left, what we're calling Waldie Bowl (our entrance pretty much dead centre, and that huge rock feature on the right.


It doesn't look like the Kootenays does it?


I break trail while Dave takes photos of me and Wolf Peak.


With more time to scope it out, I would have liked to ride the dog leg chute on the looker's left. We ended up taking the treed slope above the rocks on the looker's right.


Looking down on Waldie Lake from just below the ridge just below the summit of Wolf Peak.


Dave's got the summit grin a few minutes early.


So close I can taste it. A good shot of the channel that divides the summits of Wolf Peak. We picked the left or North one.


A very short scramble gave us the summit. It turned out there was a slope to the east that we could have skinned up.


Summit of Wolf Peak.


Dave and my track on the right, Rich making tracks in the middle, up track on the right.


This is that dogleg chute from the bottom. Next time!


One of several appealing lines that dropped the wrong direction at the end of the day.


The tour.

I was solo again today but an old friend decided to join me. He didn't make his appearance until after I decided to head north from the parking lot. It's about 400 feet up to gain a view into the bowl and with my lack of corrected vision, I thought it looked pretty good. Part way up the climb along the ridge to the top of Cornice Ridge, my old friend made his appearance. I'd guesstimate he was 80 gusting 100 but he blew in from the north east. It seems he must have been lurking over night as well because the slopes that previously looked pretty good now were showing obvious signs of wind affect. I debated turning around and heading to the trees on the other side of the road, but mostly blue skies and a desire to see what was off the north side of Buzz's ridge kept my face buried behind a toque, collar, hood and goggles.

I'd previously only spent two days north of the parking lot and didn't have very good visibility the day I went to Buzz's ridge. There's definitely some terrain available, but with the reverse loading (and scouring) it looked to be best left for another day. I tour without corrective glasses and have a contact lens phobia so my evaluation of distant slopes is suspect at best. When in doubt, I generally assume the worst. Maybe they were fine, but I thought the bowl between Cornice and Buzz was good too.

I kept wrapping around the ridge until I got over top of some trees. They snow would be better due to the shelter, but the aspect was now pretty much pure south and my other old friend - that big yellow ball in the sky - was doing his stuff. The turns were good but getting heavy. At the bottom I considered another lap - the only way up I knew was around the ridge and back to wind hell. The slope I'd just descended was quite steep and breaking switchback hell for average turns wasn't that appealing.

I made the walk out and up to the ridge above the lake, got some below average turns back to the vehicle and looked at my watch. It was past noon - leaving about 4 hours of daylight. With the lack of snow lately, it'd be a bit of a walk to find something fresh - the return on investment for walk in/out vs laps didn't appeal to me, so I drove down to the Creston side parking lot. I'd heard that some people tour by where the power lines cross the road - it turned out to be the same spot where I sat and waited for a tow truck when my transmission blew up a few years ago.

This parking lot is about a thousand feet lower than the top of the pass, which due to the precarious state of winter this year meant that you'd need to climb quite a bit before getting into good snow, but with this aspect being south facing, you might run out of mountain before finding the goods. It's a place I will return to when the snow is good down low - with about 2,000 feet of relief, it looks to be some of the longer vertical available here.

I decided to go for a drive and see what the local touring book had talked about for touring around Red Mountain. On the way through Trail, I nearly cried when I saw the famous covered staircase that Blair and I had ridden a few years ago. It was crusty when we hit it, but in the snowboard movies that made it famous, they had blower powder. Today is was dry. I bookmarked the gps locations of the touring parking spots by Red and will investigate options on the maps. For what it's worth, there weren't many locals touring, which might tell me all I need to know.

An abbreviated day and an embarrassing 2,170 feet .

Just out of the trees on the way up to Cornice Ridge and here's my old friend.


Here's a much better photo of the wind. I was still toughing it out here and hadn't put the goggles on yet.


Pretty much a complete 180 from the prevailing winds.


A couple of triangle chutes with a common entry on the ridge from the muffin.


The wind was so strong, those cornices couldn't fall if they wanted to!


Looking north east from the high point on Buzz's Ridge. The treed ridge with the cut block on the bottom facing south is just above the Creston side parking lot.


The next photos are panning to the left or west.




Another split ski descent.


If you squint you might be able to see my tracks from about 1/4 of the way in from the left edge of the photo.


Driving down towards Creston, the treed ridge is called "Windy Ridge" (uh-oh) on my maps and offers up about 2,000 feet down to the parking lot.


The turns on the covered staircase at the smelter wouldn't be very good today.

I met up with Adam today and we opted to head to an area neither of us had been to before. The Crags is east of Baldy Rocks and looks intimidating from the highway. There are likely some lines in there, but we opted to ride the backside of what you see in the link.

The tour starts by following the standard climb up Baldy Rocks - I was amazed again at how much smaller it felt today - I must be getting stronger as we were nearing the summit in no time flat. We stopped just shy of the true summit and started the traverse to the east. Getting to the Crags involves some up and down - there are two high points along the way which are only 200 feet or so up from the low points. This meant some split ski descents, which obviously meant some spectacular crashes. Along the way we found a couple of chutes which I bookmarked in the gps for later.

The summit of Crags was fairly wind affected, but lower down we found some great turns in the bowl that drops away from the road. We put in the up for the second lap along the other ridge - the snow was softer on this side and it made for easier climbing compared to the more pressed ridge. After the second lap, we put in a another new up that skirted the one high point to gain the saddle. From there we climbed up to the first high point to the east of Baldy Rocks where the chute was. By now the visibility we had earlier in the day had disappeared. Still enough to bag it but it would have been more fun with the views we had earlier in the day. It was a nice rock walled entrance that flared out after it turned to the left. Short but sweet.

One final climb up from the bottom of the bowl gained us the ridge over looking the department of highways sheds. We were soon on the summit of Baldy Rocks and tried to find some fresh lines. This is probably the most highly trafficked spot at the pass, so completely fresh didn't happen, but we did find some pockets in the trees. A solid day with some new views. Total up was 5,160 which I learned was Adam's second 5,000+ (his first was a couple of days ago)

There was too much visibility when I took the picture of the chute, so we opted to wait until the clouds rolled in. Adam was first down and we could barely see the trees at the kink.


This one isn't far from the chute we took. If we'd had have visibility I would have given it consideration.


Classic split ski tracks - dragging poles to scrub speed!


View from the summit of Crags with the two high points before the summit of Baldy Rocks.


For one climb, Adam and I traded skis to compare the rocker vs. camber for uphill traction.


The surprising result was that we couldn't notice a difference?