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.