Treepilot.ca

Happy Anniversary!

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:23:57 -0700

The Moose called in sick this morning leaving Adam and I to track out the remaining storm snow. We got up to the parking lot for about 9AM, however the outside air temperature gauge in Adam's truck was showing -21C, which caused a lot of procrastination.

We finally got under way around 10AM with the temperature remaining unchanged. Were it not for the blue skies we might have sat there all day. We opted to give Rowe Bowl a try as it didn't involve a long cross country snowboard and the sooner we got climbing the warmer we'd be. It didn't take long to warm up, in fact we soon were very warm. I pulled out the snow study kit and put a thermometer in the shade.... 0C? WTF? At this point we were just over 100 feet above the road and not very far at all from the parking lot. A ridiculous change in temperature over a very short distance. We debated continuing the climb or returning to the road and heading to the lake. The plan was that if it was still stupid cold on the road, we'd turn around and head up Rowe.

It was chilly, but the extreme cold was gone. We headed to yesterday's up, put a food cache on the lake and climbed up. Adam agrees with us - steeper is better - we were on top in 45 minutes. We charged down the powder through the North Knob trees, refueled at the cache and were back up top in another 45 minutes. Another lap down the goodness then we stopped for a leisurely JetBoil lunch complete with tea.

One more time up with a slightly slower pace of about 55 minutes. This time we headed to the Bowling Alley and I navigated us to an untracked lane. Whoops and yells down to the lake were followed by the long cross country snowboard to the vehicle. Three laps off the knob usually leaves you just, just shy of 5,000 feet, but we had some money in the bank from the aborted Rowe Bowl climb this morning. Total up today was 5,050 feet.

The forecast looks warm. If the Moose is healthy tomorrow I think we'll hit up his namesake. If he's not, I'll be solo and will need to dig pretty deep to find the motivation to bang it out. Three days and 22,000+ feet are taking their toll.

Not exactly optimal touring weather.

You build a snowman in the winter in my park and I'll deface it. It's not spring yet! I don't care how warm it was yesterday! This snowman appears to have pissed himself when his head fell off?

It was my wedding anniversary today, so I spent a day in the mountains with Adam.

We even had lunch on the lake with dual JetBoils.

Biggest day ever - 10,460 feet

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:06:20 -0700

The Moose and Mrs. Moose (henceforth to be known as Vitamin C as she wasn't too stoked on the Mrs. Moose moniker) met me at the parking lot for 8:30. The plan was to beat the park record which was held by the Moose and the Jackelope at 8,010 feet. I wasn't sure what to expect after yesterday, but an earlier start and a headlamp in my pack along with 1.3 liters of nectar should be sufficient for a good shot at it.

We were the second group to leave the parking lot, but the first to the top of Lemming Lane. We took the traditional up via the ridge. The weather forecast was calling for flurries and a high of -5C, but it was pretty much blue all day.The snow had set up a pinch from yesterday but still offered up face shots on demand. We recycled my up of yesterday which the Moose said was the best up he'd ever been on. Steep and direct yielded short lap times. We took great pleasure in seeing the skiers struggle with the up. If you don't like it, break your own damn up! After 3 laps we elected to head across the lake to get into the shade.

I stopped for some Jetboil stew while the Moose and Vitamin C headed up busting in an equally steep up. We stared down a poacher and he shuffled off to find another up to poach. Doing the math we soon realized that the park record was a gimme and we'd also wind up with our biggest day ever (Moose and I had a 10,270, Vitamin C had a 6,600) provided our legs held out. The snow was a bit better on this side thanks to the trees and we thoroughly enjoyed a couple laps down the Landing Strip. One last push up to the top followed by a sweet run down the wide open Bowling Lane brought us to the lake. From there it was a simple 5km skin back to the vehicle.

Total up was 10,460 and we covered 15.1 miles. We got to the vehicles without using the headlamps, so we did leave some vertical on the table. I was beat, but probably could have pulled another lap if I didn't have more powder to track tomorrow.

On the way up the traditional route to Lemming Lane we couldn't help at laugh at these tracks from yesterday. First of all it's a very flat descent route and someone had a lot of fun crossing the up?

The Moose (aka Dances with Poles) kicks up a cloud of smoke.

Vitamin C throwing up a rooster.

Vitamin C down low reaping the rewards. If you look in the top right you can see the slide the Moose pulled out.

Here it comes...

It ran out of steam here. No real danger due to the unconsolidated snow.

Lemming Lane is toast thanks to tracks and point releases. I put 7 of those tracks in between yesterday and today.

Three laps on the left side, three laps on the right side. Blue skies and powder. What a day!

6 laps, 10 hours (including close to 2 hours of mostly flat x-country snowboarding), and a pretty decent uphill pace.

Tiger Woods is doing it - I guess I should too.....I'm a cheater

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:03:16 -0700

Good evening, and thank you for joining me. Many of you reading this are my friends. Many of you reading this know me. Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in. I know people want to find out how I could be so foolish.

I have made you question who I am and how I could have done the things I did. I am embarrassed that I have put you in this position. For all that I have done, I am so sorry. I cheated yesterday and rode a chairlift. What I did is not acceptable, and I am the only person to blame. I stopped living by the core values that I believe in. I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn�t apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself.

I brought this shame on myself. I�ve had a lot of time to think about what I�ve done. My failures have made me look at myself in a way I never wanted to before. It�s now up to me to make amends and that starts by never repeating the mistakes I�ve made. It�s up to me to start living a life of integrity.

It�s hard to admit that I need help, but I do. Starting today, I returned to the skin track and banged out four laps and 7,010 feet of blower powder. I have a long way to go. But I�ve taken my first steps in the right direction.

Today, I want to ask for your help. I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again. Thank you.

So Treepilot Jr.'s snowboard lessons ended a little while ago and Mrs. Treepilot lacks the required skills to pick up where the lessons ended. After 50 backcountry days this winter, I skipped a powder day at my park and headed to the local ski hill, where I bought lift tickets. Ugh. Thankfully they were the "bunny hill" versions for $12 each. We made a few laps on the bunny hill to assess skills and then were forced to head for bigger terrain. We snuck onto the intermediate chair where we made three laps before Junior's legs gave out. The lift operator didn't bother to check the validity of our tickets and that's a good thing because there was no way I paying $50 for a half day full mountain pass. Junior is progressing quite nicely, but I fear I will need to ride chairs again for some period of time before he is able to come into the backcountry.

I got a late start this morning due to staying up late watching some Olympic hockey action on TV. As it turned out, the breakfast girl for the hotel slept in too - so even if I'd been motivated, I wouldn't have had a continental breakfast to enjoy. She was still setting things up when I strolled in at 8:45. It was almost 10:15 when I left the vehicle on the cross country snowboard.

I figured I'd grab the low hanging fruit and put some laps into Lemming Lane. I was solo and assumed someone would have put in the up. Nope - I guess everyone else was riding chairlifts yesterday too. I saw the skidoo that the avalanche forecasters use to cheat on the cross country ski and then found out that they'd used the conventional up via the ridge. I skinned past that one and continued the cross country snowboard along the shore of the lake to the base of Lemming Lane, where I put in the up as steep as I could manage. The storm snow was quite low density, but thanks to close to 30cms up high, it was plenty to cover any crusts that formed in the previous drought. I heard the forecasters heading down as I neared the top of the climb and was a bit bummed that I'd broken the up for them. As it turned out they left though after just the single lap - I guess they needed to get back to the office and write the forecast. Sucks to be them! It would have been nice if they'd stayed off my up though!

I made a total of four laps and each one had a negative split time. Woot! The last up finally had a nicely packed track took me only 45 minutes. There's nothing like blower powder to put a bounce in your step. Total up today was 7,010 feet, which is my biggest solo day ever and the 6th biggest ever. Pretty good considering the late start, two hours of cross country snowboarding and being back to the vehicle for 6PM. With daylight lasting until 6:30ish now I still had ~1.5 hours of light left if I would have exited via headlamp.

Junior leans into a turn on the "intermediate" mountain.

Junior already learning that "packed powder" sucks....

Stay off my up track!

The snow stopped and the sun came out for the last lap.

Three laps in the upper section of Lemming Lane - one more to go!

Lots of face shots today! There's a Tiger joke in there somewhere I think....

A quasi third person view of the first run.

Vote for Venture/POW's limited edition top sheet

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:58:33 -0700

http://venturesnowboards.blogspot.com/2010/02/cast-your-vote.html

5,600 - 10,270 - 4,350 - 5,960

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:55:32 -0700

February has been a difficult month so far with what seems like an Olympic jinx hovering over the mountains. Lots of things breaking and weather that's more early spring than mid winter. The latest carnage was the Khyber - I'd sheared the head off a screw on the touring bracket and when Adam tried to extract it the whole insert started spinning - so it's off to Prior for repair.

This left me with only the Spearhead to take on the long ago booked 4 day, 3 night stay at the Qua Yurt. The Yurt sleeps eight people - I joined a group organized by the Moose that included the Jackelope, Mrs. Moose, and four others. There's plenty of negative press on the web about this company, which also operates Wildhorse Cat Skiing. If I hadn't seen (and poached) the surrounding terrain before, I'd have been a bit more reluctant to go based on the reviews. A few red flags popped up during the days before departure including unanswered questions about transportation costs and departure times.

We stayed at the labyrinth Ymir Hotel the night of the 11th for a very early 6AM departure on the 12th. It was that night when we learned that we wouldn't be dropped at the spot shown on the map, but rather from the North Clear Cut. They would transport our heavy packs and drop them at the usual drop off spot on the map. Fine and dandy if you had a small day pack, which it seemed everyone but me did. The upside was that we'd get a "free" cat drop from Wildhorse Ridge. This seemed to be worth the trade off of the longer walk as this was the ridge that Blair and I had shuttled from with sleds. Steep and north facing sounded good to me. The snag was that we ended up getting dropped in the flattest possible spot and the run was hammered with tracks. While some of the group made short laps above the drop off meeting point while waiting an extra hour beyond what we were promised for the cat to arrive with their big packs, I proceeded solo to the Yurt to unpack the heavy load. I returned back to the drop point and still had a bit of a wait before the cat showed up. At this point, I wasn't overly impressed with the operation. It seemed the reputation was deserved but thankfully the passenger compartment hadn't fallen off the cat....

Our planned exit involved us dropping to the North Clear Cut, dropping the heavy packs and then skinning up the cat roads to the top of Wildhorse Ridge and then riding down towards town until we ran out of vertical, at which point we'd be given transportation. I took this vagueness to mean we'd be taking a ride in what the staff would later call "rickshaws" - toboggans dragged behind a skidoo with a tin windshield - yes tin - you don't need to see where you're going I guess. Normally they'd pick us up from the clear cut, but they had cat skier customers on Monday.

After the cat showed up and dropped the heavy packs we all headed to the new home for the next few days. New snow coupled with some light snowfall kept my spirits high. Visibility was naturally poor and we opted to check out the low hanging fruit immediately around the Yurt. There had been nobody up there for five days previous, so we broke track up towards Qua Peak stopping more or less where the trees and consequently the visibility required us to - the long flat ridge before the actual summit. A NW aspect of about 1,700 feet down to Qua Lake. On the second lap we moved over a bit closer towards the bowl and I promptly got a reaction before I even started the cut. It went clean down 30 or so and rumbled to the bench below. We enjoyed the leftovers and headed back to the Yurt. 5,600 up today with some hard earned feet for me including hauling the heavy pack from the bottom rather than the drop off point where the others got theirs and busting in the up from the lake to the Yurt.

The group had designated pairs to bring supper meals for everyone - first night was pasta and chicken - it'd turn out to be a bit light on the portion size for those of us banging out big days. The Moose and I have been attempting to bang out another 5 digit day, but things haven't quite worked out for various reasons. We knew it was only a matter of time and finding the right place.

The right time and place happened to be the next day - although it didn't seem like it. Most of the group were slow to rise and a few grumbled about the "early" start after yesterdays 6am cat departure. We were fed and out the door pointed up by 8:15 - not exactly the time I'd want for a 5 digit attempt. The Moose and I never really said anything about today being a "go" day. We recycled yesterday's up and found some better turns coupled with slightly better visibility on the edge of Qua Bowl. We made a pit stop at the creek by the lake to top up on water - the owner had said most groups melt snow, which proved to be a full time job. The creek was about 800 feet below the Yurt - not exactly ideal. After a 3 downs and 2.5 ups, I was already feeling the lights getting dim, so we detoured from the direct up and headed over to the Yurt for lunch. Bellies full and feeling rejuvenated, we finally mentioned the elephant in the room - it'd be tight with daylight, but we could probably pull off the 10,000 footer. Another 3 downs and 2.5 ups later, coupled with a final trip to the creek to top up water we were skinning up to the Yurt in headlamp. With the last few steps the Suunto just ticked past our previous 5 digit day coming to rest at 10,270 - a whopping twenty feet more than last time. It felt easier this time. The Moose keeps tracks of things like split times and said we shaved more than 30 minutes off the second half of the day. With an early start, an up that didn't involve detours to the yurt or the creek, what's the limit? I have 20,000 over there ---> followed by a question mark. It's a big question mark. I think 15,000 is a legitimate target for sure.

We stumbled into the Yurt and were greeted with the 1.5lbs of lasagna per person that was on the menu for that night, compliments of the Mooses or the Meese? Crib, Scrabble, and a few other card games kept us occupied into the not so wee hours of the night. Almost everyone shot right up out of bed when part of the roof avalanched. A few quick thinkers headed out to move the skis and snowboards under cover. Shortly thereafter the other half of the roof went and most likely would have broken at least a bit of gear, which would have been a less than optimal outcome.

The Jackelope cooked up a stellar breakfast and we were off yet again - starting with a lap on the by now, very tired edge of Qua bowl - since visibility hadn't really permitted anything else. This time at the bottom of the lake, we headed across to the other side to check out NW shot off the unnamed peak above Qua Lake labeled 1983 on the map. Other than the one I cut loose on the first day, things had been reasonably stable. We experienced virtually nothing moving on the edge of Qua bowl and hoped for similar results over here. The Moose was showing no signs of slowing down and had done a couple hand shear tests on the way up with no results. I noticed one crack originating from the up and suggested the Jackelope put a cut into the slope. He did and nothing moved. I tried again going just a bit lower and promptly cleaned out most of the powder. We kept traversing and things kept remotely triggering. The upper bowl feature had quite a few trees so we did manage to find pockets of storm snow that hadn't pulled and usually got a couple of great turns in before they let loose as well. The lower section after the bowl was the quintessential Kootenay tree run. Steep, pillowed and full of mashed potatoes? WTF? Blower should be the norm, but with temperatures hovering right around zero since we'd come in a few days ago, the blower was quickly turning to slop as the mercury rose, especially at the lower elevations. We waited at the bottom anxiously for Mrs. Moose - it turned out she'd gotten tossed into a tree well. A good reminder of the bigger danger in the Koots - they say more people die in tree wells here than in avalanches. We opted for one more attempt at the bowl, thinking that by traversing over to the least steep section in the middle, we might find a slope where the hoar wouldn't react. It still did and once again we were left with small pockets of fresh. We headed to the creek to top up on water. Wet and frustrated we pulled the pin on the day with only 4,350 up. I felt infinitely better after this 10,000 footer than the one last year. Had it not been for the discouraging conditions, I'm confident I wouldn't have had any issues with a normal sized day.

We were back to the yurt early where we spent even more time honing card skills before and after a mushroom optional stew. There was talk of an early start for the last morning which didn't sound that appealing to me, but I figured I'd make the effort, take a look at the thermometer in the morning and go back to bed. Two and a half great days was lots for me thanks. I set the alarm for 6am, woke up at 5am, decided that was too early and rolled over. The Moose shook me awake at shortly after 6.... "it's bluebird".... "fuck off, not funny".... "no really, it is".... "cold?".... "yep".

We scrambled to get ready and headed up South Seamen Peak, where the Jackelope and Mrs. Moose had put in an up a few days ago. Despite being a southerly aspect, things were really good. The cold over night had dried things up a bit and we finally got some views from the summit. The Moose was in hurry - later saying he wanted 5,000 as quick as he could - in about 3.5 hours as it turned out - so the Jackelope and I paired up. I tried to convince him to take a lap off North Seamen, which was just a short walk away, but we ended up with three laps off South Seamen before the sun warmed up the snow, followed shortly by the cloud breaching the pass and eventually enveloping most of the surrounding area. We headed to the Yurt to wolf down some more food and pack up for the exit.

The exit plan was supposed to be drop your big packs at the clear cut by 2pm and be on the downhill side of Wildhorse ridge for 4pm. We climbed to the top of the of the pass above the Yurt and saw people on sleds. Hmmmm. The people on sleds were staff bringing in the next group for the Yurt. That was odd, since the owner had said they'd be coming in by cat - just like us - he'd also said there would be eleven cat skiers. The staff were surprised to see some of us - there's 8 of you?

"Boss said there's only 4 of you... how are we going to get you out on the sleds? We'll need to go get the rickshaws or maybe the cat."

"Uh, the cat? Isn't it hauling cat ski customers?"

Uncomfortable silence for a second or two - "uh, well it was supposed to be - they even made eleven lunches today, but there was a mixup.... turns out there were zero guests today. "

"that's a bit of an oops eh?"

"yeah, it seems to happen quite a bit"

"If it's all the same with you, why don't we use the cat"

"It's slower, but yeah, we don't care"

"Perfect, maybe we could even get a cat lap or two in?"

"hmmm.. maybe...."

Sensing opportunity for a bit of cheating I quickly offered up this tasty morsel "Moose here used to be a cat driver, maybe you guys could even get some turns in"

Definite look of disappointment - "I don't have my gear here"

So we almost managed to get some free turns, but did avoid the sketchy rickshaw exit. While waiting for the cat to arrive at the North Clear Cut (we saved the climb with heavy packs as well!), we headed up for a lap off Wildhorse Ridge - this time a line of our own choosing - it was steep but the warming had beat us to it. Total up for this day was 5,960 - bring the four day total to 26,180

I stopped in to see if Blair wanted to ride the following day at the Pass. He couldn't, but he was nice enough to offer up a shower, a meal and a bed. I caught up on the world, looked at forecasts and decided to head home. On the way over Kootenay Pass the next morning it was zero at the summit (5,820') and it was still only about 9:30am! My park has gotten a bit of new snow and is calling for another 5 to 10 for the town, which hopefully means 20 or more up high. Maybe there's hope for February yet?

There's already talk of a return trip to the Yurt in the future. I'll probably go - despite the issues there's great terrain there and no competition from day trippers. I wouldn't mind checking out a slightly more luxurious hut/cabin/whatever though - a hot shower is a very nice luxury to have.

The Qua Yurt - notice the large accumulation of snow on the roof....

Typical Kootenay visibility on day one going up the ridge towards Qua Peak.

The Moose getting water from the creek. Despite asking the owner several times if there was a close creek, he said most people boiled water. The staff at the exit told us about an a-frame structure built over the creek. We'd seen it only 20 or so meters from the Yurt, but assumed it was an old outhouse...

The Moose heads across Qua Lake away from the creek - most of our laps were made on the prominent ridge down to the lake.

Superb visibility by Kootenay standards. The Moose on one of six trips up this ridge on day two.

Sunlight! Will we finally get to see the bottom from the top? Nope... this is the climb for the sixth lap and by the time we hit the top it'd socked right in with the worst visibility of the day.

10,260 - 10 more than the old previous best and we'd get 10 more before reaching the Yurt.

At the creek on day three, we were all wet - the Moose opted to go shirtless saying it was actually warmer that way. No one else verified this claim.

The debris from the roof. The Yurt looks a bit sketchy and it is, but it's built better than probably half the homes in the area!

Crib time!

The ridge above the lake - we tried to ride the bowl on day three.

Day four - it's blue and I should have gotten up at 5am!

The sun is just cresting the pass above the yurt.

A little higher and the valley fog is plotting it's attack.

The Jackelope on top of South Seamen for lap number 1 of 3.

The Moose and I trading pics on top of South Seaman.

North Seamen was a short walk and would have offered up about 2,500 down.

The Jackelope's ski sequence taken from 3 progressively lower spots. You can see the degradation of the snow on each lower spot. You also can't double eject and expect privacy.

The valley fog has breached the pass. It's only a matter of time now.

Tasty looking lines on the west edge of Qua bowl.

Bunks in the upper part of the Qua Yurt.

The skylight.

A jewel in a bit of a decrepit town. The art collection is stunning and the hallways are confusing to say the least. It's clean and cheap though.

Topo map with routes

Same data in Google Earth.

The day after

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 14:39:00 -0700

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!

Shattered!

Sat, 6 Feb 2010 20:08:00 -0700

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.

Lopsided or stretch it out?

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 16:44:41 -0700

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!

Is winter half over already? February 1st today....

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 16:29:11 -0700

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.

Return to the Herbst Glacier

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:42:46 -0700

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.