Well, this semester was a real beut for me. Honestly the easiest time I've had in school that I can remember. I got away on average every other weekend, and have been killing most of my courses. It's what school should be like, but unfortunately for me, has never actually been. I finished up my last exam on Thursday, and after a quick stop at Hudsons for some beers, I drove Pete down to Canmore for a 3 day rad-fest before work starts. He's making me very jealous, having no job and living in Canmore!
Friday we decided to try Ptarmigan Peak, behind the LL ski hill. A couple ACC buds of mine did it the weekend before, and they said it was a good time, so I was excited. We got to LL early and started up the ski-out, eventually moving across the flat valley to the Halfway Hut. We were seeing signs of a lousy freeze, and even dug a pit to see how wet things were. Honestly, I have no idea how wet is dangerous wet, so we really just wasted time squeezing snow, humming and hawing. Since the snow face on Ptarmigan is pretty tame until the last bit, we decided to keep going and headed up into a small flurry. Eventually though, we got to a point about 100-200 meters below the ridge where the snow changed and was being loaded by the wind. That and the whiteout conditions didn't exactly push us up the mountain, so we ripped the skins and survival skied back down to the car. The snow was so shitty that we actually passed up $25 lift tickets.
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| Whiteout on Ptarmigan |
Saturday we did some skiing around French Creek/Glacier. I'm not going to say much about this, just remind myself to check my own photos to remember how fun that was. It does offer great views and some nice skiing. I wanted to complete the FHR but the rest of the group wasn't so keen so we headed back to the cars and crushed beers in the sun. Spring skiing rocks!
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| Touring up below the French Glacier |
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| Somebody's stoked! |
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| The view in K-Country are always great |
Sunday was rad-tastic for sure. Pete "in-a-day" Knight was flip-flopping the night before about trying Joffre in a day, but I fed him dismal weather beta and overused the word "slog" enough to convince him to do Smuts instead. Since I had to drive back to champ-city, I wouldn't be down for a 12+ hour day on Joffre. Anyway, we woke up at 3:30, left at 4, were skiing by 5 and I topped out at 8:10 (Pete was of course about 30-40 minutes faster than me and had a picnic on the top while I suffered behind him). I signed the register, wishing sorry scramblers a fun descent, then grabbed my skis and transitioned while Pete dropped in. It was pretty icy, tough on the legs, and not super enjoyable but I'll still call it better than scree-bashing down. Heck, it was awesome! How often can you ski such a badass looking line that is only a short skip from the road? We'll have to figure out how to time the descents for ideal snow, but otherwise we had this one dialed. That's one for the bragging rights list.
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| Me on top |
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| The view towards Mt. Birdwood and Mt. Sir Douglas |
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| Looking down the run, looks a bit tough with the icy/crusty conditions |
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| Pete shows that it can't be that bad... on his race skis |
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| Smuts (and the Fist on the right) as seen from the road. |
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