The Trooper Tour

I just got back from a pretty epic weekend of pre-finals slaying.  Spring conditions are starting to show themselves, so we managed to take advantage of stable snow and make some pretty ambitious descents.  The main goal of the weekend was what Pete dubbed "The Trooper Tour", skiing Observation Sub-Peak's north glacier to the top of "The Cooloir", skiing down it, booting back up, skiing over to Cirque Peak and skiing the couloir spilling onto Cirque's north glacier.  It was an ambitious plan, especially for me, as it would involve roughly 2000 m elevation gain and loss.

Saturday we warmed up the legs in Kananskis with a scot and a scandi.  We skied the Commonwealth Lakes Circuit and then headed over to Smuts Pass.  It was alot of skipping around with not a bunch of elevation gain, but I think I clocked ~1200 m on my watch.  It was a cool area, and I'd definitely like to do some more day-traverses in that area.  The potential for those is huge!

Pete skins up to a small col behind Smuts Col

The chugach is just out of sight from the Spray Lakes Road

Thilde and Ralph enjoy a minute of sun

Sunday was the big day.  We got up at 5, left Canmore at around 6, and we were skinning up by 8.  We made great time on the frozen crust and were soon on the ridge up to Observation Sub-Peak.  A bit of skinning over rocks, a little step of scrambling, and we were at the col between the two peaks.  In light of our intention to ski Cirque as well, Pete ruled out going for the actual summit.  Shucks, now I have to go back.  Anyway, we dropped onto our glacier run and it was pretty awesome.

Pete scrambles up on Observation Sub-Peak with Cirque Peak behind.

The Siffleur River Valley hiding below the clouds

Pete gets ready to drop into The Cooloir

Boot-top powder turns led to the entrance to The Cooloir, which we skied to the top of the fan.  Here we turned around and booted back to the top.  In the deep snow, Pete charged ahead but I soon bonked and was really in a world of hurt by the top.  I tried to get some calories in but it didn't help much and Pete broke trail all the way back up the glacier and over to the Cirque glacier.  At this point I started to actually feel OK again and broke trail for a wee bit before we roped up.  A few more switchbacks and we were below the Cirque couloir.  We booted this short pitch to the top, then dropped back down and skied the glacier back to the col between Obs-Sub and Cirque.

Pete skiing up the Cirque Peak Glacier

Pete approaches the Cirque Peak Couloir

And boots up it... still breaking trail.  I'm such a bad partner...

Oh yeah!  I dropped my poles so Pete had to lend me one.  Again what an awesome partner I am!

We skied down a ways with the skins on, then ripped them and swished quickly back to the car.  Pretty stoked, Pete's altimeter read close to 2000 m (I can't remember the exact number).  There are, however, a couple lessons that I need to learn.  My nutrition is clearly crap, I bonked hardcore twice (in both couloirs) and Pete did all the trailbreaking.  I was just there to slow him down.  I need to eat better breakfasts and fuel with more complex energy throughout the day.  I also need to work the legs more so that I can be stronger and actually contribute on these big days.  I'd really like to go back, maybe next year at this time, and try to speed lap this link-up.  I think a good goal would be to cut two hours off our time of 8 hours, and/or hit the peak of Observation Sub-Peak.

Monday, Graham joined us for a quick jaunt up Mt. Whymper.  This was an especially fun trip, with easy trailbreaking for 2/3 of the ascent followed by a bit of a sketchy shot up to the col.  Luckily, I was feeling better today and actually broke trail for a good bit of the ascent.  We didn't climb straight to the col, but rather climbed a previously wet-snow avalanched slope up to the summit ridge of Whymper, bootpacked up and across some scree, and then sideslipped back to the col.  This seemed safer than going straight up the slope below the col, and was also more comfortable with the nil visibility we were blessed with.  A break in the weather let us see down our line into Chickadee valley which we then skied in great conditions.  The top pitch is pretty steep, and the rest is pure fun.  The only downside to this tour is the fact that you have to coast out the Chickadee Valley trail, and then hike along the road back to the parking lot.  Otherwise, it was a great day!  I forgot my camera though, so no pics of our white-out experience.

KJC and K-Country Touring

Boy it's been a busy few days.  I went down to the mountains again for the Ken Jones Classic skimo race, did a quick touring run through K-country and then got some mid-week ice climbing in.  Solid time!

Ken Jones Classic
I was pretty optimistic about this race, mostly because I'd be rocking the new ski setup which is waaay lighter than my first set of touring skis.  TLT 5's, Mustaghs and Plum Guides make for a much lighter and easier to use system, so I was hoping to do quite a bit better than I did in Nelson.

We rode the lifts up to the mid-mountain lodge and I went for a quick warm-up walk.  When I did this in Nelson, I could already feel the legs complaining about the heavy boards they had to move.  This time, I felt fresh and efficient.  Good stuff.  The race got off and I started slowly as usual, soon finding the group I was with too slow.  I passed the 3 nat. team ladies nearby and pushed myself on the groomers up to the top of Whitehorn.  I had to hammer through the steeper bits but it felt pretty good up to that point.  I managed to keep pace with one of the nat. team guys up ahead, keeping a good distance back but at least not losing time.

I transitioned pretty well and dropped into F-Gully.  The legs were still OK, but skiing those TLT5's without the tongues was a challenge.  The boot flexes back quite a bit so trying to lift the ski tips took extra effort and planning.  Here I got passed by a dude on Fritshis and Titans.  Confidence shattered.

I came up to the transition with the overzealous cowbell guy, and headed up the second climb.  Here I was still ahead of the 3 nat. team ladies but the dude on Titans was slowly pulling away.  Looking back I probably could have hammered hard here but I didn't want to flash and crash.  Up to the top of Brown Shirt, then down the sunny gully to the third climb.  This is where I got passed by all 3 nat. team girls.  They transitioned faster than me and I let them by not wanting to jump in the middle of a catfight.  I kept pace behind the slowest and here is where the faster two opened up a gap.  I passed the slower one at the start of the bootpack where she was crushing some drink and climbed up to the top.  I was pretty average on the bootpack.  Back down Brown Shirt, I skied like a man possessed and almost crashed with some of the public on my way to the Temple Lodge.

I transitioned slowly, then got moving through the trees.  This part of the course pissed me off, really flat and bushy which meant that I didn't really want to get moving fast.  The slowest nat. team girl caught me here and I let her by, but I held on.  Eventually the track started to go up and so I put down the pedal.  Starting to bonk but so near the finish, I didn't want to stop and rehydrate or fuel up.  The chick left the transition as I got there, but I caught her on the way down and got by in the moguls.  Here I flashed the mogul technique and pulled away a bit, then tucked and skated out to the finish at the base area.

I finished 11th out of 13 men, so hugely disappointed.  The people I was battling with should not have been my competition.  I need to up the fitness overall, so some midweek activity is planned for the future.  So far I've been a couch potato all week and only gotten out on the weekends, that has to change.

K-Country
Sunday Pete and I headed down the Spray Lakes Road to Hero Knob and did the loop.  Great weather with perfectly clear skies.  The sun did beat down on us in the bowl on the S side of the col, which acted like a dish and baked us.  We took the ridge to the col which I think is far safer, and after a bit of pit digging, dropped into the N side for a nice run down and out.  Lots of cool terrain out there and if we had more time, I would have liked to do some explor8ion.

Pete near the Hero Knob col.

St. Patty's on the Wapta

Following reading week, the avy conditions turned to absolute garbage.  I took a weekend off and did some XC skiing (the one and only day of the season), and then the next weekend did some touring around Taylor and Tryst.  Having my new skis mounted up meant that I could finally keep up with some faster guys and not feel like I was lugging around 100 pounds on my feet.  Still, it also means that I am not getting the same workout from a day of skiing.  The avy conditions stayed pretty nasty though, so we were playing relatively safe and not really going after anything.

Pete heading up Panorama Ridge near Taylor Lake

This past weekend, though, it was time for the one ACC trip that I committed to leading this winter.  I planned it out so that I had a minimum of workload surrounding it, and it ended up coinciding with St. Patrick's Day.  I got 6 spots at the Bow Hut, and over the weekend, the typical ACC bunch plus Niall from the UAOC and Chris (a new guy soon to be confused with Frenchie) got together for a weekend on the icefield.

Saturday morning we left the hostel early and tried to get moving quickly.  The pace was pretty slow while we waited for some straggling members of the group, but we hit the hut in about 3 hours which wasn't horrible.  We stopped for a bit and tried to get a fire started with the wet wood, and then decided to try our luck with some turns on the glacier.  It was a pretty heavy whiteout so we didn't stay out too long, making only one run.  As soon as we got back and all unpacked though, the weather cleared so Niall and me headed out and made a couple more runs on the steeper portion of the glacier.  Although that run is pretty over-hyped, I will admit that it makes for some good wiggle turns with a view.  We were eating supper by 6 and soon broke out the booze.  Most of the participants had overpacked, and not just with clothing!

Christophe and JP at the top of the steep pitch below the hut.  Typical Wapta conditions...

A GSA apostle arrived at the hut!

A selection of St. Patty's drink.  Note the Pil-can on the left, a Manitoban influence?

There were only 12 of us in the hut that night so we enjoyed the free space, and although a storm raged over night, the next morning dawned perfectly clear.  The first thing that I noticed with the clear weather was the presence of a huge crown on the serac which threatens the approach route and sympathetic releases on the moraines below.  Parks Mtn Safety rated the slide at size 3.0, and it covered our ascent tracks.  That sure is a reminder to move fast through that section, and if it's being actively wind loaded, perhaps abandon the approach.  After a quick breakfast we headed for the St. Nic/Olive col and worked our way up St. Nic.  It was a bit spooky with the freshly loaded slopes primed below, and I made my best effort to reduce the chance of being dragged off the ridge by any potential slides.

The upper crown below the serac.  It sure dug down deep.  This photo does not show the full extent of the slide.

Morning light on St. Nic

Our Nelsonite friends heading for the Balfour Hut

The most overly photographed part of the Wapta

Moving along towards the col.  Trailbreaking here turned quite deep!

At the col, with Olive behind

I didn't get any summit shots (it was pretty crowded) but here's the other rope team coming back to the col.

Based on the pace of the group, it didn't seem suitable to go up Olive as planned, so instead we lapped the glacier again before picking up our gear from the hut and heading out.  Again, the pace of our slowest members reared its head and we ended up at the parking lot two hours after we planned.  I didn't really expect the exit to take very long, even for novices, but I'll have to keep that in mind next time.  Oh well, there's nothing quite like getting back home past midnight...

Chris carves some nice powder above the hut.

Niall caught this one of me skiing below St. Nic.  Unfortunately the blue sky had left us by now.

Homework Avoidance Week

As my last weekend of skiing was drawing to a close, I was out in the vicinity of Bow Lake yo-yoing some small slopes.  I began to notice throughout that day that I was coughing a bit and seemed to not be breathing as well as I should.  I sort of passed it off and kept going, having a pretty darn awesome time.

Fast forward a few days and my nose had developed the appearance of a red, raw, Niagara Falls.  I was downright sick and though I tried to muscle through it, I ended up missing a few days of school.  Then I stayed sick and had to miss the Dogtooth Dash which was supposed to be my baptism by fire into the skimo racing scene.  The following Tuesday (I'd now been sick for 9 days) I finally noticed what was wrong: my eyes were developing a droopy, swollen patch below them.  This had happened 3 times before, and every time, I have been diagnosed with Orbital Cellulitis.  So off to the doc I went.  Luckily my doctor has seen this enough times that he gave me a prescription and I was at the pharmacy within 10 minutes of seeing him.  Some more missed classes while the antibiotics did their thing, and by the end of that week I was beginning to feel close to recovered.

I hung around E-town for the first weekend of "Reading Week" to catch up on some work for my design project and try to bash out a bit of homework.  I made sure to sleep a lot and by Monday I was feeling up to finally get out into the mountains and try some skiing.  A boring afternoon on the QE2 brought me to Canmore and Pete's sick pad there.  Although I did have to listen to some reggae, smash mouth and other samplings from his odd music selection, I was happy to finally be better and outside for once.

Some FEA that I fooled around with on Saturday

Tuesday we headed out to Purple Prince and made three runs before I was totally bagged.  My lungs, legs and everything else sucked from being such a lazy piece of sh*t while I was sick, and so those 3 runs really took it out of me.  Back at it again the next day, we headed to the Tryst Lake area and made two runs of the "Superslope".  Both days ended up being close to 1000m, and after Wednesday I was starting to feel on top of my game again.  Thursday's drive over to Nelson via Kootenay Pass wasn't really productive but did allow me to rest a bit.  Our tour up Cornice Ridge at the pass made for a real nice way to stretch the legs!

Touring up through some larches on the Tryst Lake ridge.

An avalanche ripped out high on The Fist

On Cornice Ridge at Kootenay Pass.  The avy hazard was pretty high so we skied some safe terrain along the ridge crest.

Our stay in Nelson was dominated by the heavy snowfall they were experiencing, and the Storage Wars marathons on TV... YUUUP.  Friday we skied the lifts at Whitewater, and I have to say that I am quite impressed with that hill.  It's everything a ski hill should be and nothing more.  Everybody there is just hanging out and enjoying life, there's none of the idiots that I normally see with their idiotic dress-ups, trying to look like Tom Wallisch even though they only ski 3 days a year.  Luckily, it looks like all those types are currently concentrated around some place called "Revvy".

It dumped all day.

Overnight Whitewater got seriously hit with a big dump, and I was regretting my decision as I lined up with the rest of the skimo racers for my first taste of this niche sport.  While we were all having our gear checked, the first chair riders came bombing down above us, barely visible inside clouds of powder.  Rather than enjoying that, I was going to suffer my way through a huge amount of vertical on my outrageously heavy touring setup.  Let's just say that while I enjoyed the race, I bet the powder was better :-)

My race set-up:

• Line Blend 178 Skis
• Marker Baron Bindings - Large
• Dynafit Titan Boots, Size 29
• 3-Piece collapsable poles
• A bike helmet
• Pete's old race pack

Needless to say it's not light... or quick to transition... or fun to strap to a backpack... or do any sort of "racing" on.

The race itself went pretty well by my standards.  All I wanted to do was finish, I didn't care where I came in the standings.  I was pretty worried about the 3-hour cutoff at the top of the second-to-last climb, so I figured that finishing the race was already optimistic enough.  When the start horn went off everybody got jogging up the hill (in pursuit of a good placing, or just away from the bagpipes?) and I settled near the back because I didn't want to hold anyone up when I inevitably struggled.  The first climb was super short, and because my transitions are crap, I fell into a crowd of heavy gear aficionados and one gaper on race gear.  The second climb was way longer and in this one I managed to made a few passes: I passed two guys on similar gear to mine and one woman on tech bindings.  At the top of White Queen, I caught the gaper on race gear, and through some miracle, passed him at a transition (dude was rocking Trab "World Cup"(?) skis, tech bindings and TLT 5 Performace boots).  Traversing along the ridge, I passed by Greg Hill, gave him a pro callout, and then dove down to the bottom of the second-to-last climb.  Here I drank a bunch of water, and broke out the bonking medicine (wine gums and some Eat More bars).  With 40 minutes to go before the 3 hour cut-off, I tried to hustle up.  Another break at the bootpack start and then I pushed through to the cut-off checkpoint.  Yelling at the SAR guy who was manning the checkpoint not to cut me, I dashed by and quickly dropped down Elevator Shaft before he could change his mind.  The last climb was brutal, but I eventually made it back to the top and then down to the bottom of the mountain.

How did I do?  Dead freaking last.  Well there were apparently about 10 other people behind me who didn't make the time cut-off, but it's still a dead last embarrassment.  Luckily nobody gave me a hard time about it.  I've now got my new touring setup all here at home and that'll be raced at the Lake Louise event coming up.  My goal there is to finish middle of the pack, I'd like to be somewhere close to the national team guys, but I know I won't be competing with any of them.

Sunday we devoted to getting home.  The drive back was a bit of an adventure due to Kootenay Pass being closed for avy control, so we had to take the ferry across Kootenay Lake and then slowly pick our way down the side of the lake to Creston.  Even then, the drive up through Invermere and Radium was a bit crazy with huge snowfalls making that slow going as well.  It felt good to finally pull in at home and be done with the travel.

Crossing Kootenay Lake, looking back West

A Weekend at the Castle Mountain Hostel

This past weekend was one for the books.  Checking the avalanche forecast on Friday, the hazard was Moderate, Low, Low the text at the top read "Fantastic skiing [...] have fun out there.".  We set our sights on some bigger lines, and had an absolute ball.

The trip was officially a UAOC hostel trip, we had the Castle Mountain Hostel all to ourselves.  I got down there later on Friday night and the group was already getting along well.  Robert worked out the carpools for Saturday while I enjoyed the sweet hostel; that thing really is nice!  Saturday morning we made the short drive over to the "Paint Pots" parking lot and then followed the well broken skin track to the Vermilion Peak slide path.  The skin track was pretty steep, and in some places, idiotically placed.  Even so, we made it up to just below the ridge before turning around and skiing the path.  On the way up we were treated to a spectacular inversion which allowed us to climb above the clouds for a while.

Lukas and Petr skinning up through the clouds.  The burned terrain makes for an interesting skin up.

Petr breaks out above the clouds.

The higher we climbed, the more the sun beat down on us.  Eventually we were sweating while wearing only our lightest layers.  At the top, we sat down for a quick lunch and both Rob and I got some tanning in.  A short skin up for some extra turns, and I clicked into my skis shirtless for my first ever bare-chested ski run.

Lukas at the top of our run on Vermilion Peak.

The skiing was pretty good, although the path had been skied quite a bit.  There were still plenty of powdery spaces though, which produced creamy turns in the sun.  The view was fantastic and the atmosphere more than made up for having to cross tracks.

Lukas finds some soft stuff below the small cliff band...

...and jibs one of the many boulders lying around.  Just awesome!

Once we hit the bottom, a short skin brought us back to the car.  The weather had cleared and we got an awesome view of the peak and another slide path which, facing more North, could produce some more consistent and less sun affected snow.  Back at the hostel we unwound with a beer and planned to hit the Crowfoot Glades / Bow Lake area on Sunday.

Sunday morning we quickly helped the hut manager Tony clean up and then drove up Highway 93N to the Crowfoot lookout.  Although there were already tracks in the main fan off of Crowfoot peak, we could see lots of potential for other runs.  Working our way up the skintrack, we were impressed with the hazardous area we were in.  In any more unstable conditions, I would never place myself in that shooting gallery.  The stability was amazing though;  a pit dug at about 2300 m showed no layers in the top meter and a constant density gradient from soft powder down to pencil.  We skied two runs on the main slope and then traversed over climber's left to sample an untracked slope.

Lukas again, here shredding the main fan.

Our last run of the weekend, my tracks are far right and Lukas' are next to the left.

The crowds came in as we got to the car.  Not sure their attraction to that area, it was mostly tracked out.

Overall it was a great weekend.  The group that came out to the hostel made it real easy on me and Rob as leaders, and everybody got along just great.  The hostel is really well equipped and quite cozy.  I think everybody enjoyed themselves and I can bet that there'll be another Castle trip next year.