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.

First Time Ice Climbing

This past weekend I tagged along on an ACC trip and went ice climbing for my first time!  I'd been wanting to try for a while and this seemed like a good chance to do that.  Although the trip was officially on the ACC schedule, it was practically full before it even was released.  Luckily, JP was leading it so I managed to snag a spot early.

I drove down with Chris and Damon on Friday and we got to the Shunda Creek hostel pretty quick.  Everybody showed up and soon the group chemistry got going.  A bunch of friends in a hostel, and one crazy french guy to spawn numerous jokes meant that we were a relatively loud group!  Saturday we went to Balfour Wall along the parkway, just south of Saskatchewan River Crossing.  A short hike in brought us to the waterfalls.  As soon as I saw them, I was stoked.  Top ropes were set up and soon enough I was headed up my first pitch of ice!  It was a bit scary and surprisingly different from rock climbing.  The more I climbed, the more I liked it.  Eventually I even managed to head up the WI 4 on the extreme left side of the wall.  It was fun, taxing and exciting all together, but with quite a few takes for me.

Kevin leading up the WI 2 which ended up being my first climb.

The drive back to the hostel was a pretty nasty one, heavy snowfall meant that we drove down the highway between 40 and 60 kph, keeping a tire on the rumble strip.  We got back though, and soon tore into some pasta, garlic bread, salad and great desert.  Oh we also had 11 bottles of wine between the 9 of us.  We went for a quick dip in the hot tub and then hurried off to bed.

Sunday dawned cold and clear.  We decided to head to Owen Creek and see how long we could endure the cold.  This venue was a little different in the way that we hung out above the falls and lowered in to climb them.  Once the sun peeked out, the area warmed up a bit.  I still climbed while wearing everything piece of clothing in my possession.  Once we had all had our share, we headed back to the hostel, picked up the ladies and drove back home.

Damon (bottom) and Dave (top) climbing in Owen Creek

What an awesome weekend with a great group of people!  It was a sweet time just hanging around, climbing and having pure fun.  I really hope I can get out a few more weekends with the gang, I sure enjoyed this trip!  Thanks to JP and Dave for leading the trip, and Kevin for bravely leading a lot of ice!

Avalanche Involvement, January 5, 2012

Thursday (Jan. 5, 2012) I went for a day of ski touring in the Black Prince area, and we had an incident.  We were skiing a smaller hill on the West side of the highway (Purple Prince), NNE of Mt. Black Prince just North of Warspite Creek (Lat,Lon 50.721351,-115.230875).  The slope faces NE, is about 400m high and is fully treed.  We followed the uptrack (set by a couple of guys on a dawn patrol) to the top of the knob.  We saw that the new snow had been blown over the ridge and onto our ski run.  We dug a pit, and found 3 medium to hard layers 50, 60 and 70 cm. down, sudden planar failures.  This pit was dug very close to the ridge and so we took into account that these layers could be due to wind effect.   We skied a line nearly directly above our car and then hiked back up again.  This time, Peter (my partner for the day and a local) thought about heading further along the ridge to try and sample another line which he had seen from the road.  Walking along the ridge we found the slope to be very steep at the start and slightly corniced.  A small ski cut along the top of the slope produced nothing, so Peter dropped in.  The line was out of my sight.

The next thing I noticed was that Peter was yelling.  It was muffled through the trees and I wasn't sure if he was hooting for joy or in trouble.  I was split as to whether he had triggered something or whether he was just having fun.  I saw small spurts of powder fly up.  "Maybe he's just getting some face shots" I thought.  Then I saw the entire line of trees below sway downhill in unison.  Peter was still yelling.  Now I was sure it was an avalanche.

I kept waiting at the top, sort of dumbfounded.  He had clearly triggered the slide below the ski cut.  So could I venture out there safely?  I decided to throw all caution to the wind, screamed HELP a couple times and then skied after him.  Just out of sight from my vantage point, Pete's tracks led straight over a crown, about knee deep.  But the weird thing was that knee deep was the depth to the ground.  He had clearly hit a shallow spot on on the nose and ended up smack in the middle of the slide.  Thank goodness he was still yelling, I thought.  I never even pulled out my beacon.  I carefully made my own way down, survival skiing through the thick forest on the skier's right, and eventually found him in a copse of small trees, sitting on the top and complaining of a nosebleed.

Pete was unharmed save for a good slit down his chin.  I pulled out the first aid kit and proceeded to try and stick any number of bandages to his bearded chin, but nothing would work.  I was trying to use steri-strips to seal up the cut, but they woudn't stick to the hair at all.  I settled on making a "chin strap" like those seen on Football helmets, from some medical tape and a big bandage.  My gauze was suspiciously missing from my kit.  He wouldn't stop bleeding, and he had lost all his gear (except his backpack and helmet).  I had him drink a bottle of fruit juice, take an energy gel and two ibuprofen's.  I checked both his legs for breaks even though he said he was fine.

My first plan of escape was for me to go in front, giving Peter my poles and try to set a track that he could walk on.  I strapped our packs together and carried both.  That way we could hopefully get out quick.  Just as I was starting, Pete noticed one of his skis and a pole wedged into a tree.  I went and got them, then kept moving.  Pete wanted to stick around and look for his other ski, but I wanted him to get moving before he went all woozy from the blood loss.  So there we were, on a 35 degree slope, traversing towards the parking area.  I was trying to make as nice of a track out as I could so that peter could stay upright on one ski.  We slowly moved down and South towards the uptrack.  It seemed to take ages, the packs were outrageously difficult to ski with, and pete was still bleeding pretty heavily.

We finally hit the uptrack and another group we had seen 10 minutes before the slide was just getting ready to head back up.  They changed their plans and helped us out to the car.  At one point, one of the snowboarders made a sled from his board and towed Pete over the flat ground.  I went ahead at the last minute and warmed up the car, and then got ready to play ambulance.

We got to the Canmore hospital at 3:45, my best estimate of the avalanche time would be somewhere around 12:15-12:30.  An hour and a half there, and Pete sported 11 stitches.  The most surprising thing about this incident was how hard it was to get to the road, even though we were in plain sight and only a few hundred meters above, and the victim was very mobile.  It probably took a solid 2 to 2 and a half hours to get from the debris field to the car.

I'm writing this to get it onto paper.  The main thing is that we ignored some of the forecaster's advice, and also got unlucky.  Forecasters had warned against skiing N, NE and E aspects, we skied a NE aspect.  The slide started not on a known weak layer, but rather on a rogue shallow spot.  Why that area was so shallow is beyond me, it's right below the ridgeline and on the leeward side.  Heck right above it was a small cornice!  The slide was small, but it still ripped out all available terrain.  Trees are what stopped it from propagating further.  We skied below treeline, where hazard was rated MODERATE but we still were skiing steep lines with open areas here and there.  We pushed things a bit and got bitten for doing so.  I wasn't standing where I had a good view of the run, but rather where it would be easiest to enter the run.  My first aid skills are also lacking.  I'm trained in the lifeguarding stream, and all I've learned to do is to stem any bleeding, make the victim comfortable and wait for an ambulance.  I need to take some wilderness first aid.  I also need to get a helmet for touring, Peter's had a good ding from hitting a tree.

Let's all be safe out there.  I believe that I was a bit complacent due to the below treeline location, and didn't really think everything through.  I'll never treat below treeline skiing the same.  Peter wrote up his own version at his blog, which can be read here, it's a good read.