January 17-19, 2004, Rogers Pass

With three days off and the local conditions woeful, I made a trip to the pass with three great companions and skiers.  Mike and Craig are local b’hammers, awesome skiers and new friends for me.  Mike from Seattle was a friend of Ross’s and another Fairy Meadows participant.  I met him at Herman Saddle last April.  After lots of emails and calls to Revelstoke for condition checks the trip was on.  Mike and Craig went out a day early and toured behind the hotel to Balu Pass on the 16th.

The plan was to pack in three days of touring to locations that offered great turns and good scenery.  Saturday we toured up to the top of Little Sifton (9,400 ft.) via grizzly shoulder, and descended directly down the Hermit to the highway.  The tone of the trip was set early, lots of laughs at the rest breaks, frequent pits to check conditions and great views followed by awesome descents.  Little Sifton is a wonderful tour, very scenic up to a 360-degree view followed by a straight descent to the highway.  My companions, former ski patrollers and racers, impress me with their talent with the boards and their mountain sense.  I am definitely the duffer in this group.  B’ham Mike makes powerful dropping  tele turns, catching a facefull of powder with every turn, Craig is our GS master with side splitting crashes, and Seattle Mike has the hip swinging parallel thing going.  Although Craig and B’ham Mike are the only ones who really know each other, we quickly mesh together nicely as a group. On the 1 k walk back to the Hotel we are excited to have found good conditions and looking forward to two more days of the same.
5,200 ft. climb.

Conditions were surprisingly good, -1 or -2 all day and the snow is pretty good—about 40 cents on top of a firm base.  The storm snow was laying over depth hoar and facets.  Burp tests and the shovel gave medium to medium hard results.

Wanted to go to Bonney trees on Sunday but a check at the Info Centre showed that the masses had gone there.  Ursa Trees was the next alternative-1000 ft runs down nicely angled slopes with small cliffs and nicely spaced trees.  We found the best snow of the long weekend, light, fairly deep powder with few tracks.  We did three laps and were quite happy at the end of each run.  It was so much fun to let the skiis run and just rip it up, every movement and placement of poles and skiis resulting in sweet sensations in the body.  6,800 ft of up.

Tired bodies review the day in the Sauna that night and we all say that it is in the top of the list of enjoyable days of backcountry skiing.  We also compile a list of things to say when the angry manager knocks on the door and asks you to stop cooking in the room.  (We were bad, both of our rooms were busted for having cooking grills or, as we did, get caught doing the deed.  We had it all planned out but forgot about the smell!  Funny how grilled chicken smell can fill up the wing of the Hotel.  Seattle Mike says that they were just pissed that our dinner smelled better than the entrée for the evening.)

Knock, Knock,

“This is Management”

Do you have a reservation?
Did you bring a sport coat and tie?
Sorry, we are all out of grilled chicken.
Sorry, the chef just shut down the grill-perhaps tomorrow then….

And so it went.

Four grown men with responsibilities, kids etc. acting 14 again.

MLK Day.  Thank You Dr. King!  Loop Brook to Sapphire Col (8,800ft.) and down the Dome Glacier to the Asulkin.  A great tour that we made far harder than necessary.  The Sapphire Col is a dangerous slope to climb from the Loop Brook side.  Steep, concave slope with a steep drop at the bottom as a terrain trap.  Here is how you do this tour-up loop brook, over the Dome Col (take a left at 8,200ft. and climb to the obvious col above about 300 meters to the left.).  The Dome Col is forty feet of boot packing that is loads safer than the sapphire.  Plus you can drop direct to the Dome from here.  Just ski cut the slope or dig a pit to check the slope.  We were tired but motivated for this trip.  Big mountain scenery with a lovely ascent up the creek and through the forest and a painless ski out the Asulkin. Weather was cloudy and cold most of the day.  Highly recommended tour! about 5,200 feet of up. 18,000 ft. over three days.

The backcountry hippie tribe comes through again!  Mostly strangers can come together and have a fantastic time in the mountains.  Thank you Mike, Mike and Craig.  That was the best three days of skiing ever!  Can't wait for a repeat.  
:D ;D ;)