Feb 16, 2009, Rogers Pass, Youngs Peak Traverse

Not a cloud in the sky when we got up, so Kirsten, Nate, Becky, and I headed for the Youngs Peak traverse. 
The others in our group headed for the Hermit/Sifton area on another tour.   Heading up from Lookout Col on to the Illecillewaet Neve the snow was windslabby and punchy€¦.it was making us wonder what kind of snow we€™d have off Youngs Peak...we were doing the traverse for the views, but were still hoping for reasonable snow for the long descent.  I€™d skied Youngs via the Asulkan drainage before€¦.accessing Youngs from the Illecillewaet is so much better! 
Fantastic views the whole way up and a fun skin and boot along the ridgecrest high above the Asulkan drainage.   The 'cornice€™ that can sometimes be a problem on the ridge to Youngs was nonexistent and we didn€™t use our boot crampons until the final 200-300ft on the ridge to the top of Youngs.   
As we toured up the ridge, we were pretty certain we spotted the entrance to the Forever Youngs couloir, but the snow was dust on firm and we wanted to top out on the peak, so we€™ll have to come back someday and get the couloir.  It wasn€™t till our drive home that we€™d saw LeeLau€™s post on TGR that his group had hit the couloir on Friday€¦the snow conditions in it didn€™t sound too good, so I was glad we opted for skiing off the mellow Asulkan glacier side.
Skiing off the top of Youngs was variable powder and firm for the first few hundred feet and then as we angled skiers right into the cirque to the right of the Pterodactyl rock formation we found boot-top powder and plenty of space for untracked lines down.   We only found a few spots of wind crust and kept linking the non-wind affected zones enjoying good snow to the bottom of the Asulkan Valley.   
The shuffle out the Asulkan was unpleasant as usual, but at least with this tour, we didn€™t have to travel up it in the morning.   We started the day at 8am and finished around 5:30 (I think)€¦.finishing up about a half hour before we would€™ve started needing our headlamps.   
We spent Monday night in Revelstoke and then headed to the Revelstoke Mountain Resort for some lift assisted turns Tuesday morning.  There are some good deals to be had at the local motels€¦we had a room that slept six and lodging, a lift ticket, and breakfast combined was about $80cdn per person. 
The lower half of the mountain was icy and pretty unpleasant, but the topmost runs still had some pretty reasonable packed powder€¦we were surprised by the snow quality especially since they hadn€™t received any new in two weeks or so.   That resort would be ridiculous on a powder day.