February 18-20, Rogers Pass
2/15/10
Canada BC
1631
0
18-20 February 2010
Three sparkling clear days of touring at Rogers Pass.
On the drive up, we discussed possible destinations for the first day and decided on heading up to Bruins Pass and the north side bowl on 8812. After stopping in the ranger station, we were disappointed the first morning to hear of a few very large remotely triggered avalanches on Bruins Ridge the previous day. The new snow wasn't stabilizing as we'd hoped; instead it was consolidating into larger and larger slabs. We changed destinations to Grizzly Shoulder and Little Sifton, thinking we could at least get up into the alpine on the lower angled slopes. Up the skin track, we eventually broke through the inversion clouds just above the "magic keyhole" and were surprised to see a group of park wardens in the sun as we had been breaking trail above the top of the shoulder. "Did you come up from the Hermit area we asked?" They sheepishly avoided a direct answer and we realized they had been dropped off from one of the helicopters we had seen flying around that morning. Hum, heli drops to ski powder, dig some pits and do some training in a popular non-motorized national park? They did however leave us a nice track up toward Little Sifton. Arriving at the col the short steep north side entrance to the Hermit area had already been ski cut and didn't look too bad so we skied down but agreed to take conservative lines below. While working down a ridge avoiding steeper slopes we triggered two small, fast running slabs. Point taken, avoid anything above 30 degrees. The rest of the descent was OK, solar aspects had been crusted and there were a lot of older tracks but it was scenic and safe.
That night we shared info with some other skiers and decided on one of their recommendations to do the Lily-Dome traverse, up Loop Brook and down the Asulkan. A party of 12 Italian skiers with an early start left a nice track all the way to the top of the Lily where two of us took a nice 1200 ft run down the glacier while they were eating in lunch in the sun. From the bottom we watched as four of them simultaneously skied the steepest line that we had agreed to avoid, still wary after the previous day's experience. We skinned back up the glacier and crossed the col without incident, then lounged in the windless sun enjoying the view before skiing good, soft snow down the Dome and out the trail.
The third day we climbed up past Perly Rock to a col between Terminal Peak and Sir Donald, the high point of the Illecillewaet Neve. This tour was inspired by the view of the upper slopes on last year's Young's Peak traverse. Good powder on the NW-W facing slopes all the way to the valley in beautiful afternoon light capped the trip.
Three sparkling clear days of touring at Rogers Pass.
On the drive up, we discussed possible destinations for the first day and decided on heading up to Bruins Pass and the north side bowl on 8812. After stopping in the ranger station, we were disappointed the first morning to hear of a few very large remotely triggered avalanches on Bruins Ridge the previous day. The new snow wasn't stabilizing as we'd hoped; instead it was consolidating into larger and larger slabs. We changed destinations to Grizzly Shoulder and Little Sifton, thinking we could at least get up into the alpine on the lower angled slopes. Up the skin track, we eventually broke through the inversion clouds just above the "magic keyhole" and were surprised to see a group of park wardens in the sun as we had been breaking trail above the top of the shoulder. "Did you come up from the Hermit area we asked?" They sheepishly avoided a direct answer and we realized they had been dropped off from one of the helicopters we had seen flying around that morning. Hum, heli drops to ski powder, dig some pits and do some training in a popular non-motorized national park? They did however leave us a nice track up toward Little Sifton. Arriving at the col the short steep north side entrance to the Hermit area had already been ski cut and didn't look too bad so we skied down but agreed to take conservative lines below. While working down a ridge avoiding steeper slopes we triggered two small, fast running slabs. Point taken, avoid anything above 30 degrees. The rest of the descent was OK, solar aspects had been crusted and there were a lot of older tracks but it was scenic and safe.
That night we shared info with some other skiers and decided on one of their recommendations to do the Lily-Dome traverse, up Loop Brook and down the Asulkan. A party of 12 Italian skiers with an early start left a nice track all the way to the top of the Lily where two of us took a nice 1200 ft run down the glacier while they were eating in lunch in the sun. From the bottom we watched as four of them simultaneously skied the steepest line that we had agreed to avoid, still wary after the previous day's experience. We skinned back up the glacier and crossed the col without incident, then lounged in the windless sun enjoying the view before skiing good, soft snow down the Dome and out the trail.
The third day we climbed up past Perly Rock to a col between Terminal Peak and Sir Donald, the high point of the Illecillewaet Neve. This tour was inspired by the view of the upper slopes on last year's Young's Peak traverse. Good powder on the NW-W facing slopes all the way to the valley in beautiful afternoon light capped the trip.
Reply to this TR
Please login first: