December 17 - 26, 2004, Roger's Pass BC

Initially we planned to start our trip with opening day at Kickinghorse ski resort but found it crowded and lacking snow.  Instead Ann and I headed up to the Best Western at Roger's Pass as we had originally planned and took a quick run on Grizzly Shoulder.  We didn't go too far due to the late start but found a bit of new snow over a rain crust from a week prior.

On Saturday the 18th we met up with our guide for the day, Jordy Shepard and headed up the Connaught Creek drainage to Bruins ridge.  After taking a lap on the ridge, we skied down into Hospital Bowl.  It was snowing all day which made the skiing good but visibility on the treeless areas challenging.  Here the ski conditions were ankle deep powder as shown in the picture below.  Skiing with Jordy was great and he gave us a number of suggestions for the remainder of our trip.



We took Sunday off since warming and continued snow increased avalanche danger to high in the alpine.

By Monday it had cooled off but was still snowing.  Due to limited visibility and considerable avalanche danger we headed up Grizzly Shoulder.  Here we took one and a half laps.  At the top the snow was outstanding light, deep pow and the steeper trees made for some really fun skiing. Towards the top the snow was knee deep or better and yielded a few face shots.  Close to the bottom there were some willows, alders, and streams that were not fully buried.

The next two days were clear, sunny, and cold.  Although danger had decreased, we played it safe and skied some mellow terrain in Hospital Bowl and around Balu Pass.   This nice weather allowed us to get some great views of the surrounding mountains.  Tuesday we skied Hospital Bowl which is very broad and our tracks were the only ones in the sparkling new snow.  Wednesday we skied Balu Pass at the end of the drainage which had a few more tracks but was still nice.    On our way here, we got a look at a run called 8812 which looked fantastic.  The snow in these areas generally was about mid boot deep since they are above treeline and not as protected as Grizzly Shoulder.  

At this point we were starting to get tired and took a down day to check out Lake Louise and Banff.  It was pretty cold by Oregon standards here.  The mountains were nice to look at but didn't have much snow.

We split up the drive home by stopping in Nelson.  Christmas day our backcountry skiing was cut short by a broken skin tip attachment.  Sunday (Boxing Day) we skied about 12 inches of new at Whitewater then drove home.

Overall a very nice trip.  Roger's Pass is a great area and there is so much to ski.  This entire trip we just skied the drainage behind the hotel and didn't even get to several other areas.