April 27 - May 4, 2013, Fairy Meadows, Selkirks

A group of 12 from Sandpoint, Idaho, Boise, Seattle, Kalispell, Banff, and Kimberly BC spent the April- May transition ski touring at the ACC Bill Putnam Hut at Fairy Meadows. We were joined by a couple of other guys from Saskatoon and Victoria that were assimilated into our group in a borg-like fashion. We were delayed one day getting into the hut by pour flying weather. Bummed to miss a day of skiing, but encouraged by reports of heavy snowfall at the hut! We finally got in on Sunday afternoon. Thirty inches of new snow had fallen the previous 2 days, and it was still storming! The new snow had bonded well to the spring surface it fell on. We skied a lot of very nice lines!
We had an excellent week of ski touring. The finest powder skiing of the entire 2012-2013 ski season at the beginning of the week, and spring corn on the last day there. Our group managed to bag many peaks: Sentinel, Pioneer, Fria, Colossal, Enterprise, Sir Williams were the biggies. The hut accommodated our group of 14 very comfortably. On Friday night we had 3 skiers doing a traverse from Sorcerer Lodge to Mica Creek drop in on us. We fed them in a big way!
Fairy Meadows had been on my "bucket list" for a long time. I'm looking forward to skiing there again!