Kokanee Glacier Hut

This trip was in mid-March, but I'm only getting around to putting a TR together now. I'll let the TAY gods decide if they want to move it.

I was lucky enough to get invited on a weeklong trip to the Kokanee Glacier hut in mid March. The hut is about 30 km north of Nelson, BC in the southeastern Selkirks and sits at 1960m. It€™s operated by the Alpine Club of Canada and weeklong slots are granted to groups on a lottery system. With indoor flushing toilets, running hot water, and electricity from a mini hydro-electric generator, it is less of a hut and more like a backcountry mansion.

The heli ride in had me more than a bit worried for the week ahead, as we arrived at the hut to a full on rainstorm. But the temps dropped overnight, the sun came out, and we awoke to a beautiful morning.

Skittles assembling on Kaslo lake just outside the hut, getting ready for our first tour


Making our way towards Mt. Giegerich


Looking up the ridge to Giegerich


On top of Giegerich, looking down our run on the NE face


Shredding the NE face. The freezing level during the rainstorm had been a bit lower than we had feared, so we were treated to about 5 cm on crust
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The relatively bulletproof snow made for fast and safe travel, so we did a bit of a tour. En route to Sunset Mt., looking back at our tracks down Giegerich
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On the shoulder of Sunset Mtn. looking east
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We then headed back north to the hut, with a stop at Mt. John Carter
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The keyhole (notch in the centre of the frame) is apparently one of the better runs in the area. Didn€™t get to ride it this trip, but it€™s definitely on the hitlist now


Next day, we got onto the Kokanee glacier. Looking up towards the Pyramid and the Battleship


Ants making our way to the repeater and onward to Cond Peak


Almost on the summit of Cond Peak, the highest peak in the area at 2800m
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Due to my accidental recording of 3 hours of what it€™s like to be inside my pack (who knew it was so dark in there?), this was the only run I got on video. It was a pretty good one. 900m from Cond Peak down to Joker Lakes. Even at this altitude, the rain had done some damage to the snowpack before we got here but there was still about 10 cm of pow on crust, enough to let us open it up.
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Looking back up at our tracks from the top half of the run
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The lower half was a bit crustier


Over the next couple days, clouds rolled in and it got progressively snowier, so we went back below treeline in the Enchanted Forest area north of Nansen Mtn.
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A couple laps in the Field of Dreams zone. Some pics of yours truly





Our second to last day was probably the best of the trip. Heading up to the Pyramid


Then we did a couple of 800m laps on the Kokanee glacier. They were pretty fun


Our last day was a full on storm tree skiing day. Four of us did 9 short laps of N-facing trees. Deepest snow of the trip and a nice way to end.
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An amazing week with great people and great terrain. And I got to have a hot shower everyday and poo in a flushing toilet. What more can you ask for?