Last day in the Cairngorms on Thursday I decided on an easier day as I was feeling the strain after climbing pretty much non stop since boxing day so headed out on the planks. After some debating I bought a ski pass (£22 for a student) and took the Gondola up to the Ptarmigan station. I did a few laps on the pistes first to get back into the swing of things as the last time I was on my skis was April. I could feel in my thighs that my ski legs had certainly diminished in the last 6 months! Conditions were good for Scotland, although there were patches of bullet hard ice around that you had to watch for as (with my blunt edges anyway) you struggled to hold and edge on them.
Whiteout conditions on Caringorm.
I then put my skins on and headed off up towards Cairngorm. The weather was pretty bad, with a strong winds and visibility down to about 10m. Skinning on a bearing soon had me at the summit, and I huddled behind the weather station to take my skins off and have a quick bite to eat. I skied off on another bearing East towards Corrie Cas, before traversing north and dropping into Corrie Cas itself and down to the ski area.
Last run of the day.
After a late lunch in the Ptarmigan restaurant I spent the afternoon skiing the pistes with the others from LUMC until the sun set, and excellent way to finish the trip.
I arrived home on the train on Friday (17th) evening just as it was beginning to snow in Preston. Between then, and when I woke up on Saturday morning it didn't really stop, with places getting 6-12inchs.
Skinning on Hesketh Lane.
After getting in late (2am) from the Ormskirk Network Christmas Meal in Southport I decided that considering the conditions it would be foolish to pass up the chance for a quick ski-tour round Tarleton. I managed to ski down Sutton Lane, through Mark's Square - much to the amazement of those that were still in the Lilford. Then all the way up Hesketh Lane to the High School where I skied down to the canal before heading back up to the main road, down Kearsley Avenue and home. Never thought I'd get to do that in Tarleton!
Saturday, Jacob, Andy and myself took the car out to the moss for some more fun with both the skis and sledge. I found skiing the powder on the verges of the road to actually be really good fun - although perhaps a little more akin to waterskiing than actual skiing!
Later that night we took this to another level though when Martin, Bob and Tom joined us complete with Landrover so we could really get some speed up on the Moss. We all found it quite exciting skiing and sledging behind the landrover at speed with somebody hanging out the back with a lantern illuminating where you were going. Anyhow, lets hope this snow sicks around. I'm hoping going to try and get to the Lakes tomarrow for some climbing, so if I do I'll report conditions when I get back.
Its the annual Kendal Mountain Film Festival this weekend. So far I've booked to see the world premiere of 'The Pinnacle' which documents Dave Macleod and Andy Turner repeating the Smith - Marshall famous week climbing on the Ben last winter, which should inspire me a bit for our CIC weekend in March! I've also got tickets to the Snowsports evening on the Friday, theres a few ski films being shown, and Glen Plake is there so that should be pretty cool as he is THE guy from Blizzard of Aaahhhs.
Headed out to Sunshine on Sunday, courtesy of Tristan and met up with Joe, Lou an their friend Chris who is visiting. For those of you that were in the city you'll know that it put down a few cm's on saturday afternoon and evening which made us quite optimistic for the snow conditions. While not being a true, baseless, deep powder day there was a good few inches with a fairly solid base beneath it which made for some lovely skiing in the morning. Later on we headed out of bound looking for some fresh turns which paid off we we got some lovely powder skiing on a slope up and above the Continental Chair bottom station.
Taken from the top of the 'Bye Bye Bowl', Mt Assiniboine is the shapely peak on the right.
After a hearty lunch of Yam fries and wings in Trappers we headed over to Goat's Eye for the afternoon with the intention to ski some of the chutes, unfortunately these were closed, but we manged to traverse from Cleavage almost up to them for some nice steep skiing and then some snug trees. We skied middle/lower canyon out that is certainly showing its age as there are three streams that have opened up which require little jumps to get across them!
So, probably the last day on planks for me this season, its certainly been a good one - better then my average of a week in Switzerland/France and the odd day in Scotland!
Friday was Bermuda shorts day at the university, simply an excuse the thousands of UofC students to drink a lot, not go to class all in the name of bringing the spring semester, and year to an end. I had a great day, I'm not going to go into exactly what I did but I hit all the big events; beer mile, couch races, pancake breakfast and the cage. The day itself made national news, which considering Canada is a big country I'm pretty impressed with, you can see CBC's report here - its worth a watch.
Saturday was spent recovering from Friday, a theme I imagine was common for most of the university's 24,000 undergrads. In the evening I headed over to Ian's for some beer, and pizza before we headed out skiing to Sunshine on the Sunday. Conditions are still fair at sunshine, snow cover is better than expecting although with the bring weather it is thinning in places, this is especially obvious on the higher scree slopes of Goat's Eye which being out of bounds are not maintained, most runs have a full covering though. The big issue at the moment in the temperature, by the afternoon the runs are getting pretty moist and slushy, and by the time its time to ski out you're dodging puddler - but I guess thats the sacrifice you make for being able to ski in a jumper with you sleeves rolled up!
Sunshine is open until May 23rd this year, although quite how many more days I'll get on planks, in resort or in the backcountry I don't know. If this was my last day I'll be happy, but if I get 1-2 more I'll hot 30 days this season which I'll be very happy with!
The next ten days are finals for me, so whether or not I get a post in I don't know.
Headed out to Nakiska yesterday with Ian, I've never skied there so its nice to be able to tick another resort before I leave. Its not on my season pass but thanks to Ian's friend Tara and here boyfriend Ryan we got free lift passes as Ryan works as a ski patroller there.
Its not a massive resort but is significantly bigger than Norquay where I was skiing the weekend before, but not quite up to scale with Sunshine or Louise. The big advantage here though is that (excluding COP) its Calgary's closest resort, only 45 minutes from the city. The terrain for the most part is pretty easy, a few green-runs and then mostly blues and black all with European, wide open piste feel to them. Theres a few blacks that wind there way through glades for some moderately snug tree skiing and one double black which is quite possibly the easiest double black in the world - nothing compared to chutes or steep face runs at Sunshine or Louise. But for a leisurely day from the city its worth a visit.
Snow conditions were pretty good on the groomers in the morning, however by mid afternoon, some of the pistes were getting pretty scraped and ice. We skied one lap down the piste the ski racers had been doing in the morning to discover it was like ice-rink tipped to 35 degrees!
I skied with Ian for most of the day just burning down run after run as we were both feeling quite fit, I didn't have my altimeter set but we must of clocked up quite a bit of vertical! I also bumped into Lou and Jane who were out from Calgary as well, while Joe was off doing his triathlon so caught up with them at lunch. Theres a video below I took of Ian coming down one of the runs, he catches at edge but somehow manages to hold it together:
After skiing we headed back to the city to stick some furniture on the front lawn at Ian's for people to come an take, and then barbecued some steaks and drank some beers in the yard for the authentic 'redneck' night.
Last weekend (Sunday 28th) I headed out to the Junkyards with Dena & Ian for a fairly chilled afternoon, we threw a top rope up and climbed some of the steeper lines on the curtain before doing Scottish Gully, all fairly standard stuff. With regards to conditions theres are some big shear cracks forming in the ice on the main falls, I counted 4/5 with about 6ft in between them, I don't think theres any immediate danger but its certainly showing that its late in the season. The curtain is also thinning, and theres a big hole at the bottom. The itself isn't too bad to climb on, theres a granular layer thats sitting on top of the proper stuff thats formed as a result of the freeze cycles, this in combination with the ice below actually gives quite easy placements, it goes without saying that the steeper (WI4) lines are all really hooked out. If your after leading stuff I'd be wearing as due to the quality of the ice I was wearing about placing screws, and if you do place some, especially for top-roping make sure you bury them with some snow/ice. It was over 10 degrees when we were out there in bright sunshine and screws were certainly falling victim to melting out.
On a side note we hired some gear from a place in Canmore as we were a bit short, including a pair of Black Diamond Cobras - absolutely amazing tools, probably the best I've climbed on (yes, better than the Nomics I think!).
Yesterday (Sunday 4th) I was out skiing, as the other resorts were going to be busy due tot he easter weekend we decided to check out Norquay. Its a small resort, only 5 chairs all with a mixture of runs coming off them but it was satisfying for the day, if I spent several days there in a row I would certainly get bored, its no Sunshine or Louise but considering there were probably only 50 other people there all day (Sunshine would of been in the 1000s) it made some pleasant skiing, being able to just burn down runs with nobody else on them.
When i get chance I'll try and ass some photos to this. I reckon I maybe have next weekend left for winter stuff if the weather keeps going the way it is and then I'll be packing the skis and axes up until next season.
I had 3 days earlier this week staying in Banff, out skiing with Joe, Lou and Frank on his visit from the UK. Thankfully we managed to coincide we one of the biggest dumps since the Christmas break which was nice and since it was a weekday it was fairly quiet. We found a really nice powder stash out of the back on Standish lift by ducking the rope which we had a few great laps on.
On the last day we found even better skiing over on Goat's Eye mountain, if you traverse out right from the chairlifts theres a series of double black diamond chutes which drop through cliff bands, we skied the first of these which was in pretty good condition but a little thin in areas that had been windswept. The ski itself was ace, its fairly steep at the top (maybe 45 degrees?) so if you took a decent fall theres a good chance you woulden't stop, the couloir narrows at the bottome but once your out you end up in a wonderful open powder bowl with lovely skiing and then some nice glades which eventually spit you out on a piste. Fantastic.
We stayed in the Brewster Mountain Lodge in Banff which we managed to get a good deal at, $90 a night for a room of two. I can also now highly recommend The Saltlik restaurant; not cheap but up there as one of the best steaks I've eaten.
I headed out to Black Prince, a popular backcountry ski area down in Kananaskis with Trevor yesterday. We had fantastic weather with great if perhaps a touch warm.
Black Prince is located off Highway 40, about 50 minutes from Calgary, and a maybe 35-40 from Canmore. The slopes that are usually skied sit below the mountains from which they take their name, a winter ascent on skis isn't listed in the ski guide and I don't know if its in the Alpine routes guide, but it would make a good objective especially for the summer. You skin straight out of the car park crossing the basin towards the slopes, following the river. Once you reach the slopes their are few options, we followed the hiking trail which had a nice skin track from a party before us up and then broke out onto the ridge through the gradually thinning trees until we reached the tree-line. This is about 5km and 4-500m of ascent In good snow stability conditions you could continue further up the ridge to get a longer descent but due to the warm temperatures and high category we choose to stick to the relative safety of the trees.
Snug trees on the descent of Black Prince.
The descent is lovely at the top with fairly open glades where you can get some nice wide turns with the slope probably sitting about 25-30 degrees. The snow was a lot better than we expected (I was pretty worried driving through the upper Kananaskis valley as it has lost most of its snow), I sank to my thighs a few times when I stepped of my skis - not glorious fresh champagne powder but good enough for us. The guidebook dosen't give much information as to the distribution of the trees across the drainage and I think we got sucked into following some other people's ski tracks and ended up skiing some pretty tight trees towards the bottom. Eventually the slope will spit you out at the river, depending on where this happens you might be able to get a clean run onto the trail and back down to the car park, unfortunately we were a bit to far to skier's right for this so had a done skins for a quick ascent over the ridge before the final down.
The rockies have been pretty dry for the last few weeks, the resorts were really starting to show the lack of snow, still plenty in the backcountry as I found out on the meadows last weekend though. Thankfully a few systems have come through this week and put some down, Sunshine got 20cm Tuesday/Wednesday and I hear Norquay got nearly twice as much, 35cm, on Thursday. So plan is to get out and look for some fresh tracks, heading out tomorrow with Trevor to a yet-undecided destination, avalanche forecast is a little high but I'm sure we'll find some nice slopes to ski, and then having a resort day Sunday with Trev, Ian an Dena - should be a good weekend.
As such, while having tea tonight I did a little surfing on Google video for some skiing clips, its nice to gawk at people that are far better than you'll ever be from time to time! I particularly enjoyed the one below:
I'll report back on the conditions and where I ended up when I get back.
Quick side note, I went to my friend Dena's band at a gig last night, I've seen them before and again they didn't disappoint. They're a Ska band and do a very good cover of Reel Big Fish's 'Beer' Check out their MySpace - I know still in the dark ages.
Having had quite a heavy week, with lots of midterms and a few papers due I was looking forward to the weekend and getting back out into the mountains. Unfortunately all my usual partners found some excuse or another to be busy which was a shame, but un-deterred I planned a solo ski mission out the back of the Sunshine Village Ski Resort in Banff National park which turned out to be a fantastic day, excellent weather and views and a little solitude.
Very clear skies - Mt. Assiniboine the Matterhorn of N.America.
I caught the Sunshine Coach early on Saturday morning, which while still not being cheap is cheaper than any of the other means of piblic transport out there at $35 return, and gets you to the resort for 9:30am. I decided to make use of the lift pass and ride the gondola up and got in a few runs around the resort to warm up and check my knee wasn't having issues. I then caught the Wawa chair to the top, donned skins and headed up to Wawa ridge. I ran a few laps of the top of here first getting some nice fresh tracks before dropping off to the SW and heading towards Twin Cairns the 2,550m highpoint of the meadows. The skin up was fantastic, if perhaps a little warm but the sun was certainly welcome - very much like spring skiing. I decided to forgo the actual summit of Twin Cairns a few hundred meters below the top due to the slope looking a little dodgy and having had the sun all day (the avalanche report was pretty ambiguous, categorizing the day as 'Variable' but did specifically warn about solar triggered slides, which I could see going of several slopes in the vicinity) and the fact I was on my own. I got some more fresh tracks in, interspersed with a little skinning on my way back down to the resort. I had a little time left before the coach left so did some runs on Goats Eye which had some surprisingly nice snow at the top, then the ski out back to car park. Back in Calgary for 7:30pm.
Looking out across the meadows from the top of Wawa ridge.
The meadows are a great venue for some very accessible backcountry skiing. I first read about them in Chic Scott's Ski Trails in the Canadian Rockies. They consist of a undulating plateau that sits at around 2,300m, a few hundred meters higher than the ski resort to the east with a few peaks accessible such as Twin Cairns which I mentioned above. Theres no specific route listed in the guidebook, just a description of the area which I quite like, its a change from all of the other prescribed routes - this is probably due to the low objective danger of the area, there no real alpine hazards and while still there the avalanche danger on most slopes is generally usually low. As such apart from actually informing you about this areas existence the guidebook isn't actually that helpful! A much better aid is Gem Trek Publishing's Banff & Mount Assiniboine 1:100,000 topographical map, which has an enlargement of the meadows at 1:50,000 on the back, the contour intervals are at 50m though which takes a bit of getting used to for those of us that have grown up with ordnance survey's 10m ones!
Theres certainly a few more trips worth of skiing to be done out there so I'll be heading back out at some point.
I had last week off as reading break from university, which was welcome as the first part of this semester had begun to tire a little after a great month off at Christmas with friends and family. Before I arrived in Calgary, last summer I did some preliminary reading on the classic mountaineering objectives in the area and compiled a short informal list of stuff that I'd like to do out here, the first thing that sat quite highly in the ranking was the Cascade ice route above Banff which I managed to knock off in January with some friends from the UK, so with a week off I figured that it was time to cross another one of these of the lists, and what better than a traverse of the Wapta Ice-fields.
For those of you that are unfamiliar with the route its a hut to hut ski mountaineering route, often touted as Canada equivalent and competitor to the European Chamonix - Zermatt Haute route. The Wapta Icefields sit in the central ranges of the Rocky mountains on the western side of the Ice-fields Parkway. The route is linear moving southwards so requires you to do a car shuttle on either the first or last day. We took 4 days over the traverse, but missed out the Peyto hut due to hearing that the approach had a significant section of boot packing on it, and nobody really likes carrying their skis. Instead we began with an approach to the Bow hut, then a day ascending Mt Olive and getting to the Balfour hut, a day traversing the Balfour high col to the Scott Duncan hut and then on the final day we took the Sherbrook Lake ski out exit down to the West Lake Louise lodge.
The skiing on the route is for the most part fairly easy, with the hardest section being skiing the glades and canyon on the ski out. The glaciers are also fairly tame with no significant objective dangers apart from the ascent to the Balfour High Col, this section certainly warrants the party roping up and moving fairly fast as some big serac bands hang above the route, this danger can be lessened to a degree by taking the lower glacier route but while be objectively a little safer this is more crevassed and demands more attention to navigation. We were lucky and had fine weather for 3 days of the trip so navigation on this section or any of the other was never a problem, I could imagine in worse conditions though it could get very tricky. In case of this, and in addition to a map and compass, I carried a GPS with relevant waypoints programmed in, many other up there also seemed to be taking this precaution.
I used the 'Alpine Ski Tours in the Canadian Rockies' guidebook to plan the trip, along with articles I read on the internet. The map which seemed best to support these was Murray Toft's 'Ski Touring on the Wapta Ice-fields' which has the routes and huts marked as well as some helpful photographs detailing the best lines to take. I found this map elusive in Calgary, even MEC didn't stock it but I fortunately managed to pick up a copy in Banff at Mountain Magic for $23 - not super cheap but its printed on nice waterproof and tear resistant paper so if you look after it you should only have to buy one.
I did the tour with two friends of mine from Calgary; Meg a telemark skier, and Dena, a climber and alpine skier who is fast developing a passion for the backcountry. Everything went to plan and we achieved guidebook time on all of the day. Theres a video below that follows our trip, and a set of photos in my Picasa gallery that is linked above in the tabs. If I have some time I may write more narrative entry about the trip later in the week, but we'll see.
Whiteout conditions on Caringorm.
Last run of the day.
