Splitters rule! All three of us were on splitboards with the Dynafit setup. It’s actually thanks to these guys in a short film on Greg Hill’s site that I even came across this set up. It makes such perfect sense when you think about it. But I hadn’t until I saw these guys using it. Genius.

We headed up the Asulkan trail unsure of the day’s object, a few possibilities on offer: the Forever Young Couloir (my nemesis), over Sapphire Col and into the Lilly Glacier or the Jupiter Traverse. We plumped for the slightly “cockier” option of the Jupiter Traverse, a Rogers Pass Classic which both Joey and Karkis had done eight times between them. At least I was in good hands.

Pollux, Leda and Castor from left to right courtesy of Joey Vosburgh

The tour involves skinning up to Sapphire Col and then climbing Castor Peak, Leda Peak (with a sketchy downclimb of Leda Peak) before finally climbing Pollux and getting the board on your feet (my favorite bit) and boarding down the Thorington Descent.

Castor Peak. Start of the traverse. Courtesy of Joey Vosburgh

Me and Karkis on the traverse. Courtesy of Joey Vosburgh

Boarding down the first steep section from Pollux was magic, with great snow…..,  just not long enough. After that it was a nice cruisy board back down varied pitches to the Mouse Trap where the real fun began. These guys have skiing out in split mode down to a tee. Something I definitely need to work on.

Karkis descending the Thorington. Courtesy of Joey Vosburgh

It was a long day and my first real tour for a month after recovering from frost bite. We were on the go for a total of 8 hours and a vertical gain of 1900m/6200 feet.

For more trip reports in the Revelstoke area, click here.

Balu Pass

Although the tour is very low angle and short, it does take you through some potentially very big avalanche paths, so beware. On this occasion, something had ripped on pretty much all aspects, so things were pretty safe. The only aspect that wasn’t sun-baked and offered some nice fluffy turns was the East aspect which we were going to ski. Nice!!

Approaching Balu Pass with sub-peak of Ursus Major

We left the car at 13.00 and were at the top of the pass for 15.40 to enjoy amazing views and get my first really good look at the drainage and beyond for the first time. The main reason for the post is to get some nice pictures on here for others to use for trip planning.

Looking from Balu Pass

Balu Pass is the first of three cols in “The Three Cols Traverse” continuing on to the Cougar Pass and then onto the McGill Pass along the Bostock Creek and out at the Bostock car park. Sounds like a nice traverse and definitely one on the to do list.

Views towards Cougar Pass

It was a quick tour. 2.5 hours and 800m/2600ft

For more trip reports in the Revelstoke area, click here.

Well, I did promise some more trips reports during my convalescence but the truth is, I didn’t really take any decent pictures while I was doing them (not having a blog in mind at the time), so I’ve scrounged around a bit and may be able to cobble a couple together to make this text a bit more interesting.

So, as already mentioned, I’ve been struggling for touring partners all season (the dangers of coming to a new place and not knowing anyone. Maybe I should have stayed in Chamonix……). I was checking out Greg Hill’s blog as I tend to do for good beta and saw that he’d been up Grizzly Mountain a few days previously. Conditions hadn’t changed much since his outing, so I felt good going up there on my own. I don’t know why but I love couloirs, so there was no other line for me than the couloir on the south face of this mountain.

Grizzly Couloir. Photo courtesy of Greg Hill

You can actually get a good view of the couloir just before you pull into the Rogers Pass centre on your way from Revelstoke.

Grizzly Couloir from the NRC car park

It’s straightforward to get to: from the Rogers Pass Centre into the Connaught Drainage following the beaten track over the bridge and then passed Grizzly Shoulder and the first avalanche run out from Grizzly bowl and then straight into the next set of trees (I think it’s called Teddy Bear Trees). This is the safest skin up with little exposure and once you pop out of the trees you are nicely set on the ridge to take you up to the summit.

Sir Donald on the way up

It was a nice skin up and I was on the summit in reasonable time to enjoy a blue bird day. The entrance to the couloir was dipping in and out of wispy cloud, so I grabbed a window of better visibility to enter the couloir and saw Greg’s tracks.

Entrance to Grizzly Couloir

And that’s where the day became less pleasant. It was sun-baked and rutted from the few tracks that had already been down it. There were small pockets of powder to skier’s right where the sun hadn’t got to it but it was a pretty terrible, bone-jarring ride down! Oh well, at least I was getting fitter for the rest of the season….. (or so I thought!). I would love to ski this couloir in better condition. Barring conditions, it was a fantastic line.

So, some stats (4th tour of the season):

Total ascent: 1550m/5100ft

Time up: 4hr from car.

For more trip reports in the Revelstoke area, click here.

So here goes my first post and I suppose I’m the bearer of bad tidings…..

I’m currently convalescing after getting frost bite on my toes after being benighted on the Illicillewaet Glacier two days ago. Not the most uplifting of posts but I suppose this blog is supposed to be warts and al’.

Forever Young

Skinning up the start of the 7 Steps of Paradise

I was alert to potential slides and took a longer, more conservative route to get up the last section which avoided the Seventh Step. Very safe and low risk but a bitch to climb and I lost a lot of time boot packing in deep, faceted snow. When I got to the top of the bootpack, I realised I was on the wrong side to get to the summit ridge and had to descend the backside and skin back up. I had a bad feeling on this side and could see that a fair amount had ripped. It did not look good and I did not really want to be there. But now I was totally committed and was fast running out of time before it got dark. I still needed to find the entrance to the couloir which I found but losing more time.

The whole day just wasn’t turning out as I had envisaged: getting to the couloir had taken way too long, I was running out of day light and I was not feeling too good about the avalanche conditions. So, it was no surprise to get to the high side of the entrance  for it to rip down 15cm  about 30m across with me nicely sat on the bed. The first avalanche I’ve triggered of any real consequence and needless to say, I was pretty spooked. It didn’t make me want to enter the couloir but a purged couloir is also a safe couloir. Angelita was waiting for me a distance  away with a view of the couloir but couldn’t confirm via phone whether it had completely gone. With not much day light left, I had to make a decision: down the couloir or head down the Illecillewaet for the Youngs Peak Traverse. I just didn’t want to take the risk and decided on the Traverse, knowing full well that I might be benighted but hoping for a bit of luck in route finding.

No such luck. I’ve never been on the glacier before and could see it was fairly crevassed as I approached with hardly any light left, so the decision was an uncomfortable one but a no-brainer. Stay put and wait out the morning. Thank God for my space blanket. That really was a life-saver.

Overview

A long, cold night in a make shift snow cave but no big deal. I got down easily enough with the help of a skin track the next morning and made it to the Wheeler Hut in good spirits where Angelita was waiting for me. Unfortunately for me, we discovered that my toes had frozen overnight due to wet socks.

So here I am, going mad at the house waiting for my feet to recover. The official verdict is first degree frost bite with second degree frost bite on two toes but a full recovery looks to be on the cards. I’ve never been benighted but had all the necessaries just in case. I never thought spare socks would be part of that list but I will never leave without them now. It was a great learning experience under very forgiving conditions, with no wind and clear skies and a temp of ca. C -8. A real confidence builder if such a situation should ever arise again. Things don’t always go according to plan, especially in unfamiliar terrain and you’re not always going to have someone with you who’s done it before, so it’s essential to be prepared for the worse.

Needless to say, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands to get this blog going now which could be dangerous, so bear with me if I start going a bit off track!

Total Vertical skinned for the day: 1800m//6000 feet

For more trip reports around the Revelstoke area, click here.