[kevlar]

Thanks for the detailed report. We've been skiing mainly in the Selkirks for the past month or so and I was suitably impressed to see all the snow waiting for us back in the Rockies. What a difference a month can make! I measured 240cm at treeline behind Louise on saturday and 224 cm at treeline near tent ridge on Sunday. Warming aside, I'd say that this was one of the better "Alberta" powder weekends in a long time, especially in K-country.

The glop stopper did come in handy though!

[CSG]

Saturday at the back of Chickadee valley, up towards Chimney Col. Apart from a group that farmed one of the usual S facing slides the day before, ours were the only tracks in the valley.

HS 305cm on the lower moraines, 33 degree slope. Surfaces down 10 (storm), 40, 65 and 125 (Feb. 14 layer). Moderate, resistant planar results on the 40, 65 (CTM-14-15); no result on the Feb. 14.

Lots of sluffing from the day before. We observed no major sluffing or slab avalanches, even on S aspects late in the afternoon. Old buried crowns could be seen from what looked to be a significant avalanche cycle, earlier in the week (?). Alpine has snow now, with 40 - 50cm over areas that were bare scree not too long ago. Though sketchier, even the thinner areas stayed tight.

Pictures later.

[booewen]

Spent 2 days at Stanley Mitchel Hut over the weekend (plus one day in and one day out).

Warm and sticky in the valley bottoms...lots of fresh solar activity on slopes along the approach (bring yer skin wax).

Went up to Emerald Pass the first day, skipped the glacier section because we could see an open bergscrhund and maybe more and we didn't have glacier gear. No whumphing/cracking or any other warning signs. Up high nothing even seemed to be reacting to the sun (and there was lots of sun this weekend). Yoyo-ed some 25 degree slopes with excellent snow quality.

Sunday we headed up to President Pass. Most of the big cornice at the pass has already dropped...one big chunk remaining. Lots of huge old crowns (a week-ish?) off the President side. Wind was blowing hard and sun was out and we were quite nervous. Just as we reached the pass remote triggered a fresh wind slab of the Vice that just failed to reach our uptrack. But no whumphing/cracking felt under foot. Bergscrund completely filled and no problem and no open slots visible at all. The President looked a little gnarly for us...the ridge has a tonne of snow piled up. Ski quality on the glacier was excellent and warranted a second lap. Overall skiing everywhere above treeline was excellent with huge amounts of snow and the sun not really impacting anything too much above treeline for now. But obviously North and East were the best for skiing.

Ski out was again warm and sticky and full of death cookies in the trees.

[CSG]

ChickaChimney Moraines, last Saturday.

Apart from a remarkable spell in February, it seems that this winter has been gloomy and windy in the mountains, with not much chance to poke up above the trees.

It's nice when it's nice.


This area has consistently delivered.


Last year's plum line, though we scoped a bunch of additions to the tick list.



Shockingly, we left the only three tracks in this landscape. Late, slow and somewhat slowed down by the relatively heavy snow, we didn't manage much and only got to a high point above the cliffs on the right skyline of the photo.



Nice to see snow in the alpine!



Snowpit. As mentioned, stability was better than we expected.



Hmmm... nice lines...



The down was not at all horrible.











Here, A. impersonates a tele skier



The chase is on!





Match the tracks: One dynaweenie, one broken heel skier, one Mt Curie Alpine Hound.



Man, I don't hate skiing at all.

[B]

Great, great shots. The snow looks so lovely.

[Matt]

Went to a popular spot off the spray lakes road on Saturday and found some really good conditions. Snow was kinda heavy but there was a lot more than I was expecting.
With the sketchy avi conditions of late, I've been skiing at the Nordic centre more than anywhere else - glad I got out for the powder this weekend.

[booewen]

Went up Crowfoot Mountain on Saturday. Pretty big fresh slab off the mountain on climbers right of the moraines. Great snow, and lots of it. Could ski all the way to the summit if you stayed a bit lower than the ridge top as you traversed.

Sunday went to try Pumpkin Traverse given the mod mod low avi forecast but access up Lipilian was closed (I love skiing up resorts for nothing!) so we went to Hidden Lake instead. Loads of fresh activity off NW aspects on Redoubt (big stuff) and a big one off Richardsons's Ridge S aspect that ran 3/4 length of it's run out.

Didn't look like 'moderate' out there to me on Sunday!

[CSG]

Well, I feel a bit sheepish about this post. Reading the various reports from the bulletins and MCR, its pretty clear we had no business being in the terrain we were. Probably better if we hadn't even gotten out of bed.

That said....

It was a lovely day on Sunday


Sun was out after a pretty significant storm cycle. We didn't seem much in the way of large slab avalanches, though there was obviously lots of sluffing in the steeper terrain. Here's a S aspect, in thin, wind-effected terrain.



... and on going transport at ridgeline



Clearly, the usual south facing hits were all kinds of bad idea. But the best lines are north facing, and there were no obvious red flags.

The first of a couple of pits showed really good bonding on the obvious interface 50cm down (03/29?), with no results.



Higher up, things steepened, and the interface became more variable, as did the snow. We felt that we should abort, despite a pretty convincing impromptu stability test, courtesy of a 50lb cornice drop from the tops of some very tall cliffs. Though in (relatively) safe spot, hearing and feeling the deep thud was attention-grabbing, to say the least.



We ran away!







Ultimately, the deciding vote was Zsuzsa's, who made it pretty obvious she hated the situation. Much better to be in a warm sunny parking lot eating kibble. Smart dog. Smart, smart dog.

[skidaddle]

CSG, awesome skiing, snow, and photos. Thanks!

[booewen]

What, no-one was out over Easter?

I would post some pretty pictures this time...but don't know how!

We hummed and hawed the week leading up to Easter debating if the weather and conditions would be right for the Winston Churchill Traverse just north of the Columbia Icefields in Jasper NP. Aparrently only 30km...but man did it feel further. There was virtually no info online about this traverse..so it seems like it's not often done.

We made the decision Thursday night....a good weather window appeared and avi conditions seemed good enough to give it a go...with backup plans in place if we did want to turn around at any point.

A frigid -20C start at the car...and we realised that Christine's skins no longer fit her skis. She had re-ironed the glue with parchment paper on top as per instructions from the internet...and apparently shrunk her skins by about 3cm! We had to improvise with shoe laces.

The ski starts up with a beautiful ski up Diadem Creek...before heading into an alpine bowl. It's not too exposed to avalanche risk...which is lucky as it was baking in the sun by the time we got there. The final headwall is a steep roll...and luckily a group in front of us was working on bypassing this via a short scramble/boot up a gully on the right. We followed suit and took a nice route devoid of avalanche risk. Crux 1 out of the way!

Onto the glacier some HUGE slabs off steep NE aspects become apparent. I would estimate 1.5m+ deep at the crown. We ambled on towards Nelson...thinking we had lots of time. We took a side trip up to a pass with a nice view of the North face of Mt Alberta (negotiating some big crevasses on the way). Then came back down to the glacier and set up camp near the group we had passed earlier.

The next day the weather came in and we went over the next pass just as the visibility went to about 10m. We debated what to do for a while...and in the end made a 'white-out-whip' (probe and prussik cord) and set off following a NW bearing into the unknown. A bit nervous as Chic Scott warns of large crevasses on this side.

With a lot of luck we managed to pick a perfect route through the holes and off the glacier just as the clouds cleared. Man are there some big holes down the left hand side!

We took skins off for the first time on the trip and headed down the valley.

Next challenge...800m climb up an avi path. Crux 2. With the sun not too present, we felt confident giving it a go. The route we picked was up a very dense old slide path that doesn't see too much slide action but as a consequence as majorly dense! interesting skinning abounds and eventually we make treeline. Then good route finding can lead you fairly safely to the next pass.

Down the other side flat light made for some difficult choices as the only routes down seemed to be 30 degrees and either an avalanche gulley or a thin convex slope. Chic never mentioned these issues! Did we miss something? Anyway, we cautiously made our way down without issues and then camped in the trees, expecting a short day for the last day.

A long traverse at treeline with amazing scenery and then a not too bad climb to a MAJORLY corniced pass (passing caribou tracks on the way). Confusion ensued as my GPS flipped out at the pass and it was telling us we were at the wrong one. Map and compass proved the GPS wrong by 300m (no user error...I swear my GPS is shit) and we headed down the valley.

Nice skiing for the first time on the trip...but constant slides of the S aspects kept us on our toes (3 within 20mins while we skied down past them!). It was possible to avoid their runout zones for the most part though by staying high on the right.

Thinking the worst was over we continued down the creek. The Creek of Doom as it turned out to be. Two waterfalls to negotiate that I think may be impassable (or 7m jumps) in bad snow years...then awful tight trees, bush whacking, open creek, difficult survival skiing all the way back to the icefields parkway. And we had AMAZING snow conditions and depth. Can't imagine skiing that way later in the year or with a shallow snow pack. But we do suck at skiing.

We hitchhiked back to the car (took about 30mins to get picked up).

[sandy]

Nice story. Pics would be great, but are a fuss to post here. You have to upload them to another site and link them in. I use Flickr. What creek do you come out on from that traverse?

Any chance the GPS glitch was a mismatch of datum between map and GPS? That can put you off 200 m in both N/S and E/W directions.

[aqua_toque]

That's a thousand words that would be worth a picture.

Thanks for sharing and good luck with the internet.

[snotsicle]

[CSG]

Great stuff!

[bigsteve]

Thought I'd pop in and say hi.
Between several BC hut trips, and the consistently fine skiing that Alberta has been been enjoying, not to mention work, I've not had much desire to participate in the snipefest that t-tips has been devolving into.
But, things are different here in the Alberta thread, as we Canadians are just so nice, until there's a provincial election...
However, skiing.
A fantastic Easter weekend. The last round of tracksetting in PLPP finished off our xc season on Friday in fine fashion-

Sunday, superb picnic weather on the Dolomite circuit.

Not bad skiing as well, until the trees out to the highway at days end.

And the usual ho-hum views.

Dolomite Circuit
Looks like another great weekend coming up!
_________________
"Kindness is like snow, it beautifies everything it covers"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge