Enjoy.
When the snow settled and the wind died, I stood up slowly and looked around with trepidation. Was that it? Where was everybody? What the fuck just happened? Looking across the slope, I saw Christian getting up and Jeff already moving down towards Jay, who was gathering himself at the edge of some debris. What about Jud? The last I had seen him, he was screaming something as he tried to turn out of the path of the avalanche that poured off the cliffs above us. Then I ran, and he disappeared.
It was completely unexpected, though it should not have been. We were all so elated to get off the rappel that we forgot about everything else. We forgot about the solar warming occurring on the snow-filled west faces above us. We forgot about the avalanche cycle from the past few days that followed the sun’s path. We forgot that we needed to keep moving, quickly, to get out of steep terrain. Until that moment we had been so tuned-in to the snowpack, so cognizant of the hazard that surrounded us. But in our relief at being off of a frustrating and mildly scary rappel we became complacent about the known hazard that had occupied our attention. And now Jud was missing.
The Bugaboos-to-Roger’s Pass ski traverse begins at the Conrad Kane hut below the hulking granite of Bugaboo Spire and heads north across the Purcells to the Selkirks, finishing with a traverse of two huge pancake-flat glaciers, the Deville and Illecillewat Nevés, and a long descent to Roger’s. Covering over 100 km with more than 10,000 meters of climbing it is a total “skier’s traverse” flush with multiple long, north-facing, steep powder descents and challenging skinning. The entire traverse occurs in or under avalanche terrain, and requires constant assessment and management. I f conditions turn unstable midway through the trip the only option is to bail down a 40 km overgrown logging road in one of the river valleys that pour down from the abundant snow in the high country.
I was a late addition to a trip put together by my buddy Jeff and some friends of his from Nelson, BC. They had spent the last couple of months pouring over maps and arranging our mid-route food cache so that by the time I arrived in Nelson all that was left was to become acquainted with eachother before starting out. Jud and Jay lived together outside of Nelson in a house that Jay had just bought, with parking in the front lawn and a grease pit in the backyard. Together with Christian, a recent immigrant from Denmark, they spent the winter living on “E.I.” (employment insurance), towing each other into the backcountry around Nelson with sometimes-functional sleds, poaching the cat-skiing operations’ powder, and staying in as many of the area’s prolific backcountry huts as possible. As a whole, they turned out to be strong, fast skiers who knew the area intimately, and had spent the winter with their heads in the snow assessing stability while skiing the ample steeps offered by the Kootenays.
Our trip began at the CMH Bugaboos Lodge, where the lovely waitresses took pity on us as we gawked at the spread enjoyed by paying clients. After eating our fill of gourmet sandwiches and cookies, we boarded a helicopter for a brief ride to the Kane Hut. With the departure of the helicopter came utter stillness, and deliciously quiet cold as we gazed up at the spires towering overhead. Skiing into the Bugaboos is absolutely spectacular. We skinned through creamy powder, surrounded by world-class alpine climbing, but for us the rock was merely the backdrop behind our reason for being there. We wanted soft snow, cold weather, and to ski past the next horizon. We dreamed of sweet turns and, given the remoteness of the route, we hoped to see nobody else during our two weeks out.
As the trip progressed, we fell into a rhythm that worked pretty well for us: up at 6am, moving later than we wanted but not too late, travel until 6 or 7 in the evening, eat dinner, go to sleep. Repeat. We found fantastic powder on the north aspects, and excellent firm-snow skinning on the south. It felt good, comfortable to be out together. Through all extremes of weather, from blistering sun to high winds and heavy snowfall, we worked efficiently together, helping each other out when it was needed, rotating through the lead and traveling at a steady pace, making avalanche hazard and route-finding decisions as a team. We also discussed our past decisions; were they good decisions? Did we miss anything? Would we make the same choices again, given the information present at the time? Most often, we were happy with the choices we had made, and comfortable with how we managed hazards. When we weren’t, we tried to glean learning from the experience, and apply it to future situations.
After weathering a storm at the International Hut, we crossed over to the Duncan River watershed and dropped 4500’ from cold alpine powder to wet, isothermal spring snow in the valley. Crossing the Duncan would mark our passage from the Purcells to the Selkirks, and the finish of our traverse. In order to get up to the route across the Selkirks, however, we put in a day of skinning that began with wet bushwhacking and ended with a bootpack to Beaver Pass through thigh-deep powder. After a cold, windy night on the pass, we skied down to the Duncan Nevé using windows of visibility in a whiteout. “Is the bergschrund filled-in there?” “Can you see if it goes?” Jay volunteered to be the guinea pig, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief as he ripped turns past the bergschrund and skied far out into the basin beyond. Once we all cleared the slope, we built a quinzhee that became our home for 3 days as 70 mph gusts screamed past outside and 50cm of was blown past. At one point, the wind threw Jud to the ground while he was trying to reinforce the walls sheltering our kitchen.
All of the new loading from the storm brought dramatically different avalanche conditions, as we witnessed when a size D4 slab ripped off the west face of Sugarloaf Mountain and traveled a half-kilometer across the glacier. We tried to make a route work past the northeast shoulder of Sugarloaf but it felt bad, so we made the tough call to drop 5500’ back down to the valley and ski around to the Grand Glacier, and a different access to the Deville Nevé. This was the only part of the route that we had to circumvent, and it added 10km and 5000’ of climbing to the route total. Not crushing, but certainly a bummer. During this descent and the trip around to the Grand, we watched as the sun worked the new snow and started a predictable daily avalanche cycle, with avalanches ripping a couple of hours after a given aspect received sun. Back to traveling on frozen snow, either early or well after it had refrozen late in the day.
The night before our climb to the Deville was probably the most spectacular of the trip. Alpenglow lit up the Grand Glacier basin around us until late in the evening, and we all slept out under a starry sky. We woke early, with the stars still shining above, and climbed the south-facing slopes to the Deville as the sun rose and turned the snow around us to a rosy gold color. It was by far the best bootpacking of the trip—firm, frozen snow averaging about 40 degrees. Great climbing. At the crest of the Deville Neve, a pancake of a glacier 5km in length, we took a group picture under bluebird skies with the peaks around Roger’s Pass in the background. The end of the trip was in sight, and we were giddy with its closeness.
When the snow settled and the wind died, I stood up slowly and looked around with trepidation. Was that it? Where was everybody? What the fuck just happened? Looking across the slope, I saw Christian getting up and Jeff already moving down towards Jay, who was gathering himself at the edge of some debris. What about Jud? The last I had seen him, he was screaming something as he tried to turn out of the path of the avalanche that poured off the cliffs above us. Then I ran, and he disappeared.
It was completely unexpected, though it should not have been. We were all so elated to get off the rappel that we forgot about everything else. We forgot about the solar warming occurring on the snow-filled west faces above us. We forgot about the avalanche cycle from the past few days that followed the sun’s path. We forgot that we needed to keep moving, quickly, to get out of steep terrain. Until that moment we had been so tuned-in to the snowpack, so cognizant of the hazard that surrounded us. But in our relief at being off of a frustrating and mildly scary rappel we became complacent about the known hazard that had occupied our attention. And now Jud was missing.
__________
The Bugaboos-to-Roger’s Pass ski traverse begins at the Conrad Kane hut below the hulking granite of Bugaboo Spire and heads north across the Purcells to the Selkirks, finishing with a traverse of two huge pancake-flat glaciers, the Deville and Illecillewat Nevés, and a long descent to Roger’s. Covering over 100 km with more than 10,000 meters of climbing it is a total “skier’s traverse” flush with multiple long, north-facing, steep powder descents and challenging skinning. The entire traverse occurs in or under avalanche terrain, and requires constant assessment and management. I f conditions turn unstable midway through the trip the only option is to bail down a 40 km overgrown logging road in one of the river valleys that pour down from the abundant snow in the high country.
 |
| Skinning through the Bugaboos. |
 |
| And making our exit. |
I was a late addition to a trip put together by my buddy Jeff and some friends of his from Nelson, BC. They had spent the last couple of months pouring over maps and arranging our mid-route food cache so that by the time I arrived in Nelson all that was left was to become acquainted with eachother before starting out. Jud and Jay lived together outside of Nelson in a house that Jay had just bought, with parking in the front lawn and a grease pit in the backyard. Together with Christian, a recent immigrant from Denmark, they spent the winter living on “E.I.” (employment insurance), towing each other into the backcountry around Nelson with sometimes-functional sleds, poaching the cat-skiing operations’ powder, and staying in as many of the area’s prolific backcountry huts as possible. As a whole, they turned out to be strong, fast skiers who knew the area intimately, and had spent the winter with their heads in the snow assessing stability while skiing the ample steeps offered by the Kootenays.
__________
Our trip began at the CMH Bugaboos Lodge, where the lovely waitresses took pity on us as we gawked at the spread enjoyed by paying clients. After eating our fill of gourmet sandwiches and cookies, we boarded a helicopter for a brief ride to the Kane Hut. With the departure of the helicopter came utter stillness, and deliciously quiet cold as we gazed up at the spires towering overhead. Skiing into the Bugaboos is absolutely spectacular. We skinned through creamy powder, surrounded by world-class alpine climbing, but for us the rock was merely the backdrop behind our reason for being there. We wanted soft snow, cold weather, and to ski past the next horizon. We dreamed of sweet turns and, given the remoteness of the route, we hoped to see nobody else during our two weeks out.
 |
| Fast powder, somewhere in the Purcells. |
As the trip progressed, we fell into a rhythm that worked pretty well for us: up at 6am, moving later than we wanted but not too late, travel until 6 or 7 in the evening, eat dinner, go to sleep. Repeat. We found fantastic powder on the north aspects, and excellent firm-snow skinning on the south. It felt good, comfortable to be out together. Through all extremes of weather, from blistering sun to high winds and heavy snowfall, we worked efficiently together, helping each other out when it was needed, rotating through the lead and traveling at a steady pace, making avalanche hazard and route-finding decisions as a team. We also discussed our past decisions; were they good decisions? Did we miss anything? Would we make the same choices again, given the information present at the time? Most often, we were happy with the choices we had made, and comfortable with how we managed hazards. When we weren’t, we tried to glean learning from the experience, and apply it to future situations.
__________
 |
| Weathering the trip's first storm. |
 |
| Springtime conditions along the Duncan River. |
After weathering a storm at the International Hut, we crossed over to the Duncan River watershed and dropped 4500’ from cold alpine powder to wet, isothermal spring snow in the valley. Crossing the Duncan would mark our passage from the Purcells to the Selkirks, and the finish of our traverse. In order to get up to the route across the Selkirks, however, we put in a day of skinning that began with wet bushwhacking and ended with a bootpack to Beaver Pass through thigh-deep powder. After a cold, windy night on the pass, we skied down to the Duncan Nevé using windows of visibility in a whiteout. “Is the bergschrund filled-in there?” “Can you see if it goes?” Jay volunteered to be the guinea pig, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief as he ripped turns past the bergschrund and skied far out into the basin beyond. Once we all cleared the slope, we built a quinzhee that became our home for 3 days as 70 mph gusts screamed past outside and 50cm of was blown past. At one point, the wind threw Jud to the ground while he was trying to reinforce the walls sheltering our kitchen.
 |
| Recovering from the storm. (Avalanches on Sugarloaf Mountain in the background.) |
 |
| Looking back at our camp on the glacier. (Below the peak, and just to the left.) |
All of the new loading from the storm brought dramatically different avalanche conditions, as we witnessed when a size D4 slab ripped off the west face of Sugarloaf Mountain and traveled a half-kilometer across the glacier. We tried to make a route work past the northeast shoulder of Sugarloaf but it felt bad, so we made the tough call to drop 5500’ back down to the valley and ski around to the Grand Glacier, and a different access to the Deville Nevé. This was the only part of the route that we had to circumvent, and it added 10km and 5000’ of climbing to the route total. Not crushing, but certainly a bummer. During this descent and the trip around to the Grand, we watched as the sun worked the new snow and started a predictable daily avalanche cycle, with avalanches ripping a couple of hours after a given aspect received sun. Back to traveling on frozen snow, either early or well after it had refrozen late in the day.
 |
| Waking up to a lovely morning before the climb to the Devile Nevé. |
 |
| The five of us on the Deville--me, Jeff, Jud, Christian, and Jay. |
The night before our climb to the Deville was probably the most spectacular of the trip. Alpenglow lit up the Grand Glacier basin around us until late in the evening, and we all slept out under a starry sky. We woke early, with the stars still shining above, and climbed the south-facing slopes to the Deville as the sun rose and turned the snow around us to a rosy gold color. It was by far the best bootpacking of the trip—firm, frozen snow averaging about 40 degrees. Great climbing. At the crest of the Deville Neve, a pancake of a glacier 5km in length, we took a group picture under bluebird skies with the peaks around Roger’s Pass in the background. The end of the trip was in sight, and we were giddy with its closeness.
Hey bro,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog while I was visiting the Pivot site. I have read all your posts and and they have really motivated me. Yesterday I completed my first endurance race. I rode 101 miles in 9 hours on my single speed, which I recently purchased. My longest ride before yesterday was 22 miles. I just wanted to thank you for the inspiration. I'm glad you made it home safe from your skiing adventure.
Hey Evan-
ReplyDeleteRight on! Way to pull off a big race! Where was it? Hope to see you out racing this summer.
Cheers.
It was in Phx, AZ. The Dawn to Dusk race. It was a lot of fun, but I found myself in a very dark place towards the end. I can't begin to tell you how much your blog inspired me. Thanks again.
Delete