Ski Touring in the Rockies

I just got back from two days of ski touring out in the beautiful Canadian Rockies. John, my friend from Banff, and I were supposed to head out to Roger's Pass in the Selkirks, but high freezing levels had us alter our plans. John invited me out to Banff to do some touring since things seemed to be getting a bit more stable out there. I thought it would be as good of an opportunity as ever to check out that neck of the woods.

While I was excited about skiing in such a beautiful and historical area, I was also a bit apprehensive about the skiing. The Canadian Rockies are known for being big, burly, very cold and windy, and have a notorious reputation for a shallow and dangerous snowpack. Yeah! Sounds like fun! John has lived in Banff for the past three years and is used to tip toeing around the area. He's conservative in his avalanche decision making, like me, and is a good guy to go touring with. On my drive out I was wondering where all the snow was, wondering what the heck we were going to ski. John assured me that he knew some spots, so we headed off to Kananaskis, an area south of Banff, full of dramatic peaks and broad glacial valleys.

Our destination was Tent Ridge. John had skied there several times in the past week, so he was feeling confident about its stability. Here's a view of the peak with our ascent route (in green) and the two laps we took down the main bowl (in red).



It was a nice mellow skin up through the trees and then the pitch picked up as we approached gained the ridge. Here's John enjoying the last bit of skinning before we had to boot pack up the rest of the ridge. Welcome to the Rockies. Snow on one side. Wind scoured rocks on the other.



John enjoying some sun on the way up.



Me on top, enjoying my first Canadian Rockies summit.



John and Joshua enjoying the views from on top of Tent Ridge.



Summit Video



This was John's third time skiing this line in the last 7 days, and one of those times, one of the people he was skiing with fell heavily and repeatedly on this slope. They also cut a cornice on it, and we did the same as well. So, we felt good about the stability. This was a fantastic line to ski. Fast, fall line skiing, with about 4 inches of powder on top of a firm layer. Not deep like the Kootenays, but still fun! Here's John dropping in.



John snapped this video of me skiing down the bowl (some language not okay for the kids on this one).



We headed up for a second lap off the shoulder of the ridge, and then headed on down through the trees back to the car. Skiing trees in the Rockies is not like skiing trees in the Kootenays. Because the snowpack is so low, everything you can think of is waiting to bite your ankles or provide a dramatic stop to your downhill progress. Definitely some of the spiciest tree skiing I've ever done. It was a relief to get back to the car in one piece. Can you say survival skiing?!

That night we cooked up some mean tacos with rice and beans. Unfortunately, it left us both with really nasty gas the next day as we headed up to check out an area that John had never been to around the Wapta Icefields. The day was bluebird, warm, and beautiful. We new the snowpack would be a little different up here. Even more shallow and faceted than in K-Country. We headed up into the alpine via fairly mellow terrain, with our objective to get up to Crowfoot Pass, which is the obvious pass in the photo.



The views were incredible the whole day and it was fantastic to be surrounded by such big mountains and huge glaciers. The geology and glaciology are just so incredible in the Rockies. We had to skin across some flats and then a frozen lake, a first for me, to begin gaining the pass. But the Crowfoot Glacier was there to keep us motivated for the mile long skin across it.



We skinned up through steep trees to gain the alpine and the views just kept getting better. John getting up to treeline.





Since the sun was out in full effect today, we didn't want to expose ourselves to any of the solar induced avalanches that we knew would be happening. From a safe spot, we got the pleasure of watching three small avalanches cascade down 1000 feet off of the cliff walls in front of us. John caught the first two on camera.





The terrain that looked mellow from the road, ended up being a bit convoluted once we got up into the alpine. And with the amount of faceted snow that we were finding, I wasn't okay with commiting us to the terrain that would need to be navigated to get to the pass. So after a fairly mellow 1000 foot climb, we ate some lunch and called it a day, skiing down very mellow 20 degree-ish slopes, then steeper trees and back across the lake to the car.

John minutes away from our high point.



Me with Bow Peak and Crowfoot Pass in the background at our lunch spot.



We had a great laugh on our way down as John demonstrated his skill in doing 100 turns in 100 feet. Look at him go!



Here's his twenty turns compared to my four turns.



All in all a great trip with John, and great to do some skiing in a new mountain range...but I'm glad to be back the deeper snowpack of the Kootenays :)