A daydream come true

 During the summer months I spend a lot of time driving north of Revelstoke. The road we use is a paved road that travels beside the Columbia river for 150 km before it turns to dirt road. The whole time we are driving on the East Side;the Selkirks, and we are offered amazing views of the West side, The Monashees. So we all daydream about how one day we could canoe across and tour up one of these beauties.

 Well yesterday we finally did. A daydream come true. Aaron, Ian and myself canoed across the lake and toured up towards Hat Peak. From the road the bottom bit has always looked challenging but from a skinning point of view it all unfolded perfectly. Tight hemlock forest quickly opened up into large Cedar groves and then soon enough we were working our way up an open avi path and into the alpine.

 The tour into the alpine worked out beautifully, from a distance it all appeared large and forbidding but as we got closer it grew smaller and very manageable. Small pieces of terrain linked together to bring us higher and higher, till soon enough we were boot packing up the final pitch to the ridge. I had hopes that we would be able to summit and ski off Hat  peak but when we crested the ridge it was obvious that the last 200 feet was beyond our levels. And  not skiable.

So we turned our tips down and skied 7700 feet to the lake. I am going to have to do some research but I think that is the longest decent I have done around Revelstoke.  We skied from 9600 feet down to 1875 feet, and almost all of it was great skiing, the first few hundred feet was a little hard and the last 300 feet was a little bushy but all in all incredible descent.

In 2004 Aaron, Ian and myself  ski traversed the entire northern Monashees in 2004, a 21 day, 100 000 foot  untraversed mountain range. Since that trip none of us have stood on top of a summit in the northern monashees. So it was great to stand near a summit and gaze at the entire traverse we had done. To stand there the three of us and reminisce about that incredible trip we were on years ago. Fantastic. 

Cranberry Mountain

I have attempted this summit three times and never had much success. The access has always been to sled up to around 4500 feet and start touring up the east side, the terrain has always been really steep and committing. Each time I have gotten to a spot where it’s time to push on but the terrain and conditions have told me to turn around. So we have made it progressively higher but never to the summit.

 I discovered a plowed road that gives access to the North Cranberry creek. Judging by the maps it looked like a longer approach but a safer one. I had thought we would ski back out the way we toured in. But as the nine km of valley took longer and longer to tour up I began wondering if I did want to come back out this way.  Finally after 4.5 hours we gained the col (where the red dots begin), by this time we were all beat but  so much closer to the summit that we pushed on.

Winds have played havoc with the alpine and the tour up the ridge was like walking on Mars. Bullet proof frozen waves of snow. But we pushed on and soon enough we were skinning and boot packing up the summit. Wow years of waiting and now finally I was standing on the summit, not for long since it was 4.30 and we had a ways to go.

 We skied down the east side and had bullet proof, "cock hard" skiing  for the first 1500 feet and then we skied a small chute into the east proper and found some decent powder for the rest of this run. Some good turns down the entire bowl made up for the epic  cross country ski we were about to embark upon.

By 5.30 we were on Coursier lake and the full moon was illuminating our way. We drank some water, then hit a logging road back to our car. The logging road was not great, it seemed to never quite go down, and occasionally went up. We were beat and hoping for a quick and easy exit. It never came so we put our heads down and walked our way down the road. 

My first epic in a long time, 30 + km, 8000 feet and a new summit. 

West Twin

photo:Doug Sproul

Thanks to an overabundance of forests, Canada is blessed with an amazing logging road system. There are logging roads that go up every major valley and most broad ridges. In the summer I spend my time driving these roads for work and in the winter for access. If I had a sled I would access more but I usually wait and find out which roads are plowed.

 This year West Twin is plowed up to around 4000 feet. This is a perfect starting point for a variety of runs. I usually wait till weekends to access these roads so as to not bother the logging truck drivers. A large group of 9 boys traveled up there this Sunday.

Initially we had thoughts of traveling up valley and finding some decent runs but our skins decided to start touring upwards immediately.  We wrapped right up  4000 feet to a ridge and had some amazing turns down the south face. and then perfect  powder turns the whole way  down the avalanche path. Nine men on all forms of backcountry gear, Splitboard, Tele alpine, Dynafit, Diamar.  Regardless of  type we all had great turns to the valley floor. And then from there we were able to tour up through some great gladed forest up to the west side of the valley.

I had hopes of skiing the Shadow line on the right, the more direct line off the peak. But the terrain and  timing decided for us and we ended up skiing down the way we came up. It was a great day of new terrain, none of us had ever skied any of the lines we toured. It’s great that after 8 years in Revelstoke I can still find lots of terrain that I have not even touched. I am always searching and it still seems limitless.