The new guide book

A lot of inspiration has come from David Jones guide books of the North and South Selkirks. Many hours spent pouring over pictures of alpine lines that could be great ski lines. He has re-vamped his book and made one specifically for Roger’s Pass.  There are many more pictures and quality descriptions of the 300+ climbs in this area. He has also included some of our ski descents. Which is really fun, and may get some clarity on some of our descents, whether others had done them before us.   

David dropped this book of a few weeks ago and I have been wanting to ski a line out of it. One that I had never done. We had dreams of line 223, but instead decided on a repeat of Mark and Coners wild Mt-Copper line.

This is one of the more impressive couloirs in the Pass. Especially since it starts of a summit and then wraps into a couloir that lasts 2000+feet.

Bruno, Aaron, Joey and myself headed up Mc-Gill shoulder to access Copper mt. The most direct way seemed to be the best so we cruised up the ridge and kept the summit in our sights.

I had never been up this ridge and the travel was pretty good. We got to a point where we realized we should get a little run in. So we carved our way down a little couloir. East facing and filled with carvy fast snow we were psyched for the copper descent. If it had snow similar to that run we would be in steep skiing heaven.

With the excitement of our descent ahead we charged up the west couloir on Copper. The alpine temperatures were staying cool and there seemed to be little to no overhead hazard.

What a magnificent spot… Mcgill huge in the background and standing on a summit that none of us had ever stood on.  Since we were not entirely sure of where the line entered, I got onto belay and sussed out the entrance. No cornice or anything, a perfect shot from the summit. Damn it rarely gets this good!!Belayed into it I realized that it was a little wind hammered at the top. It’s an exposed summit and that can happen but the couloir could not be that bad.  Using the belay for a ski cut I then unropped and shredded down to the couloir entrance. Well maybe not shredded….more of a sideslipping, jump turning sort of thing. 

Standing on top of the couloir it looked like the snow would improve. Textured and soft it was inviting. We eeked our way down the first 50m, where it pinched to around 180cm wide. Then the couloir opened up and remained steep for the rest.

It looked so promising but overall the thing skied terribly.  I found the occasional soft turn but most was avalanched and then windslabbed…

Joey and Bruno both said it was their worst ski descent of their lives. I felt like I have had quite a few bad ones so this just ranked in the top ten. Regardless I was so excited to be there and use David’s new book as inspiration to ski this wild line. Thanks David.

The Cheops Shelf

In January on our way up Cheops I had dreams of attempting this line but due to lots of wind and other reasons we headed down the diagonal line. That was a fantastic day but I could not forget this line.

I have wondered about this line since my first trips up connaught. Its hard not to if you are a mountain dreamer. You look up and it screams potential, it screams fearful and  it screams great skiing in a wild environment.  From all angles I have looked at it seemed like the feature is probably big but it always really hidden.  The weather on Friday was not great but I wanted to get a look into it, at least approach with an anchor and look down to see what it looks like.

Joey and I headed up and were constantly teased further up the ridge with small windows of sun. Sun patch by  sunpatch we were lured higher. Hitting the summit ridge we struggled through facets and waded our way  to the notch. Finally we got there and joey hip belayed me with a deadman off his snowboard. I edged over to the ridge, cutting the snow ahead of me. I had scoped this on tuesday and saw that it was not corniced, soon enough we could see down the slope.

But how to get an anchor that will work with our two sixty metre ropes? We searched for rocks or planned a deadman but in the end a we found a large boulder at the top of the couloir.We dug out a huge rock and set up our anchor with two 10 m 7 mm cordelletes wrapped around it.

The first cliff was small and then it looked like the ropes made it past the second cliff.  I rapped down and was psyched that our ropes made it exactly past the last cliff. Joey joined me.

From there the ramp just lay below us, wide open pretty mellow and just great. We still skied conservatively and had to watch for sloughs from above.  

Super classic descent, one that I am sure I will repeat.