The Vaux Glacier

Waking up this morning I was a little tired and the weather report was not fantastic. Assuming that visibility wasn’t going to be great I headed up to the pass anyways. Chris, Aaron and I decided to head up to the vaux glacier, a place none of us had ever been. We first went up Glacier Crest and then skied the S-chute off it into the illecilliweat. Possibly the worst ski of the year, frozen bed surface with deep powder on top, the powder was too light to dampen the hard ice feel of the bed surface. Great feature but terrible conditions.

The weather stayed decent and we toured up under Sir Donald and up onto the vaux glacier. The four thousand foot face of Sir Donald loomed above us and sent spindrifts down onto us. But we continued up the Vaux until it benched out.  From here we had a great 2900 foot run.

 And then a 2200 foot skin up to a col in between Uto bowl and Sir Donald. A short and steep entrance led us into a huge bowl filled with fantastic snow.  A great day with more to say and show but I have to head out to dinner. Day 60 10190 feet.

Mt-Macdonald

 When I went out touring yesterday I began dreaming about today’s adventure. I felt like the stars were in alignment and I should try and summit Mt-Macdonald. Realising the size of the task I enlisted Doug Sproule and Ian Bissonnette.

 At 8 20 we left the NRC parking and charged our way up NRC gully. The whole feature had run in the avalanche cycle that happened on monday so we felt confident stomping our way right up the heart of the bowl. Within two hours I was staring at the south face of mt-Macdonald, it looked steep and imposing but it hinted of an easy way up.

We skied down and immediately began the boot pack. Which was ridiculously easy, the steps almost made themselves. We were boot packing up a small avalanche bed surface with great powder just to our left. I could not believe how perfect the ascent was. The snow did get deeper, and we were booting up through 40 cm of fresh snow but it had no slab qualities to it.By 1230 we were on the summit amazed at how easy it had been, 3000 feet of great turns awaited so we did not stay long on the summit.

Here is Doug enjoying some spring snow. The descent was as great as we could ever hit it. From face shots to great carving snow we shredded our way down the south face. Hitting absolutely no sun crust?!?

 Then we turned our energies towards Avalanche Mountain. Hoping that we would be lucky enough to summit two new peaks today. Touring up the glacier we had fantastic views of the line we had just skied. Its always so amazing to look back and see an imposing summit like Mt-Macdonald with your own turns carving down the mountain side.

Once we got part way up the chute between the two summit the snow changed and was bullet proof. Eyeing the boot pack to the col I got scared. It looked like it was at least 60 degrees and hard as ice, needless to say we turned and skied down.Leaving avalanche mountain for another day.  Our turns from here down were great powder turns on top of a solid bed surface. All in all great turns..  10 130 feet

Days gone by

White Cap Alpine was a fantastic lodge to ski tour out of. It had a real historical feel to it. The lodge was built in the 1950’s and was a hand built log cabin, the person who built it had visions of a huge ski resort at some point.  The mountains surrounding the lodge  were large and very impressive, with plenty of lines to dream about.

 The weather was not conducive to a great photo shoot but we did manage to get some decent deep powder shots as well as a few cliff hucks. I had to manage my time appropriately t make sure I got my 10 000 feet as well as getting some good photos. Somehow I managed 2 days of ten thousand feet. I was dreaming of 3 or 4 but I could only manage 2.

I visited briefly with Tracey and my kids and then took the overnight bus from Vancouver to Revelstoke. Getting home around noon I made a few phone calls and then went out touring around 2.30 on mt-mackenzie. Somehow I skinned my fastest 10 000 of the season  and enjoyed some great dust on crust up off the peak. 4 hours and 40 minutes 10 200 feet.

 Great to be home and looking forward to some more exploration of my home range.