This is my 13th season ski touring out of Revelstoke, 13 years exploring and skiing as much as I can.  Throughout those years I have progressed from naive mountain boy to naive mountain man, so much has changed in those years yet so much has stayed the same. The way I look at the mountains, how I travel around them and my intimate knowledge of the terrain has evolved and will continue to evolve forever. My passion for exploration has stayed the same, the energy levels to go to new places as high as ever.

Eleven years ago I spotted this line on Mt-Davis, a wild looking couloir. Something that looked on the edge of sanity, there was the possibility that the line went but we were never afforded a perfect view of the whole line. Over the years I kept trying to get new angles and views that might increase my knowledge of the line, and its potential to be skied. 

A few of the times that we were on the summit of Davis I would look into the couloir and get puckered up and leave it for another day. The last time we went, Joey and I  watched as warm snowballs rolled down into oblivion. The timing was not right.

Recently the stability has been perfect, everyone is rating it Very Good at all elevations. Its early season so day time warming is not that critical, and the snow is staying cold and stable.  After hearing of all my friends exploits over the last week; while I was down on the ocean having a crazy family christmas, I had to get out and ski something I had never skied.  After giving it some thought I felt that all things were in alignment and perhaps we could shred the Davis Couloir, and maybe….just maybe.. we would get lucky and ski the 2300 foot couloir in powdery conditions.

Joey, Sean, Silas and myself sledded in and started heading up Davis. The night before and on the way up I tried to share some of the excitement of what we were about to ski. Really letting Sean and Silas know how much of the unknown was ahead, how we could be rappelling down cliffs, waterfalls could block our way and any other possibility of challenge. Whenever the adrenaline would pump through my body simply daydreaming about what was to come I would shout it out and try and scare the boys with what was to come. So many little things could go wrong, so many big things could happen….

Finally we were on top of the couloir looking down it. Walking out onto a birds perch to look down it we were still tantalized with never seeing it all.

There seemed to be one choke down low that we might have to ski around and we still could not see the first 500 feet. So I put on the rope, and Joey belayed me out into the couloir so I could see down it.

The first bit was skiable but looking a little firm, not quite the powder I was dreaming about. But given the steepness and exposure from all the cliffs above, it was better this way.  Steep hard jump turns led us down and into the couloir.

It became quite obvious that it may be impossible to ski this run under powder conditions because you would be exposing yourselves to endless sloughs off the cliffs on either side of the line.  That the chalky conditions we had were probably the best we could ever get, and they got better as we went down. The safest way to ski it was to ski 500-700 ft, get off to the side and get everyone to ski down and the repeat it, changing leads and hanging out in such a radical place. Right near the bottom a 30 foot waterfall blocked the way, which we had ropes and screws to deal with, but we found a way around it instead and soon enough we were skiing out the fan and looking back up at the wildness we had just enjoyed.

Joey had named another couloir off Mt-Davis as the cookie monster, so we felt this one deserved something along the same lines. Since it had such an incredible birds perch  at the top and it was one big ass couloir we decided on Big Bird. As with most  times that I ski something I have never skied  I saw another line that needs to see some tracks and tentatively named it oscar the grouch.  Which may take years to ski but I can’t wait.