Crawling into the unknown

This was by far one of the more eerie moments of the winter. We were touring up Mt-Mackenzie; the main summit above our ski hill. The weather had been poor for days and not many people had visited the summit. We were skinning up, enjoy the day. As always I was avoiding the cornice while skinning up the ridge. My primary concern is always to not go too close to the cornice, doing whatever I can to ensure we are on the safe side, probing, walking on rocks,.. Basically always worried and playing it safe by staying in what I know is safe terrain. This day I was winding up when I stumbled upon these skis.

Very eerie, no fresh tracks, nothing but two skis slightly blown in by wind. Who leaves a pair of skis almost on the top of the summit? I looked around, no fresh activity.Looking two feet past the skis it looked like the cornice had fallen off. Alarm bells ringing I skinned to the summit and used Joey’s radio to call the ski hill. No one missing, but a week previous at 2 am a skier had hiked back into bounds with a broken ankle and no skis. The store was vague but he was OK.

So I grabbed the skis and skied Thumbs Up with them attached to my backpack.

A few days later he came by and grabbed them and filled me in on his story.

So he had scoped the line out from the other peak and knew the cornice was not too big at this point. His friends had left him and he was all alone. He almost made it to the summit and decided to look into the line. Crawling on his stomach he worked his way out onto the cornice, hitting it with his pole he figured he was OK. Then the whole world tilted and he fell down the cliffs….around 700 ft of them. Hitting snow slopes along the way and cliffs, of course. He finally stopped tumbling and assessed his body. Luckily he had been wearing a helmet and body armour but he was really hurting and had a broken ankle. He started hiking climbers left and working his way back up to the ridge…. then he triggered an avalanche and was carried a thousand back down the mountain. Managing to stay on top he was sort of OK. then he began climbing back up the bed surface and worked his way back to the ridge, and crawled back to the lift shack… 8 hours after having fallen off the summit….

Lots of luck on his part… but the main thing he did was go into the unknown without backup. I am always so scared of cornices because you never know how far back they will pull. I have never fallen off one but I am always super cautious, making sure I am standing on rock.. or slightly snow covered but never more than a metre of snow.

OK I lied…. I have fallen off one or two before but with proper backups. Anchors and people belaying me. Whenever I venture into the unknown I try and get as much information from maps, photos, google earth, other people. If there is absolutely no way to know how to get into your line and it is cornice rimmed, then we put on ropes. Once tied to the other side of the mountain, it is far easier to probe out, and shovel until the cornice falls and you can get a nice safe look into the line. I can distinctly remember the first time I did this properly and needed the backup. We were working into this 2500 hanging iceline on Mt-Bonney and I was tied in and walking towards the edge, then moments later I was falling through space following a bus sized cornice. An instant later I was hanging with the entire line below me, safe and psyched by how great the line looked. Especially since we had just dropped the biggest slope test ever!!

The long of the short is, always know where you are going, get as much information about the line, then if there is still some unknown back yourself up.

ahhhh the thrill of adventure

Although I have had some great adventures over the season, not a lot of them were new to me. I realized after my two million year, that I was a little burnt out over lapping the same runs, or going back to the same places. Not that I didn’t explore a lot that year but there were some weeks where I repeated very similar days. I recognize that my real energy comes from exploring new areas and summitting new mountains. The thrill of discovering a new line, studying it for days or years and then finally figuring out how to summit it and hopefully ski the best looking line.

Hughes Peak has been on my list of things to do for years…years. Its a small peak amongst a bunch of massive wild mountains but it is a crazy little brother to them. I have always wondered how we would get up her.

So a few weeks ago we sledded into this remote area of the Monashees and set up base camp in a super secret trailer. On the first day we adventured around scoping the zone out and then the next day we snowmobiled towards Hughes. I thought it would be an aggressive up and then an aggressive down. But as we stood looking up the ascent route we were all scared, it looked like three hours of cornice exposed terrain. So we chose to skin around the mountain and search for another weakness.

Immediately we began following some wolverine tracks, they led us up for 4000 ft, till they took off down the valley and up the other, its so amazing how far they will go.

Our next animal encounter was two bald eagles who circled around us as we a skinned up a couloir and approached the summit. After some minor scrambling we finally reached the top. I put on a rope and scoped out the summit line but it felt like the crew was more psyched on the couloir . So we skied down 50 feet and again set up a quick anchor off a rock. I probed and shovelled my way past the cornice and into the couloir.

Soon enough we were leap frogging our way down. Here is a cool shot of Mark Hartley from Joey Vosburgh.

Overall the chute was fantastic, steep and powdery at the top, steeper and sun crusted in the middle and then thousands of feet of fun powder skiing below it.

It felt so great to finally visit Hughes and enjoy some of its fine features. A longish tour back to the sleds and then back to base. The next day we woke up with some great expectations and headed up Mt-Thor.

I had attempted Thor years ago and was turned around by the burly nature of the mountain. This time we had a little more beta and were heading to ski this wicked couloir. Our friends had skied it in Feb and we felt it deserved another visit.

It took hours to approach and finally we were underneath it. The day was remaining cool with a thin overcast, it didn’t feel like the heat was penetrating down to us. This lack of heat was refreshing since the couloir has a few big overhanging cornices, and if they were warming up we wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the couloir. But they were remaining cool so we saddled up and boot-packed up the couloir, it was steep and unrelenting, seemingly over 45 degrees for its entire 1500ft with some bit steeper than 50. Crazy, but finally we broke through and reached the ridge. The 150 vertical to the summit was well beyond our technical desire, so we turned tips and shredded down. My legs became seized from the steepness and I had to rest in the fan so I could enjoy the finish.

I also knew the day was not done, we could have easily headed down but I knew that with another 1500 ft of touring we could access another incredible run that would feed us closer to our camp. So we skinned for another hour and found ourselves dropping into a fantastic finishing run.

That is what ski touring is all about for me, adventure, discovery, wild places with great friends.

Here is some eye candy,  Mt-Odin, 5500 ft of mouth watering funness..

And a video from Joey Vosburgh..thanks Joey

Finally a New Chapter

I finally have a new web page and with it a refreshing new start. I understand that in todays age we are not supposed to get writers block. That we should always be updating and informing everyone of our every action. I wish I could do that but there are times when I have to pull away and make sure I am doing it all for the right reasons. During my 2 million feat, I shared, blogged and did the best I could to bring everyone along on the journey. I was hiking ten thousand foot days, filming myself, getting home; blogging and then repeating. It was tiring. When I finally finished my 2 mill and got my shoulder surgery I crashed. Mentally I was done sharing my every moment.

When this season started my web page was still unchanged, as a book that I had finished I did not feel compelled to write in it. The updates were just scrap tagged on after the fact. Not inspiring. Everyone was always asking me what’s next and really wondering where the hell Greg Hill had gone.

As the winter went by people kept dying in the mountains, friends of friends, through facebook it seemed like we were loosing more than ever. It was distressing, then Steve Romeo of tetonat.com died. Which really hit home, I have known Steve for years and to hear that he had died in the mountains was a huge blow.

As more people have passed away this year I am realizing an importance in my blog. That I should attempt to share my little tricks that I use to ski safely, and also be there to share positive stories of adventure in the mountains.

So it begins again,,