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Rowan, Chris and I took the ferry across to the mainland, and drove up past Whistler and Pemberton to a high point on the Duffy Lake Road. After walking down to Cayoosh Creek, we put our skis on and inched across the new snow covered log bridge. The trail climbed gently along the edge of Cerise Creek, through forest, log cuts and alpine meadows until the land opened to the spectacular alpine views of the Joffre Group. Skirting the moraine wall of the Anniversary Glacier, we climbed up to a small lake and the Keith Flavelle Hut. After a couple of runs off the NE ridge of Mt Joffre, we cooked up a meal and got some shut-eye.

A Nelson couple, Anita and Jason, planned to climb Mount Matier, and we'd decided to tag along. Conditions were perfect, clear sky, stable snow pack, no wind, so we all skinned up towards Joffre, and moved up to the Joffre-Matier Col on the Anniversary Glacier. We were able to skin up to a small saddle high on Matier's NE ridge. We moved onto the northern face, then packed our skis and proceeded to kick steps to the summit ridge. Skirting a thin line between the cornice on our left, and the steep drop to our right, we all attained the summit.

Jason had plans to ski descend the broad western face of Matier, but to do this we had to somehow get down a step or two to the southern ridge. With careful probing, some excellent route finding, and a degree of brave down climbing on questionable and exposed snow, he found an achievable route. We all followed tentatively, each having to boot their own near-vertical ladder down the hoar frosted rocky arrête to a narrow ridge that led to easier ground. From there we skied one at a time down the 1100 powder filled vertical foot of the western face. Ski traversing back to the Anniversary Glacier, we descended the mellower slopes back to the cabin.

The final day, the three of us climbed to the second and third col of Vantage Mountain's western ridge. Run after run of buttery untracked powder kept smiles on our faces well after we headed back to the cabin. An additional quick run behind the cabin before dinner earned me a solid night's sleep. The cabin had filled during the day, with 25 friendly skiers and all their gear leaving little space to move.

Sunday morning, after a leisurely two coffee breakfast, we took the luge track of a trail back down to the car, and after a couple of drinks at the pub, loaded ourselves back on the ferry to Vancouver Island.

Photos and maps for the trip can be found here.

Shannon, Trevor and I set off in mid March for a 5 day, 4 hut traverse of the Wapta Icefields in the Alberta and B.C.'s Waputik Range in the Central Rockies. We headed into the mountains at Peyto Lake near the top of the Icefields Parkway in the Rockies, climbing to Peyto Hut via the Peyto Glacier. From there we climbed over a rise to drop down to the popular Bow Hut. After passing between St.Nicholas Peak and Mount Olive we ploughed our way down the Vulture Glacier to Balfour Hut. Balfour Pass then provided some challenges before we skied down the Waputik Glacier to Duncan Scott Hut in near white out conditions. Finally, we headed down the Niles Glacier Past Mt.Niles into the Sherbrooke drainage to a car we'd dropped on Hwy 1 just west of Lake Louise.

Difficult conditions made for arduous travel, with deep snow, strong winds and poor visibility for most of the trip. Route finding was tricky when the light was good, and "interesting" when your ski pole disappeared into the blizzard and fog. None-the-less, each night saw us safely ensconced in warm dry cabins. We met plenty of interesting people on the trip, many with helpful pointers for the route ahead. Balfour Pass, Mt.Niles and the steep trees above Sherbrooke Creek put our skills to the test. The beers back at Lake Louise Alpine Hostel were well deserved.

Photos and maps for the trip can be found here.

Trevor's report on the trip can be found here:
http://trevorhelwig.blogspot.com/2009/03/wapta-traverse-march-2009.html

Ten of us from Vancouver drove out to Golden, BC, a little west of The Rockies, to catch a Helicopter into a "luxury" Alpine Club of Canada Cabin in Fairy Meadows, a high alpine meadow in the Selkirks surrounded by the Granite and Gothics Glacier. This area is a powder paradise, stretching north and south as far as your skis could take you.

Typical Selkirks/Rockies flat light and fog forced us to ski the deep powder in the trees for most of the trip. We managed to venture up into higher terrain, one day boot packing up to Friendship Col to the Gargoyles Glacier, between Mounts Pythius and Damon at the top of the Echo Glacier. Another day we roped up and ventured out onto the Granite Glacier, up towards Pioneer Col. Pioneer Col had a huge bergschrund and overhanging seracs making access to the pass a little more technical than we'd planned for the day, so we instead headed over the NE ridge of Mt.Colossal to a keyhole pass just south of Enterprise Peak.

Each night we headed back to the cabin, where a fire had been started in the wet sauna, and cooked up a voluminous gourmet multi course meal. There are some definite advantages to helicopter travel and cabins in the winter.

Photos and maps for the trip can be found here.

Jason, Sam and I headed up for an early season ski trip to Cerise Creek to ski the NE snow patch off Joffre. It was the start of October, I know, but there'd been a big storm front come through, and we were pretty sure the summer snow patch off Mt Joffre was going to have something skiable on it.

We parked the car on the Duffy Lake Road, and hiked up towards the summer route halfway up the steep eastern slopes of Mount Chief Pascall. The road bridge had just been taken out, but some local had dragged one of the old support logs from the bridge to create a slippery log walk across the steep river. They'd also put in a slack line to give something to hold onto. Even so, it was still a tricky walk. (on an aside, someone complained publicly about how slippery this log was, forcing the logging company to come back in and remove the log. Now there's no way across. Some people, eh!)

We post holed our way up to the cabin, Sam and Jason taking an "alternate" route on the far side of the avalanche boulder field, making it safely to the cabin. We were pretty amazed at the quality of the snow coverage after just a single dump. The next day we skinned up the NE ridge along side the Anniversary Glacier above the cabin. The skiing was truly amazing, and considering the time of year, much more than to be expected! A couple of days of awesome skiing on untracked powder, and we post holed our way back to the car for the drive back to Vancouver.