A Golden Spring - Granddaddy Couloir on Bow Peak and the Narao Chutes

Grandaddy Couloir on Bow Peak 

Temple was a monster of a day, effort wise, with a lot of trail breaking. During the research phase of this trip the Grandaddy Couloir stood out as a must do because of its asthetic nature, but also the fact that it should be a relatively short day. The obvious next step after the Cobra was to do something shorter, so mike and i found ourselves driving up the icefields parkway towards Bow peak with a casual late morning start. 

Looking up at Bow Peak and Grandaddy (the cut in the peak in the center of the photo) from the Bow river

Looking up grandaddy from he base of the lower spire

Bow peak looks a lot like what we have here in Utah in the Wasatch and Uintas, where we have large quartzite cliffs split by couloirs. Grandaddy, though, has two spires directly in the middle of the chute down low and at the top, which made the setting all the more stunning. Starting out from the mosquito creek campground/trailhead i found that i had forgotten my skins at the Fireloge (our airbnb, a pretty sweet place), luckily i did have my verts so we went for it anyway. I tried some ski straps in place of skins but they were terrible, i switched over to some branches as a next go, which worked for a bit, but obviously skins work amazingly, much better than everything else, and i got frustrated after a few hundred feet of inconsistant grip so i switched to verting and marched on.

Booting up the chute with the spire visible below

Coming around the second spire/split in the couloir

Mike dropping in on the Granddaddy

The Chute itself is incut into a large set of horizontal cliffbands and is stiking and ovbious from the highway (once again, more classic than the Aemmer? i think so...). It had been a few days since the last snowfall and we saw a few tracks on the apron indicating that others had skied the chute, but we were confident we would still find some good snow to ski.  Sure enough, crossing into the shade and starting up the chute we found edgeable snow and continued up. With our late start, some of the walls were definitely shedding which was a bit of a concern, but we booted to the top of the chute relatively quickly. We didnt truely top out due to another monster cornice (this cornice had cornices...) blocking the saddle. The very top of this line was narrow and quite steep, once again in the 50 degree range which definitely keeps you engaged. Mike took the line first and skied all the way out to the apron. I went second and found manageable conditions in another amazing setting. Defnitely a line worth coming back to, and probaably one of the lines that we hit that gets skied quite a bit for obvious reasons. 

Another great line!

Narao Chutes- Narao Left and Birth Canal

Driving through Yoho national Park to lake Louise, Mt temple, and now mountain the chutes on Narao peak could call to me, two long chutes coming off either side of Narao peak set amongst some sweeping cliffs. After Granddaddy we went over to Revelstoke for a resort day, then took a day to rest, and finally had a day bailing off the seven steps traverse again, this time aiming for Forever young but bailing due to socked in conditions. Another clear day came up and Mike and I decided Narao was at the top of the list of objectives, so we set of, early this time, to try and ride both chutes.

The Narao Chutes as seen from the transcanada highway

Narao shoulder is also a popular run in itself, and was one of the zones I looked to ride when I was in Calgary for a few weeks solo for work, so I figured the terrain would be relatively simple. It turns out, it is simple if you stay pretty far right, farther than I thought. The left side of the shoulder is riddled with cliff bands to navigate that made things interesting... 

Narao and Popes peaks from the shoulder

Turning the corner on Narao Shoulder (you go up the shoulder because the main watercourse is a several hundred foot tall cliff, if only we were here to ice climb as well this would have been an amazing multi sport objective) coming into the Narao basin was striking, once again, large sweeping cliffs all around split by a few laser straight couloirs including the Pope couloir, an objective for another trip, and the Narao couloirs that we were gunning for.

Mike topping out Narao left

Ascending the basin, we saw a party's tracks from the day before. They had gone up popes peak and had triggered a sizable wind slab on the way down, definitely something to be concerned about. Much of the East facing cliff side was also shedding so Mike and I opted for a cautious approach, keeping open the option to bail at any time. After transitioning to booting at the base of the couloirs, I went up to peak into the birth canal, it looked like it went, as it was white the whole way up, so the chock stone that makes the birth canal feature must have been buried! For efficiency sake, and because we were not certain that Narao left went clean, we booted up the left thinking we would right right (the birth canal) and reuse the booter to ski left. 

A Panorama from the top of Narao Left

Team Summit Selfie

Narao left is definitely an understated line, with everything that makes a great and aesthetic ski line but with a cliff choke that is barely navigable half way up. Booting up the top was a wallow at Best, easily 55 degrees and deep blower powder made it hard to progress. Here in the Wasatch a line like this would be a covered prize and would be much talked about, but when you have peaks as far as the eye can see on every direction, the guidebook just called it "a good ski line". After topping out and getting blasted in the wind, Mike and I navigated the wind swept ridge to the birth canal, which looked just as good, if easier (only about 40 degrees) than left. Mike dropped in and we leapfrogged down hugging safe zones where we could. Then I hear Mike call up on the radio that he is concerned the line might not go. Sure enough, I skied down to the choke, where the birth canal should be that we thought was covered. Well, it was covered, but it remained a 30 foot snow covered cliff with a zero-margin-for-error straightline landing. We didn't have a rope, not that there was anything to anchor off of. Bummer... We would have to maximize the work now and needed to reascend to ski out (Mike was on the she of bailing after the first chute, time to suck it up Mike!)

Looking down Narao Right AKA the Birth Canal

Coming around on the first pitch of the Birth Canal

Skiing towards the obvious choke that was not passible for us. 

A picture i took earlier in the day looking up at the choke, if you look closely you can see that what looks like a white and consitent slope from afar is in reality a 30 foot snow covered cliff/icefall

After another hour and a half or so wallowing back up (luckily, between the two of us on the way down, we scraped off some of the blower so going back up was a bit easier than going up left) we were back on the Narao Ridgeline and summiting. At this point, Lindsay was off the grid so I updated our emergency contacts that we would be later than expected, and we dropped in Narao left. 

Mike dropping into Narao left with the Popes basin/Lake Louise in the background

Mike, through the choke, sening it through the lower couloir and out to the apron

It's really hard to choose a favorite line on this trip, but it would have to be between Narao left and the Cobra. Narao left was excellent blower pow up to the choke. I sent it first thru the deeply runneled choke, almost kicking steps into the walls of the runnel, but managed to get thru relatively easily. Mike, being on a single edge, was a bit more concerned but he managed as well, and before we knew it we were back on the apron looking up at the lines we had just skied. The trek out went easily with some sun even peaking out to give some alpen glow as we came back around the shoulder. The difficulty of spring skiing soon hit, and although the upper peak was lovely soft power, the shoulder had been baking and was isothermal mank. Luckily the shoulder is relatively fall line with a little bit of compact road skiing at the bottom, so getting out was fine. 

This would turn out to be our last major day of the trip. The following day we tried one last trip in the Rogers Pass/Glacier NP Zone, but our first attempt to go up to the Bonney Glacier zone ended with us turning around due to too little snow to get out of the creekbed, so we skied some manky snow back on Cheops going through the Hourglass to get some steps in before the long drive back to SLC. I cant wait to get back to the area and hope to one day be able to live up there. One can dream!

Coming back around the Narao Shoulder with more amazing ski lines everywhere. I believe the multitude of runs on the peak to my right is the Ogden Bench zone, definitely a zone to check out next time!

A Golden Spring - STS Couloir on Cheops and Cobra Couloir Mt Temple

Now that it is hitting 100 in SLC, i am motivated to revisit cooler times and dream about some day moving up to BC and the land of endles ski peaks... 

Cheops Nicci's and STS Couloirs

Looking down Connaught creek towards the Discovery Center/Mt MacDonald

The Swiss peaks emerging from the clouds.

Resuming the Trip Mike and i took back in april. After two long and somewhat challenging days (partially due to conditions on the second day) we opted to do a bit more "Roadside" skiing out behind the Glacier NP Discovery center. Connaught Creek/Mt Cheops was the general goal. This Zone is about as hazard filled from an avalanche standpoint as a zone can be, however most of these paths, similar to the snow in the Wasatch, tend to stabalize relatively quickly. Coming off of a crazy warm spell with a few days of below freezing weather and a few inches of fresh snow, things were pretty well locked up so heading up the drainage was a reasonable option. We had our sights set on some of the couloirs that come off the north face of Cheops, however weather wasnt exactly cooperating with most of the terrain at and above treeline being in and out of the clouds/snow. On the first lap, to test out the snow and see how chunky things were underneath, We dropped into Nicci's Notch, a smaller and lower couloir to the west of the eventual goal, the STS couloir. 

Niccis rode ok. The upper bit of Nicci's rode well with a few fresh inches of snow, however we were quickly greeted by lightly covered chunder that a guide who was also skiing on Cheops warned us about. Who doesnt love a little bit of survival skiing?

A brief break in the clouds looking up at the summit of Cheops from the Nicci's bench

Me dropping into Nicci's Notch in flat light, which make finding the underlying chunder difficult.

Heading back up the skin track we had already put in, we decided to go check out the STS and see if it was possible. The guidebook mentioned that there might be a cornice at the top that might need to be "Managed". Understatement of the year... When we got to the top, the cornice seemed to be upwards of 50 feet tall in spots, something that i would say is completely unmanageable. After wandering around for a bit, we found an anchor so i could get on rope and see what a cornice entrance might look like. The first spot was a 50ft overhanging rappel down to the couloir below. Good thing we had maybe 50 feet total of rope! I tried another spot, this time it was only maybe 30 feet of overhaning rappel but the anchor was at least 30 feet back from the edge. A rappel would leave us hanging in space above the chute with a 45 degree or so landing and a small choke in the couloir below. 

I finally settled on a small sneak into the couloir on far skiers left that we had both decided was not an option, as it was very steep and had significant exposure above a several hundred foot cliff into Cheops north bowl. Without a rope this was not an option, but, after looking around for a while, we found a third anchor in place that we could use. In an effort to clean up the mountains, i have started to clean up old tat and remove redundant anchors whereever i go- we removed the two distracting anchors that were less bomber and put you in a worse spot for couloir entrance, rigged up the rope (signle strand, we really should have brought more rope but decided not to at the car, and now would have to pass a not mid rappel) and fixed it in place for a rappel. 

Mike coming off rope on the shoulder of the STS couloir with the far edge of a monster cornice in view. The right edge of this photo is a farily substantial cliff

Me skiing down the upper snowfield in the STS Coulir

I went first into the couloir. The rope was definitely welcome as the entrance was steep and firm with significant exposure, but once i got to the end of the rope i was on the shoulder of the couloir, a spot of relative safety, and had triggered a small wind pocket that raced off down the chute without issue. Mike followed, and in our brief window of clear weather he sent it halfway down the couloir in mostly good snow conditions! I followed and we continued to leapfrog until we were on the apron and out of overhead danger. Of course, with these steep couloirs, there is often a runnel or ice chute in the middle from snow constantly shedding, and on the way down mike found that runnel a few times, in the end he broke one of his bindings that was not repairable... something we would deal with later. The ski out of Connaught creek was quick and before we knew it we were back at the car, a nice quick hitter day with some solid lines.

The day on Cheops, STS is the longer descent just left of the main peak, Nicci's Notch is the descent that comes of the left shoulder of the peak

Mt Temple- Not Quite Aemmer and Cobra Couloirs

After a rest day (and of course a resort day checking out Panorama because, well we are all the way up here and we can sleep when we get back to utah) we set sights on a larger objective again. Cheops was an "active recovery" day and we were feeling a bit less gassed. We were looking at a solid weather window with just a bit of new snow and a trend towards stability, so mike and i opted to try a second "50 Classics" line for this trip and one that was high on both of our lists, the Aemmer Couloir on Mt Temple. Mt Temple is striking, there is no other way to put it, a huge sweeping pyramid of cliffs with a large glacier/serac at the top of the north face, it stuck in my mind when lindsay and i skied across highway 93 at Lake louise 5 years earlier. 

Looking up at Mt Temple from the approach. Aemmer is just out of view on the far left of the peak, the Cobra goes up the deeply incut gash on the far right of the peak.

Because we were comign from Golden and had about an hour drive, we left the parking lot at the blisteringly early time of 7:30 am... probably a bit later than we would have liked but workable. There were a few other cars in the lot at the time, and we quickly found that everyone that was in the area was trying to go up the Aemmer as well... at least all of the tracks headed up the drainage towards Mt Temple. As the sun started to peak out onto the mountain, we were passing under the north face serac which had clearly seen recent icefall. Mike and i split up and quickly moved through the area. Looking ahead, there were a few... interesting... skin tracks that had been put in, not where i would usually opt to put them but clearly a few others had passet through so we continued on. Cresting onto the ridge.saddle leadign into the Aemmer, we saw a group of 4 below us, watching, with a fifth heading up a south face on little Temple. It looks like they had bailed out of the Couloir. Not wanting to have come all this way for nothing, Mike and i transitioned to booting and headed up the Chute. Within a bout 200 feet or so, we hit a weird windslab layer and, after talking about it, decided to not tempt fate and turn around. The Ski out of the apron on the Aemmer was weird windboard and all too short.

Looking back at the Aemmer from the saddle after bailing a short way up. 

Back at the saddle, the group ahead of us was watching us as we went up following and turning around where they did. We chatted for a bit before mentioning we were going to head off towards the Cobra, a very incut chute on the western side of Mt Temple.

Looking down the Cobra from about the midway point, with the Banff group trailing behind in the bootpack.

Mike taking a shift breaking trail up the final few hundred yards to the end of the couloir. 

Putting in the track up to the chute, i tried to stay as close to the cliff edge as possible to reduce overhead hazard after seeing what the Aemmer had to offer. I dug a quick pit and found relative stability, and knowing that this couloir dead-ended halfway up the peak, and the fact that it was very incut seemed to indicate stability. Our new friends from the Aemmer decided to follow us up, but didnt have verts. Even though mike and i put in the entire bootpack up what ended up being a 2200ft tall chute, the other group from Banff hardly kept up without them. Mike and i topped out of what would surely be a 5 star line in the wasatch, but here, with such an abundance of amazing peaks around the Cobra is hardly even known. The chute dead ends into an 800 foot cliff with walls that in places seem to be twice that with a slope pitch easily in the 40s, topping into the 50s in spots. 

Mike ready to drop into the Cobra, the views from the top were outstanding!

I got the pleasure of skiing blower powder first at the top of the couloir

Our Banff friends stopped a few hundred feet below the top below a rocky choke, so Mike and i transitioned and skied some amazing steep powder down to them, then we leapfrogged the rest of the way down the chute, and what an amazing line it was! Amazingly asthetic and easily in my book miles better than the supposed "Classic" Aemmer. 

The slog out was a bit rough with hot and heavy snow and some long flats, but we all headed back in to town to grab some beer and burgers and celebrate failure and success with our new friends who turned out to be from around the globe, Australia, England, Japan, Argentina, and thne us two intermountain boys from Utah!

A successful plan B, honestly a much more striking line than the Aemmer anyway, quite the consolation prize!

The Aemmer is the triangle looking loop on the right, the Cobra is on the left. The Aemmer turned out to be 80% approach for a Couloir that was only about 800ft long, In my book the Cobra was definitely way more classic. 

A Golden Spring - Seven Steps and a Tophat

 I am just back from 14 days of sking up in Canada. I have long thought about the beauty of the canadian rockies and columbia mountains, but with all that is going on right now, particularly in the US, moving elsewhere is becoming more and more appealing. For the trip, Mike and I (originally we had 4 but 2 of the members dropped at the last minute for various reasons) decided to split the distance between the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Mountains, about half way between Glacier NP Canada and Banff/Yoho National parks in the Rocky Mountain Trench. The area is about as "in the mountains" as you can get, with a few hours of mountainous travel in every direction with every peak seemingly holding at least 10 amazing ski lines. It was a bit hard to settle on objectives, what to do when everything looks so amazing??

Not Forever Young- Youngs traverse and 7 Steps variation

Day 1: After checking in at the Rogers Pass Discovery Center and buying a parks pass, and with the prospect of clearer weather up in the alpine, and a major warm up induced avalanche cycle that had just occured, we opted to go for a long walk to see what the snow was doing. The goal was vaguely to walk up from the Asulkan parking area in the direction of Glacier Crest. As we got going though, seeing that almost everything steep had run full path in the recent warming, we opted to extend the walk and tag one of the "Fifty Classics"- the Youngs Traverse/Seven Steps to Paradise which trends up the toe of the Illecillewaet Glacier onto the icefield, then up over the top of Youngs peak and down the Asulkan glacier past the hut back to the parking lot. 

Heading up the Illecelliwaet drainage at the toe of Mt Sir Donald

The trek up the Illecelliwaet drainage went quickly, past the huge relief of Avalanch Crest, Eagle Peak, and Sir Donald (last time i was here this is where we spent most of our time, it is really quite an impressive drainage steeped in history). Before long we were climbing through the moraines, past an IMFGA Ski Guide course and up on to the glacier itself. We happened to be following a crew setting the skintrack that was probing for shallow snow bridges through the heavily crevassed lower section. After a discussion about risk, our lack of a rope and screws that are typical for glacier travel, but our luck to be following a group who was setting the skintrack and the fact that we were at about peak snowpack, we opted to continue, ensuring we are only following the track laid but spread out, as it was unlikely we would encounter shallow bridges, and if we did the bridge most likely would have collapsed under one of the first 3 travelers. Still, we didnt want to linger too long in the crevasse section so we quickly moved through and up onto the icefield proper before we even took a break for food/water. 

Walking around on the illecelliwaet icefield

Navigating up on the icefield in couldy/white out conditions would be difficult to say the least, there is not much context for travel and even in clear weather, a map/compass and GPS were helpful for orientation. Luckily we had mostly clear conditions and an easy skintrack to follow, and before long we were on the east ridge of Youngs peak with views over to the amazing Mt Dawson massif and the Deville Glacier. Down in that drainage is the Glacier Circle cabin; it looks like an amazing setting for skiing and i would love to go back to visit some day. A short traverse led to the top of the Forever Young couloir, definitely one on the list to ski, but because we were still somewhat uncertain of lingering PWL layers in the snowpack and we couldn't see into the couloir itself, the top is a convex roll, we opted to save that for another day and continue to the top of Youngs. The views from the summit were amazing all around, giving us a good look at the Hermit Group, the Bonney Group, and plenty of other zones that we were not intending to explore. 

Views from the Youngs Ridgeline

Seven Steps was in amazing shape, only a few tracks with boot top powder and a rolling 4 thousand foot descent which was over all too quickly. At the very bottom of the run, we started to get into some funky snow and drainage ridges from the recent warming, then somewhere around the lower tree triangle the snow finally got wet and manky. The trek out the asulkan valley was warm but went quickly with a well beaten in path due to the obvious popularity of the area, and 7 hours and 30 minutes after starting, we were back in the parking lot, a nice 13 mile and 5700 foot warm up day for the trip. 

The ski down Seven steps in beautiful powder with amazing views

Mt Tupper from the Discovery center parking area, what an amazing looking mountain with some amazingly impressive ski lines that i would love to ski someday!

Map of the youngs traverse track with some stats

Tophat Traverse

Day 2: Even though only 30 or so miles from Glacier, and in a (mostly) continuously mountainous environment, we took a lead from one of the locals we had met up on Youngs and went for the Tophat Traverse in Yoho NP to get a look at the snow over in the southern Rockies zone. Traverses are deinitely popular up in the Canadian rockies, and understandably so, usually the goal is to create a loop and go over a pass (usually ~10 miles, 4k feet of gain and some amazing views). The Tophat goes through a part of the Presidential group of mountains by Emerald Lake just north of Highway 1 in Yoho with the goal of cresting a pass by Mt Carnavan just northwest of the "Tophat" a little rock mesa on the ridgeline that resembles a top hat...

Looking accross the chunderball field at some amazing peaks

Showing off perfecct skimo technique, the huge squat step

The Tophat and Hamilton Lake

The Vaux massif across the highway

We set off at the blisteringly early time of 8:45 am, initally in the wrong direction towards Emerald Lake and our exit before turing around to go up the correct Hamilton Creek Trail. Before long we were hitting treeline crossing some large south facing slide paths that had recently gone big and pulled snow out to the ground. Up int he Hamilton Lake Basin we opted to dig a pit on a southerly aspect to see wha the snow was doing, as this area had many fewer reports and much less confidence in the snowpack. On this aspect the snow was beautiful corn, but instead of skiing down we continued on to the pass and dug a pit on a northeerly aspect aspect with a much deeper snowpack and some burried, but rounding, ffaceted layers. With some weather on the way we forewent a summit of the tophat (we were about 50 feet shy) and dropped into the upper Emerald river drainage, looking at about a 2500 ft continuous descent. The upper section skied well with nice light snow, if a bit weird with the flat light. Quickly, though, we entered the debris from the recent warming cycle. Here it seemed like the whole moutnain fell apart and large debris was everywhere that we had to navigate for another ~1800 feet of skiing, which was less than stellar but the setting was pretty cool. Southerlies were shedding and we saw near continuous rock and icefall off of a peak called the Vice President. Towards the bottom, things got touchy and the new snow transitioned from dry and skiable to wet and slabby. We carefully picked our way through to the valley bottom and found the (very untrafficked) trail that would take us eventually back to the car. I skate skied, but mike put his skins back on, probably the better option as the snow here was isothermal mank. Even though it was only about a mile and a half of generally downhill travel, the trip back to emerald lake seemed to take hours as travel through the dense forrest was difficult, made worse by the collapsing isothermal snow. Eventually, we made it back to Emerald lake and the well trafficked winter trails and somewhat quickly walked back to the car, another 7 hour and 30 minute day, but this time only 9 miles and 4300 feet of ascent, but with much more difficulty in snow travel. All in all a good day though in some tough snow conditioins. 

Looking towards the Vice President

Some impressive walls

Looking towards the Wapta Icefield and the upper Bow/Yoho Traverse route

Views across Emerald lake from the parking lot.

Map of the tophat traverse with some stats, somehow both traverses took almost the exact same amount of time but with the snow conditions we had, the Tophat seemed to be a lot more work.