Return to McMurdo

After 3 years of booking the McMurdo Hut for a season opener in December, we decided to give it a try in January, hoping for a deeper snow pack and more skiable terrain. We did our best to recruit some friends, but at the 11th hour ended up being the only ones heading into the hut for the weekend. We drove to Golden on Thursday night to ensure an early start into the hut Friday morning. After a wrong turn down an active haul road that I don't think existed last time we came in (not recommended), we made it to to the staging area at 21km up the Spillimacheen FSR by 8:30 am. From there, it was a quick rip up by sled the road to the McMurdo FSR before turning just after 56km to take the 2km trail to the McMurdo Hut.

Bundled up and ready to sled

We arrived at the cabin to find another group already there. After a brief chat it became evident that we had been double booked at the hut!! Fortunately, the crew was a friendly group from Invermere that had been there for 2 nights already and were willing to forego their booking and head home early so we could use the hut for our 2 nights. We would have been more than happy to share, but 6 people would have been rather tight in the tiny hut!

Double booking encounters

After a brief warm up in the hut, Kyle and I headed out for an afternoon tour. The up-track was obviously a few days old and we started breaking our own trail after we left the tree line. We took a new route up toward the toe of the Spillimacheen Glacier on the lookers right of the hut and skied down through a drainage back to an old road that we had never checked out before. It was a short lap but we had some nice turns with a mellow ski back down to the hut.

New zone exploration

We opted for an early night and sleep in the next day. Feeling fully recharged we punched in a skin track toward the col between Beverley and David Peak. It was a cold day with temps in the -25 range but the clear blue skies allowed us impressive views of the surrounding terrain.

McMurdo Hut

Despite no new snow in a few weeks, all the old tracks had filled in from the recent wind. We made our way out of the cold valley into the sun and enjoyed spectacular vistas of the Purcells and Bobby Burns drainage.

Into the alpine

Bluebird skies and fresh lines

Top of the pass

Sandwich with a view

After a mellow ski down the Spillamacheen Glacier, we toured up to the top of a ridge to ski some more interesting lines back down into the drainage. We had some excellent turns before we made our way back to the hut for dinner.

Untracked

Topping out with great views of David's  Peak and the Spillimacheen Glacier

Despite the promising start to the season, it hadn't snowed in a few weeks. There were still some early season hazards about including rockwells and open creeks below treeline.

Surprise holes!

We enjoyed a quiet night at the hut, playing crib and scheming our next adventures.

This hut had a fancy light up crib board!

Well rested, we rose early to cruise up our skin track from Saturday and hit a few more lines before the cold sled ride back to civilization. It wasn't the "deep winter" conditions I had been hoping for, but it was awesome to check out the zone with good visibility and stable snow conditions. Maybe next time we will bring some glacier travel/mountaineering gear and try for some of the nearby summits.

Dawn Patrol

Good morning!

Until next time McMurdo!