McMurdo Hut - Early Season Ski Touring

Heading out to McMurdo this year, it was either going to be all time deep pow or absolutely horrendous due to a recent rain event up to 2200m days before. What we encountered were some of the most challenging and terrible backcountry conditions I have ever skied, a disastrously messy hummus explosion and we almost ended up spending a night in the car in Kicking Horse Canyon. Despite the struggles, we had an excellent weekend with our new friends, ate lots of gourmet cheese and got to escape reality for a few days.

"10/10 would recommend"

Deceptive pillows - look fluffy, all crust

Southwest Utah Mountain Biking - St. George, Hurricane and Virgin

Utah is famous for its epic slick rock, mesa-top mountain bike trails and desert towers. When we started planning a riding trip to Utah this fall everyone assumed we were heading to Moab, the winter mountain bike mecca for Canadians looking to escape the snow. Most people had never heard of St. George, and were surprised to hear that it neighbours the town of Virgin, home to Red Bull Rampage. Southern Utah is a mountain bike destination in it's own right and is worth a visit for those looking for fun, technical desert riding.

Riding rock slabs on Gooseberry Mesa

One Day in Zion National Park - Angel's Landing and the Narrows

A November trip to Southwest Utah was an excellent getaway from shoulder season in Canada. Although our trip was focused on mountain biking, Zion National Park made a perfect day trip from our basecamp in Hurricane and gave us a change of pace from big days in the saddle. We only had one day to explore the park so we decided to ignore the conventional advice of one hike per day and tackled the two most popular hikes in the park, Angel's Landing and the Narrows, in one tiring push. If we had more time, we would have loved to check out the West Rim Trail and some of the canyoning routes but those will have to wait for next visit.

Happy hikers

Northover Ridge

Taking it all in from Northover Ridge

Distance: 33km

Elevation: ~1400m

Time: 14hrs (over 3 days)

Peter, Kristina, Kyle and I hiked Northover Ridge as a 3 day backpacking trip this past weekend. We completed the 33km loop in the counter-clockwise direction, camping at Three Isle Lake and Aster Lake. It was a beautiful fall weekend in the Rockies, complete with yellow larches, blue skies and a skiff of snow on the peaks. We were pretty lucky to be able to do this trail so late in the season and were rewarded with endless mountain views, surprising warm weather and very few people on the trail. As a result, we took LOTS of pictures.

Whistler's Four Corners

If you search for the Four Corners of Whistler on Trailforks, you will find a 100km, 5000m elevation ride that hits the "four corners" of Whistler (north, south, east and west). The route includes a sample of the many amazing black and double black trails in the Whistler valley network; Lord of the Squirrels, Zanarchy/Gargamel, Dark Crystal and Ride Don't Slide. To do it properly, you need to pedal it all in a day, which would take some serious fitness! Good timing is also important as Lord of the Squirrels is only open for a short window every year based on snow and the trail builders ask that you do not ride Dark Crystal when it is wet.

Pedaling up Blackcomb to ride our 4th corner - Dark Crystal

Return to Waterton Part 2: Carthew-Alderson Hike

Distance: 20km

Elevation: 997m

One way hike 

(requires shuttle or car drop at Cameron Lake)

Morning coffee on the Cameron Lake dock

The Carthew-Alderson trail is a one-way hike from Cameron Lake back to the Waterton Townsite. This is probably my favourite day hike because of the constantly changing vistas, multiple alpine lakes and opportunities for small detours to summit Mt. Carthew or its small subpeak. I also love that you get all of your elevation out of the way at the beginning of the day, and spend the majority of the hike in the alpine with a long descent to Waterton. You do need to arrange transportation to the trailhead at Cameron Lake. Since we only had one vehicle, we booked a shuttle with Tamarack the night before. Sunday morning we hopped on the bus then hiked back to our car.

Return to Waterton Part 1: Crypt Lake Hike

Distance: 20.5km 

(with ferry to and from Trailhead)

Elevation: 935m

The classic cave section of Crypt Lake Hike

The main tourist season in Waterton ends after Labour Day. If the weather holds, you can access the stunning park without the crowds for a narrow time window before the seasonal employees return home for the winter. The camping reservation system also ends the week after Labour Day so we showed up Thursday night and found a perfect campsite next to the river and a cook-shelter. Waterton is notoriously windy and a sheltered site is a must. Even early in September it gets cold at night so having access to the cook shelter's wood stove (bring your own wood) was a bonus and a great place to meet other campers who joined us around the stove to cook and swap stories.

Revel-Smoke

Smokiest place on earth? Mid-afternoon in Revelstoke feels like perma-twilight

We made our annual August pilgrimage to Revelstoke and met up with Chad, Grace and Woody for a weekend of camping by the lake. We rolled in after dark and were treated to an amazing view of the perseids meteor shower as we sat around an illuminated water bottle due to the fire ban.

Disneyland Heli-Bike

The stats

1500m descent

11.6 km

3h30mins elapsed (2h20 moving)

Choose your own adventure in this adult playground

About 10 years ago, I heard rumors of the Disneyland bike trail high above Britannia Beach, but had assumed that the trail and its access had faded into oblivion and never pursued it. My curiosity was renewed this winter when I picked up the new Sea to Sky backcountry map and saw the trail marked on Goat Ridge. 

Heart Line Rock Climb (17 pitches, 5.9, 1100m)

Heartline

17 Pitches (sport)

5.9 A0

1061 m

Hunting for the start

The Heart Line is a full day "sportaineering" route from Heart Creek to the summit of Heart Mountain. We were able to climb it in ~7 hours with a single rope and a rack of 12 alpine draws (although one went missing along the way). We linked a few pitches for efficiency, but ended up with a fair amount of rope drag thanks to the rambling nature of the route that follows the obvious ridge all the way to the top. As with any rockies alpine route, there was some route-finding and loose rock but the climbing was varied and interesting without being too difficult. The rock sections are broken up by a few 3rd and 4th class scrambles and there was even an aid ladder pitch to add some variety.

(Most of) Mt. Joffre in a Day

Mt. Joffre, Alberta

36km (round trip)

3450m elevation

1300m gain

Not to be confused with Mt. Joffre BC on the Duffy Lake Road, Mt. Joffre is the tallest peak in Kananaskis and the southernmost 11,000'er in Alberta.

The glacier that never ends on the approach to the North Face of Mt. Joffre

Powder Cowboy

Steep and Deep lives up to its name

It was a quiet weekend up at Powder Cowboy last week, and for the most part we had the whole zone to ourselves. We had two nights booked at the Little Sand Cabin with Rob and we spent the weekend touring and doing sled laps on the slopes around the hut.

A Sub-Arctic Week at Jumbo Pass Cabin

~Jumbo Pass Trailhead~

We have both been up to Jumbo Pass in the early season, when you can still drive most of the way to the trailhead, and had an excellent time. This year, Kyle managed to book the hut in mid-February and we were pretty excited to see what it was like in the middle of winter. The Jumbo Cabin can be accessed from Invermere to the east or Meadow Creek to the west. Our original plan had been to meet some friends from Nelson at the hut and spend a week up there together, but like most of our plans during COVID the group dwindled down to just me and Kyle a few weeks before departure.

Surprise Pass

Surprise Pass is a good 10km loop if you are looking for a shorter day touring in the Rockies, with great views and a 900m descent from the pass down to Lake Louise.

Looking up at the Surprise Pass descent from the bottom

Phantom Couloir

Phantom Couloir - Mt Ogden

~15km car to car

1250 m elevation

Couloir - 300m vertical

Phantom Couloir

We took the opportunity of a stable snowpack and bluebird day to check out a new zone and ski my first Rockies Couloir this past weekend! It hadn't snowed in 2 weeks so we weren't expecting fresh tracks by any means but it was a good excuse to get out with our friend and ski something cool. It was -23 at the Sherbrooke Lake parking area and we managed to grab one of the last parking spots at 7:45 am. We kept moving to stay warm, but still had to do spot checks of each others faces for signs of frostbite.