Early Season Pow - McGill Glades (Rogers Pass)

Distance: 12km

Elevation: 1150m

Time: 5hrs

McGill Glades deliver

After a mediocre day on Bruins Ridge and Hospital Bowl the day before, I had low expectations as we started up from the Bostock Parking lot towards the McGill Glades. So low in fact that I was feeling sad we hadn't skipped out on skiing altogether to stay up for the midnight Moontricks show in Golden the night before (we are now to lame to do both apparently). The only thing that kept us on track was the fact that Kyle was in bed at 8:30 and I felt too guilty to wake him up to come to the show with me. Good thing too, because we managed to find awesome powder and explore a whole new zone!

The skin track started up the summer trail switchbacks from Bostock, branching off right within 400m of the trailhead. Starting at a low elevation of ~900m, the first few hundred meters of elevation gain had low snow coverage and the trail was very icy, making for difficult progress.

Low snow and lots of logs made it a slow climb

Some fresh snow up high!

As we climbed up the ridge, the trail got better and snow got deeper. It even started to look a bit like winter. After a long drought and slow start to the season, it was nice to see some snow on the trees. We hit our high point at 2000m, choosing to drop into an open lane through the trees just below the gunbarrels. We had fresh tracks through well spaced trees down to about 1600m. Pure bliss!

Best turns of the season so far!

Cold smoke

Below 1600m, it started to get shallow and we had to be careful picking our way through the deadfall and alders. We had a bit of a panic moment when we thought we had missed the summer trail, but managed to link up with it shortly after (1280m). It was a quick rip back to the car on the very thinly covered trail. Any aggressive edging would turn up the moss and dirt below the snow. We made it out with skis intact and I had no regrets about choosing sleep and skiing over late night shows.

Summer trail almost down to dirt