Camp West Lite - Rogers Pass

Distance: 9km

Elevation: 1250m

Looking down the whole run from ridge to highway

Camp West is a big slide path from the top of McGill Shoulder, accessed from the Bostock Parking lot. The "Lite" version of Camp West drops in earlier on the ridge but still offers a long open run down to the valley bottom. The two lines merge about 2/3rds of the way down and share the same exit to the highway.

All smiles on the skin track

We started touring from Bostock, following the well established skin track up McGill Shoulder. Although it starts up the summer trail, it branches right shortly after the last left-hand switchback and continues up through the forest for the rest of the climb. It's easy to miss if you aren't paying attention. This approach is always a bit of a grind. You start at a much lower elevation than most of the other Roger's Pass parking lots and the shoulder is south facing which results in a thin, crusty snowpack and icy switchbacks.

The snow improves and the trail eases off as you break out of the trees onto the ridge. After ~1200m of climbing, you have the option to drop into the McGill Glades, Gun Barrels or Main Slide Path off the west (climbers left) side of the ridge. These runs are a great option in low visibility and you can easily add a second lap by touring back up from the bench around 1600-1700m. The best way to do this is to contour back to the shoulder and rejoin the main skin track. We decided that we were feeling energetic and dropped into the glades for a bonus 400m lap before our run down Camp West Lite. We were stoked to find fresh lines and deep pow hidden in the trees despite no new snow in over 2 weeks.

Fresh pow in McGill Glades

After a sweet lap we started back up to our main objective for the day, Camp West Lite. Kyle must have been excited as he set a blistering pace back up to the ridge. Although the avalanche hazard was rated as moderate, we were concerned about the potential for a consequential slide on the persistent weak crust/facet layer so did not want to push our luck into the steeper and more committing Camp West line. Even the usual entrance on Camp West Lite looked a bit spicy, so we chose to drop into a more mellow slope lower down the ridge.

Our line (purple), Camp West Lite from the top (blue), Camp West drops behind the ridge (red)

The final approach up the ridge was steep and faceted but we didn't have far to go to reach our drop-in point. From the top of the line we could see the entire 1200m run below us.

Off the ridge and into the line

The snow was surprisingly light and minimally tracked out. We were able to find fresh lines all the way down.

Kyle makes his first turns

Finding fresh pow

Great turns and a long way still to go!

Perfect christmas trees

Doug farming turns

About 2/3rds of the way down the run, the Camp West slide path merges with Camp West Lite. Here the terrain rolls very steep and looked like it could turn into a cliff band. We traversed left and across a creek to get up onto the far skiers-left wall of the slide path. This allowed us to stay above a narrow choke point through a creek and we skied down a short ramp into the forest. From there we did have to do a bit of bushwhacking back right to return to the run but we were able to avoid the nasty looking terrain feature in the main path. Apparently this is an easy ski during deeper snow pack years but we are currently below average for mid-Feb with a snowpack of 2m at the Fidelity Weather Plot.

Looking back up at the exit from Camp West Lite (left) and Camp West (right). Could use more snow.

Back in the valley, we popped out on the side of the highway with about 2.5km to ski back to the Bostock Parking. It wasn't the most fun way to end the day, but as far as approaches and exits are concerned this line was very chill.