The fog and snow Thursday turned into some nice snow Friday morning at the top of the mountain. The bottom of the mountain received what eastern ski areas regularly describe in their snow reports as “unfrozen precipitation.” The only problem with this at Kicking Horse is that getting to the good stuff with their lift layout requires lapping the whole 4133 vertical feet so the first 1200′ or so was awesome, the next 1000′ was challenging, and the final 2000′ was like ice skating down a hill a snowboard. Still, the great turns at the top were worth it.
The typical lap is off the gondola down CPR ridge to the Stairway chair. Up Stairway to the top. Take one lap back south into Crystal Bowl and ride Stairway again, then drop north off into Fuez Bowl and ride all the way to the bottom.
On the second of these laps ski patrol was nice enough to let us know the short hike to the top of the ridge would open shortly so we lapped Stairway again to be near the head of the line to the top. The wind was howling at the top of Stairway – the weather station at the top of the ridge was recording gusts as high as 54 kph. It felt to me like 54 mph. I thought the wind was going to rip the snowboard out of my hands and launch it into the bowl without me. The ridge out this side of Fuez Bowl is called Whitewall and that’s exactly what it is. There are some rock features and small wind ridges, but it is one long wall of nearly endless choices of lines. As I get ready to put on my board the first time Sara walked up to me and asked if the binding toe piece she found just up the ridge was mine. Wha?! Sure enough the toe piece of my rear binding fell off. The wind fortunately did not blow it over the edge and Sara found both the toe piece and the screw to put it back on. A little frostbite trying to get it back on was nothing compared with what would have happened if I tried to put on my board and found it missing.
The first run was so good that despite the icy descent down the bottom of the mountain we went back for a second helping.
After our second lap off Whitewall we decided we had had enough. The snow was still soft, but too many other people were riding *our* lines. It is too easy to be a powder snob when you are living in the parking lot!
Friday night we headed to the local Ramada Inn. The Ramada lets you use the pool/gym/hot tub for only $5 (Canadian!) so it is a crazy deal for a soak and shower. Apparently the truck stop next door charges $8 for only a shower. We spent a long time in the hot tub chatting it up with other skiers and just looking up at the mountains. We eventually got all cleaned up and then headed to the laundromat for a load of laundry and to fill our water tank. The 25-gallon tank lasted us a week, but we essentially ran out Thursday night so we need to be more careful about checking when we are getting low.
After our domestic activities we drove over to the parking lot at Golden Search and Rescue. The avalanche course we signed up for was a day of classroom work and a day in the field and the classroom work would be held in the meeting room of Golden SAR at the airport. It was taught by a woman on the Kicking Horse Ski Patrol who was also a member of Golden SAR, which was great because she really knew her stuff and had a lot of great war stories.
After class on Saturday we took the dogs for a walk along the Columbia River. It looks a lot different up here than it does in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. Kenai did not care that the water was probably 40 deg. with the occasional iceberg, he was going swimming. Even after the third or fourth swim when he was shivering rather violently he wanted to dive back in. The cold water must have seriously invigorated him because after his swim he was charging around the trail as we went for a walk. He kept running down to the water and looking at us until I let him go for one more quick swim.
Saturday night we headed back up to the KHMR parking lot. Sunday morning was beautiful as the sun came up and hit the mountain. The valley was still fogged in and the fog flowed through the valley like a river. It would have been a great Warren Miller ski movie time lapse.
After a discussion at the base of the current weather and avalanche bulletin we all headed up the gondola. At the top we spent quite a bit of time looking at various terrain and discussing the avalanche considerations.
We then hiked out to Super Bowl where we spent the rest of the day working on various skills.
Our final training was a more complicated scenario where three of us worked as a team as if we came upon another group caught in an avalanche. Our team of three had to locate three buried skiers, only two of whom had transceivers. There was also a “body” attached to a ski pole that we had to find and dig out. After having a bunch of practice the slightly more realistic scenario was a lot of fun. It definitely highlighted how much work an actual avalanche rescue would be. Overall the class was great. Sara and I both had some avalanche training 25 years ago in college, but having a formal class with a lot of the terrain assessment scenarios was definitely valuable and will give us more confidence that we can make reasonable decisions as we head out into the backcountry.
Tonight we are again camped out in the KHMR parking lot. We are going to ride at least a few more runs tomorrow morning and then head to Revelstoke tomorrow as they are expecting up to 8″ of new snow by Tuesday morning.
great days and great pictures!!