KH->Revelstoke->KH

After the avy class we stayed at KH for one more night. Our plan was to ride Monday and then head to Revelstoke because they were forecast for a pretty decent dump.

We had a pretty specific goal Monday. Hike and ski the two peaks at Kicking Horse – T1 and T2. T1 is the peak that separates Bowl Over and Super Bowl. It has a fairly open drop off the south side and some aggressive chutes to the north. Our goal was the north!

We decided on the first chute off the North – Truth. We were concerned the entry might be icy as most people (including us) typically slide that first turn to get set up, but it was fine.

Well, that was fun. Time to ride the nearly 3000 vertical feet of groomer/bumps to the bottom so we can do it all again!

T2 is a slightly more challenging hike. I’m very glad it was not windy.

Unfortunately we don’t have any good pictures from the summit as it was quite foggy and snowy. It was fairly skied out but we found some nice soft turns. The east face off the top starts was quite a gentle snow field but we had so little visibility we had to take it slow. After that field you choose what route to drop off the ridge. It is steep, but nothing scary and we found some more good snow on the runout to the bowl. Mission accomplished.

We said our goodbyes to the mountain and headed off the Trans-Canada Highway to Revelstoke. The road goes over Rogers Pass through Glacier Nat. Park, which is stunning. Steep, massive peaks and avalanche chutes that run over the road.

In Revelstoke we were again able to just camp in the parking lot. Revelstoke has over 5000′ of vertical, the most in North America, so we were not too concerned that it was raining at the base. From what we have heard, rain at Revy is not uncommon and it is late March. All we cared about was that it was supposed to be snowing up above!

It snowed up above! That’s a short video of me coming through some of the glades off the Stoke chair near the top.

We were near the front of the line in the morning as we knew the locals would be out to get first tracks. We raced off the gondola to the Stoke chair. Our first run was right back under the lift as there was plenty of untracked lines for everyone. The video is our second or third run out to some glades on the side of the mountain. There are a ton of glades at Revelstoke. I am not normally a huge fan of riding in fairly tight trees, but when you have close to 10″ of snow it makes it a lot more fun.

After a few laps we went to investigate the Ripper chair on the other side of the mountain. We again explored some amazing glades and ended up coming down a creek bed with cliffs on either side.

As we reached the top of Ripper we saw that ski patrol had opened North Bowl. Getting to North Bowl requires a short hike up Lemming Line above Stoke chair and there were already a ton of lemmings pouring into the bowl. Still, we needed to go check it out so we headed back around to join the lemming hoards.

Our first trip out North Bowl was not photographically preserved because to do so would have ruined the fact that we were chasing a pack of locals down a huge untracked snow field. We think one of the skiers in the pack was a patroller and as we followed them on a sharp traverse to the right into the bowl there was a freshly opened rope exposing an entire untracked field. We raced down whopping and hollering the whole way. Looking at the map I think we ended up on Powder Assault.

We ended up back in the creek canyon and eventually back at the Ripper chair. That was fun. Let’s do it again.

This time we decided to find another way into North Bowl. There are some serious cliffs ringing parts of the bowl but some small chutes every once in a while. We are pretty sure we chose Unlimited Assets, but they don’t exactly post a sign right at the entrance! The snow on the first run was so good we got to the bottom and decided we had to do it all over again. The pictures below are a combination of both runs.

Such a good day. Revelstoke was not on our pass but it has been on our bucket list and with the forecast for snow we had to hit it.

Tuesday late afternoon we visited the Revelstoke Aquatic Center. This place is amazing. For $5.75 you have access to multiple pools, hot tub, steam room, sauna, lazy river, and water slide. The main pool has lap lanes, a diving board, and a rock climbing wall. Even on a Tuesday evening there were a ton of folks using the facility and Sara and I just sat for a while talking about why more towns don’t have that kind of facility. Connected to the aquatic center is a fitness center, the town library, and a bunch of town meeting rooms. It is an amazing community asset. When we come back next year we are going to be here every evening!

After dinner at The Taco Shack, which was recommended to us by at least three separate people, we drove back to Golden. Our plan was to spend the night and then head toward Jasper, but when we woke up we heard them blasting up at Kicking Horse. That must mean more new snow! We still had one ticked left on our pass so we went up for a couple runs. We took one lap out Whitewall into Fuez Bowl.

Then we hiked up T1 again for a run off the south side. It was fantastic, well worth the hike. I’m not sure if they did not open the peak yesterday but we had fresh tracks in 12″+ deep powder. At the bottom we also ran into Tiana, a woman with whom we took the avy class. She, too, was summoned to the mountain by the avalanche blasting. We only got to share the ride down as our legs were already fried, but we are going to come back and mountain bike with her this summer!

Now we are finishing up our domestic activities (laundry, shopping, water) and then we will head off toward Banff/Jasper National Park. We planned to be heading up to AK today or tomorrow, but Marmot Basin in Jasper is supposed to be getting a bunch of snow Thursday night so now we are going to hit that before heading on.