A week in the Selkirks

(Click on any of the pictures to enlarge...)

Jill and I spent last week at Selkirk Lodge, a backcountry ski hut in British Columbia. The hut is at 7200', a little bit below timberline, twenty miles east of Revelstoke in the Selkirk range. The only access to the hut is by helicopter, about a 7-minute ride from the heli pad at Albert Canyon on  the Trans-Canada Highway. Our group consisted of eleven skiers (our group of nine from Jackson, plus two new faces), two guides, and two cooks. 

I had been to Selkirk Lodge once before, in March 2000. That trip was the most spectacular ski trip I had ever been on, and I was hoping that this year's trip would at least not suffer too badly by comparison. I wasn't disappointed!

Getting there was an adventure in itself: while we were driving north, there was a big storm going on in the area. The Trans-Canada Highway over Rogers Pass was closed due to avalanches -- the BC highway report said the Pass would be closed for at least 8 hours. Rather than waiting out the closure and possibly missing our helicopter ride in on Saturday morning, we decided to backtrack and take the long way around. After an extra six hours of driving, we finally reached Revelstoke (where it was raining steadily) at 10:30pm. Sue and Guy also took the long way around (from Calgary!). Steve, Marc, and Jim had made it over the pass just before it closed. Bev and Dave sat in Golden until 10:30pm when the pass finally re-opened, and they got in to Revelstoke about 1:00am. Whew, we all made it in time for our 7:00am van departure from Revelstoke.

On Saturday morning, it was still raining in Revelstoke. It was raining at the heli-pad. The good news is that it was snowing up high! The total storm snow (Thursday-Friday-Saturday) was about 110cm, and it was nice and light up at the hut. The conditions weren't conducive to skiing on Saturday -- very windy, poor visibility, and potentially dangerous avalanche conditions -- so we did our avalanche beacon training and then retired to the hut for the afternoon.

The rest of the week was great skiing. I averaged 5000' per day in the remaining six days, which is a lot more than I typically do at home in the Tetons. Some of our group did even more skiing; I took one afternoon off, and took the "early bus home" option on a couple of other afternoons. We had one day of bluebird weather, and the rest of the week varied from mixed clouds and sun to totally overcast. On the sunny bluebird day, we went up on Justice Peak for some spectacular glacier skiing...

There are more Selkirk Lodge pictures on my PicasaWeb site.

An afternoon on Wimpy's

Eric came down from Bozeman for a 4-day weekend. On Friday we headed into Teton Park for a ski tour up Wimpy's Knob. I've gone part of the way up to the top on several occasions, but had never been all the way up. On previous tours I had always turned around due to poor snow conditions. This time the weather and snow conditions were much more suitable.

The storm cycle of the past week or so had created avalanche hazards in some areas of the Teton range. We dug two snow pits (umm, okay, Eric dug two pits) to have a look at the snowpack. We found very stable snow.

The weather was sunny and warm, I was climbing in just my baselayer until we got to the bottom of the upper bowl where the winds picked up. As you can see in this view of Albright Peak, the snow was swirling in the wind.

It was windy on top of the Knob; I'd estimate 25 mph gusting to 40. Not very pleasant, so we didn't linger there at all. The snow in the upper bowl was good, not great, but good as long as you stayed on the north side of the ridge where there had been less sun exposure. 

Maybe because I haven't been out skiing enough lately, but I didn't really have the energy for a second lap in the upper bowl. I offered to hunker down and wait in the sun, out of the wind, while Eric did another lap; he decided that the conditions weren't good enough that he absolutely had to do another. So we skied on out. The ski conditions on the lower third of the mountain were definitely not enjoyable -- heavy sun-affected, please-don't-let-me-blow-a-knee kind of snow. Yuck. But we made it to the bottom, and came to the second-best part of Wimpy's - two miles to the car, all downhill!

Pharming* on Phillips Ridge

I went for a solo tour on Phillips Ridge, the conditions were great: 35-40" base, stable and well-consolidated with boot-top whipped cream on top. I did a half-dozen laps and never crossed a track that wasn't my own. I'd say ski season is officially here!

*Not a drug reference; I just couldn't resist the visual alliteration. 

Hedge clippers in the park

Although the mountain snowpack is the deepest in 15 years for early December, the valley floor isn't doing so well. Yesterday morning was the first time we've had snow in our yard this winter, about 6" worth.

I went to the Taggart Lake trailhead for a quick fishscale tour on a cold afternoon (11F, winds 5-10 mph). There wasn't any more snow there (6800') than there was at my house, which surprised me a little; only about 6-8" total, and less than that in some spots. The good news is that the bottom 3-4" was old snow that had turned almost bulletproof after last week's rain. That made for a good firm base to ski on.

There was a NY Times article a few days ago about how some nordic ski areas in New England have started snowmaking. "The number of days with snow on the ground in a typical year shrank by more than a month between 1965 and 2005, according to a study by University of New Hampshire researchers that appeared in the Journal of Geophysical Research in 2008."  

First turns for the season

Jill and I went for a short shakedown cruise up on Teton Pass today. We got home from SE Asia two weeks ago, ready to ski but our enthusiasm was quite literally dampened by all the rain we've had here in the valley.

I was breaking in a new pair of ski boot liners, yeah they feel great fresh out of the oven in the shop but the real world is always more complicated. For the first half hour or so, it seemed like I had to adjust buckles every thirty or forty strides. The left boot is dialed in nicely now, the right boot still needs some tweaking before it will be good to go all-day.

We did a tour out to Mount Elly, and made some turns in Olympic Bowl. Considering how warm it has been (low thirties at the top of the Pass) both of us were surprised by how good the snow was. It wasn't deep or light, but it was very skiable. Aspects with more southerly exposure didn't look as inviting. We finished off with a short beacon practice session, and then headed out. The grass in the yard is still very brown...

Spring is sprung

Last Sunday it was 40 degrees and raining, I was waxing the skis and thinking that there might not be many good ski days left. The next morning there was 12" new at Teton Village; both Monday and Tuesday had very nice powder conditions on the upper mountain. I took Wednesday off.

Today the sun came out with a vengeance, with temperatures near 60 degrees in town. I went for a quick fishscale tour towards Jenny Lake in the late afternoon sunshine. 55 degrees and calm at the airport, the snow was very wet as you might expect.

It is a bit difficult to see in the photo, but there were numerous small wet slides on the east- and south-facing terrain on Teewinot.

The Instability Blues

We're finally back home and starting to catch up on chores after a ski trip in British Columbia. We spent a week backcountry skiing at the Golden Alpine Sunrise hut, in the Selkirk Mountains northeast of Rogers Pass. We had 2 to 3 feet of new snow that made for wonderful skiing; unfortunately the avalanche conditions were extremely touchy.

Due to a buried weak layer of surface hoar and loaded by the weight of the new snow, natural avalanches were widespread. On steep slopes that didn't release naturally, it was very easy to trigger slides by ski cutting, jumping above the release point, or in some cases simply skiing nearby on the flat ridgeline.  We limited our skiing to only the safest low-angle slopes, and a few steeper slopes that had already avalanched (thus clearing the weak layer). The picture above shows cracking in the snowpack triggered by our passage, leading to an avalanche crown that our guides had triggered from above. When avalanche conditions are like this at home, I would usually just stick to the ski area and not even venture into the backcountry. It was a very educational week, seeing up close all the bad things that can happen when conditions are stacked against you. Our guides Brian Webster and Lee Johnston did a great job of keeping us in safe terrain.

Our group of 10 got a bonus day in the lodge. The schedule called for us to fly out from the lodge on Saturday morning, but the snow and fog made helicopter flights impossible until late Sunday afternoon. Other lodges in the area had mixed conditions, some groups were able to fly out Saturday and some were not. The good news is that we managed to squeeze in a couple hours more skiing late Saturday afternoon after the helicopter operations shut down for the day. And there was more good news when we got back to the lodge after sundown; Jess, our cook, had been turning out amazing meals all week and managed to do it once again, though using leftovers this time.

It snowed almost every day, usually filling in our ski tracks overnight. That was a bit of saving grace for having to stick with the limited choices we had for safe terrain. We only had about 30 minutes of really clear skies, with one day of mixed clouds, sun, and fog.

Pictures are online at my PicasaWeb album.

Windy Ridge wasn't windy

The snowpack has settled down just a little bit after the last storm cycle. Jill, Eric, and I decided it was time to get out and make some turns. Yesterday we headed up Mail Cabin Canyon to Windy Ridge. The snow depth on the summit (at 9100') was 110-120cm. There was hardly any wind, it was quite pleasant in the sun. We did one run down the main ridge; skier's right (the sunny side) was crusty and unpleasant, but the snow on the shady north side was very nice indeed.

It was Jill's first turns of the season. I was up on Phillips Ridge on Monday, the SE slopes at 8500' were awful sludge and suncrust. Eric had a better day Monday on Edelweiss and Thanksgiving Bowl.

A Ski Lake tour

Yesterday afternoon Eric, Jill and I went for a short ski tour to Ski Lake. The snowpack is still too shallow -- 26" at 9300' --  for me to want to do any turns. You can see the weeds sticking up through the snow in the picture, the snowpack here at 8700' was maybe 12-16" on the south-facing slopes, with many bare spots remaining.

Jenny Lake flat, again

Nothing much has changed snow-wise in the past week. I did another tour into Jenny Lake yesterday. The lake looks to have frozen over completely. There were some ice-skater tracks in the snow on the lake at the very south end.

Jenny Lake flat

We haven't had any significant new snow in the past week. I went for a sunny afternoon tour into Jenny Lake from the Taggart parking lot. The touring conditions were fine; there was an existing track, and the snow conditions were soft enough that making your own track was easy enough. I was expecting a very firm base, but was pleasantly surprised. Jenny Lake still has about 20% open water.

First ski tour of the season

Wow, December 1st already and I have yet to get out on skis. The 28" snowpack might have something to do with that. It's a bluebird day, and the winds have calmed down after yesterday's storm system moved through.

I went for a fishscale tour up Phillips Ridge to the crest at the antenna towers. Conditions were 1-2" of new snow on top of a firm base, except for the places where the base wasn't firm, like collapsing through tall bunches of grass or shrubs. There were a few other tracks; looking up higher on the Pass towards Glory Peak the mountain was practically skied out. Still lots of stumps and rocks poking up through the snow. In the picture, the tails of my skis are on the ground, so figure about 24" depth.

And then the sun came out...

...which is normally a good thing, but this time of year the powder doesn't last long in the sunshine. It was a sunny morning. Buck and I did a Moose Brush but weren't able to get an early start. We reached the top about 1:00, as the sky was beginning to cloud over. Unfortunately, the damage was already done. As Buck said, "this is Peter Rork snow -- a good way to meet your friendly local ACL replacement specialist".  The turns that were completely in the shade, totally north-facing, were still good. Everything else, not so much. One and done...

Out Like a Lamb

Okay, so the end of March is still 3 days away. But the snow conditions on Teton Pass are indeed very lamb-ish .... white and fluffy. The snowpack at the top of Christmas Tree Bowl is deeper than my 9-foot avalanche probe, and the top foot or so is nice and light. Boot-top to shin-deep, aahh, springtime!

Pictures from Switzerland

I finally got the pictures from our Switzerland trip online. We spent a week in Wengen, Switzerland. It is a car-free village in the mountains up above Interlaken. The ski conditions were not very good but the scenery was spectacular. This is an absolutely beautiful area to visit in the summer also.

https://picasaweb.google.com/Ray.Fink/WengenJan2011#

While we there, we took an afternoon to ride the Jungfraubahn, a cog railway that tunnels up through the Eiger and Jungfrau to the highest railway station in Europe. Only worth doing on a clear day!

https://picasaweb.google.com/Ray.Fink/JungfraujochJan2011#

We spent a couple days visiting Doug & Alana in Basel, and got to see Boo flying down a Super-G course at a small locals ski area called Sattel-Hochstuckli

https://picasaweb.google.com/Ray.Fink/SattelJan2011#
 

Even better on Oliver

Doug and I headed to the Stateline parking lot, met up with his friend Marty, and we went for a tour up to Oliver Peak. There was a couple inches of fresh fluff, and lots of untracked snow. Several other groups were there, though no real competition. The north bowl was good (especially the lower half) but we found some very nice untraced over on Ollie East. So nice we had to do a couple laps, and then admire our tracks from the highway on the drive home.

Some good skiing again

We had a good time in Switzerland but the ski conditions were, um, not so very good. And we came back home to lousy conditions at home, most exposures either sun-crust or wind-hammered. I went for a short tour last Thursday on Teton Pass and never bothered to take my climbing skins off.

Fortunately another storm system moved in Sunday and Monday. My friend Doug is here visiting from Durango. We skied Moose Brush on Monday in the storm, coverage was pretty good on aspects that were sheltered from the sun. Stability was good but got a bit slabby as the day went on, due to more wind and warming temperatures.

Tuesday was the day: clear skies, calm winds, and about of foot of new in the past 36 hours. Doug's friends Jim and Karen from Whitefish are also in town, the four of us had an excellent day in Powder Reserves, Christmas Tree, and Edelweiss. I dug a pit at the top of Christmas Tree, CT 15 Q2 on the half-inch thick pencil crust. It skied very nicely. As usual most of the skier traffic was headed north of the highway, so even at 2:30 in the afternoon there were fresh lines to be had on Edelweiss.

On Wednesday, six of us (including Gary and Donna, also from Whitefish) went for a tour out the southeast ridge of Mount Elly. It was a lot colder today, the snow was still good though the south aspect had some noticeable crustiness underfoot in some places. I dug a pit at the top on a southeast aspect and was surprised that I couldn't find the sun crust, although I could see it just ten feet higher on the slope. CT 10 Q2 on a slight windslab layer in the new snow about 8" down, then CT 18 Q2 at the old snow interface. Doug and the Whitefish folks like to call this line "95 Turns", I have to say I'd never skied it.

After two laps here, we all decided to declare victory and rest up a little after three good days...

Beautiful Uptown Burbank

At least I think it's an upper tributary of Burbank Creek. That's Oliver Peak in the distance.

Janet, Guy, Jill and I parked at Stateline and headed for Oliver Peak. We took the ridgeline east of Stateline Canyon, following an existing up-track. Between getting a late start and some equipment issues that Guy was having, we only had time for one lap in the aspen glades and did not have time to go all the way up Oliver. We skied down from the saddle on this side of Oliver, and out Stateline Canyon. The snow conditions were superb!

25 Short is still there

Eric and I went to the top yesterday, just to make sure. The ski conditions were absolutely excellent.

Christmas Tree

Bob and Jill and I went for a tour up on Teton Pass. Andy joined us as well, he is back in town for a job interview and hoping mightily to return to Jackson on a permanent basis. We dropped off a vehicle at the bottom of the old pass road as a potential exit strategy.

It looked like Edelweiss was seriously tracked up, so we decided to head for Christmas Bowl. The run down through Powder Reserves was okay but noticeably stiff snow, maybe cream-cheese-light. It has been very warm the last couple days (40F in the valley, upper 20s up high) and we were wondering whether it was heat-affected or wind-affected or both.

The laps on Christmas Bowl were good, the snow was in much better condition. After two laps, Bob and Jill headed out to cut a christmas tree (more on that in a moment), while Andy and I did one more lap and then skied out Chivers Ridge to the bottom. As we got into lower elevation stuff on Chivers, it was still skiable but very stiff; fortunately it had not been sunny, just warm.

Our next-door neighbor Mary has been the coordinator for the US Capitol Christmas Tree this year, being delivered from Jackson Wyoming to Washington DC. That 67-foot Engelmann spruce has pretty much consumed her life for the past six or seven months. Yesterday was the official lighting at the Capitol; Dave and Petra flew back there to visit and join in the fun. We decided they should have a Christmas tree to welcome them back home tomorrow. Hmm, Bob had a tree permit and a saw. So it's not the Capitol christmas tree, it's more like the lowercase Christmas tree.