Trip Report

Personnel

Ryan Cordova, California, 27
Kim Clark McGranahan, Colorado, 40
Katie Larson, Colorado, 42
Ian McBride, California, 23
Rob Nachtwey, California, 29
Stan Wagon, Colorado, 55

The Gold Range of the Monashees is located SW of Revelstoke. Our traverse last year in the Jordan range north of here went well, so we thought about this one for 2007. Remy Bernier had done the first long traverse in this range in April 2006 and he shared his maps and route info with us. Since Chic Scott's book has a positive report on the terrain by a party from 1979 -- they did a part of this, from Blanket Creek to Avalanche Lake -- it seemed like a good choice.

Thurs: March 29, 2007: Nice flight in to the start of our trip at GR 178094, a high spot in the S branch of Thor Creek, one kilometer east of a gentle pass between Kelly and Gates Peaks. On the flight in (Selkirk Mountain Helicopters) we saw another traversing party near Avalanche Lake. On my first shovel lift I hurt my back a little, but it worked out in a day. We all climbed the ridge above the hut and skied back down easy slopes to scout out a steeper gully. Then back up as Kim and Katie skied the gully (steep, icy) and Rob and Rylan went a little further to an even steeper face that they skied well. Ian and I took the easy way down. When one of my skis popped off Ian advised tightening the new Black Diamond binding. I did so and had no further problems. This was my first long ski with the free-pivot binding (the O1) and it worked well.

Fri. March 30. 5400' of skiing to the "skiers summit" of Kelly Peak at 9350 feet. Very steep near the top. Some open water on return. There were ski tracks around our camp, down in the lower valley, and at the top of the Kelly Peak ridge. All a bit mystifying as we never saw a camp from this other party. But we learned later that it was from a party of 4 who were doing the traverse in fast and light style.

Sat. A good travel day as we started with the climb to the easy 7800-foot saddle by Gates Peak. The other side had good skiing, and we reskinned for the climb through the pass in this area with lots of lakes. Then we turned right sharply and found ourselves having to cross some steep slopes. It went well (one difficult kick turn) and we got to the next pass, above the lake (Avalanche Lake) beside which we hoped to camp. Getting down to the lake was a little tricky as we had to climb a bit to find a break in the cornices (Remy's party in 2006 just went straight down from the pass, but that is very steep). We placed camp in a giant wind scoop that offered some protection in case of winds. Altitude was 6600 feet.

Sunday, April 1. Weather deteriorated and in low visibility we just wandered a bit across the lake and up the glacier. On the way back we investigated a spectacular cliff of glacial ice. We could get underneath it and feel the amazingly smooth surface. And a little farther east we found an ice cliff with a weird "snow cheese" formation clinging to the ice. We think it is avalanche debris that melted out.

We got a glimpse of the route for the next day. There were two choices: Continue up-glacier to the base of a broad couloir that goes to the snow slope leading to the pass we needed (S Cranberry Pass) or turn right sooner and angle to the top of the ridge and follow that to the snow slope below the pass. The latter is shorter (and was Remy's route), but presented potential difficulties on the ridge itself.

Monday.  The weather looked a little more promising so we packed up and started out. We angled up the slope to the ridge and snow conditions were really awful. Eight inches of new atop an icy layer of a sort I do not recall seeing before. Steps would slide away, so one had to take teeny steps and it was very strenuous for both legs and arms. Rob and Katie had ski crampons, which made a gigantic difference. But we did get to the ridgetop without too much fuss. The weather now deteriorated; indeed snow had been falling for a couple of hours and now the winds were picking up. We continued to head up the ridge, but the snow conditions stayed bad and there was some exposure into the abyss into the glacier to the north. At one point I was too terrified to go on, since the snow was slabbing off, the ice was visible and I had no confidence in my ability to get the edges to hold. So Rylan booted up a track for me, but things in front of us did not look good and the team decided to stop. We retreated down this steep slope (I asked for a belay at one point) and dug in a cozy camp at 7400 feet. Despite the storm and cold overnight temperatures, we stayed warm in camp and had no problems. Late in the evening the sky cleared and it looked like we could try again the next day. It was very cold though (and we learned later that indeed there was unusually cold weather in the area this week).

Tuesday: April 3. Perfect blue sky at dawn. We were moving by 11 and with visibility were able to pick a much better route. We got over the bump on the ridge that had stopped us, and then Rob led up the steep, but not too steep, small glacier to S. Cranberry Col. I had thought all difficulties would be over, but there was now a narrow ridge of intense rime to follow. We could ski over it easily, but at the end there was an icy spot and Kim and I used ice axes to cross it, with skis on. Now all difficulties were surely over.

We had a mile of easy travel on gentle glacier to gain Cranberry Col. On the way we passed a north face that was the most interesting rimed face I had ever seen. Deep indents, large feathers of rime everywherlinke. No visible rock. It all looked very very wintry, and beautiful.

Clouds were moving in again, but the weather was fine and we were now facing a 3000-foot descent on gentle terrain in snow that was just perfect: cold, powdery, and dry. Some of the best ski conditions I have evern seen in these ranges. So we wandered down and finally dropped off the ridge to a camp at 6100 feet near Armstrong Pass. Now we were in heli-ski country (CMH Revelstoke) and we saw a lot of activity over the following days.

Wednesday. To Blanket Pass, but I was exhausted from the exertions of Tuesday and could not ski more than the 3000 feet just climbed. Rylan and Ian kindly accompanied me back to camp (a great descent) while the other three did a 2000-foot powder run on the N side. Camp was warm, so we just spent the afternoon relaxing. In the early evening Robbie and Rylan went up to a cliff above camp to launch some big jumps. We could watch from the comfort of our tent, but it was a little worrisome as the satellite phones didn't work in the hole we were in (some software issue was causing serous problems with sat phone reception). But Rylan skied his line beautifully and Robbie suffered a fall of no consequence. Upon starting this day we saw that a pine marten had invaded our food cache, which was left uncovered, and made away with gado-gado sauce for dinner and a couple of bagels.

Thursday. I felt nicely rested and did well on the 3000-foot climb, averaging 1000 ft per hour, well slower than the others, but actually faster than I was the day before without a heavy pack. Lots of heli skiers everywhere now. Noisy and distracting. We continued on towards Blanket Peak and dumped our packs to make a 1000-foot climb to the summit. The last bit was steep and Rylan and I used axes and boots while the others skied up. The ski off the summit (which I did not do) was steep but everyone did it well.

Then we descended the long way to the Blanket Chalet, passing caribou tracks en route. Well, this place is called Caribou Ridge! We met a large group there, which included the chalet's owner Al Schaefer. After a chat we went 400 feet lower to Caribou Lake where we set up our last camp and prepared for our pickup at 9. During the night an animal caused us some irritation but he quieted down after we poked our heads out and shook our packs. More on this later!

Fri, April 6:  At the departure we learned that helicopters want to land with the stakes in front of them, right near pilot's eyes. The flights went well and we relaxed and shopped in Revelstoke a bit, getting some extremely good locally made sausages for the hut trip at a health food store. We got to Golden in time to take our skis (and Kim's boots) into the 180 ski shop for repair. Mine had a core shot that was easily fixed.

At the motel I found a creature in my pack -- the one that woke us at midnight. It was the rarely seen pygmy wolverine, but it was too dazed to cause us much terror. Katie nursed it back to health and we released it at the Lodge staging area the next day.

We spent the afternoon drying our gear, meeting up with the rest of the team for Icefall Lodge, and organizing for that trip.