Trip report

Personnel:   Our group: Stan Wagon, 60, Silverthorne, Colorado
Kim Clark, Golden, Colorado
Elke Dratch, Breckenridge, Colorado
Ben McShan, 32, Durango, Colorado

Other clients: Craig Miller, Seattle, Washington, 63 (has visited many many ski huts and lodges in Canada; we crossed paths at Bow Hut in 1994)
Harvey and Logan Brauer, Edmonton, father and son, 54 and 23 (Harvey has done Columbia in a day. Impressive.)
Kyle Williams, Olympia, Washington (has done the Forbidden Traverse around Boston, Forbidden, Eldorado in Cascades. Nice!)

Guide: Pierre Hungr, Vancouver (SpectrumGuiding.com)


Stats in feet:  Sat: 500 climb; Sun: 5900 climb; Mon: 5400 climb; Tues: 4800 to hut and 600 in evening; Wed: 2750 up;
Thurs: 5500 up, 7100 down; Fri: 3400 climb; Sat morning: 2400 climb. Total = 31250.

Thursday April 12, 2012: Leave at 5:30 am after Bill drops Elke off and Kim comes in from Zuma. Easy driving to N of Cheyenne. Then Elke took over to Billings (where our roof box, kindly loaned to us by Jonathan, went sideways about 10 degrees on the roof due to high winds; emptied it, straightened and tightened it). Then Kim drove to Great Falls. Had an ok dinner at the O’Haire Motor Inn but learned that the mermaid show did not start until 9:30. We packed a bit and rallied to the bar at 9:45 for the amusing show. Two mermaids in fins and bikinis frolicked behind the bar, while Piano Pat played Margaritaville and similar on the piano. The place was packed. Bit of a weird scene.

Friday: Drove N for a simple border crossing. BUT: as we approached Calgary I got a surprising phone call from Canadian immigration, who were double-checking Ben’s story that we were picking him up. He got in. Also Elke’s credit card had been hacked -- a strange purchase -- and she had to deal with that. Finally happily in Golden at the usual Travelodge. Dinner that evening at the Kicking Horse Grill, where we ran into Abby Watkins, a famous ice climber whom we had met at Don McTighe’s heliport in 2003. She was gracious. At night we watched the Honey Badger video, as Kim and Elke are HB’s extraordinaire.

Saturday: Had breakfast with Brice Addison, Conrad, Kara, and other members of his family including the two Marys with whom we skied at Battle Abbey in 2004. Also young Mark who had in fact applied for the merman job in Great Falls. Also Tom Raudaschl. Met Lloyd “Kiwi” Gallagher, who praised Chic Scott for his fine work on his Gmoser biography. Talked of lots of things. Fun to reconnect. At staging area the weather was poor and the pilot from Coldstream Helicopters could not get to the Mons Hut, and also could not get to the canyon rim below the hut. So we went to Icefall Lodge and planned to do our traverse in reverse. It worked out well. Avalanche practice in the afternoon and then a short powder ski on Kitchenette.

Sunday: Titanic centennial day, 4/15/2012. Superb day. Clear until about noon, then cloudy. Keffi Col. Down the other side. I fell twice which was a little discouraging, but I would get more used to my new AT setup in coming days. Excellent powder. Then up to top of La Clytte ski run -- carefully evaluating conditions. We had a bad avalanche here in 2007. Very nice to see that Pierre thinks the best way is to go to top of Groove Tube and then the straight shot across, the point being that that minimizes the time spent in hazard (even though that strategy did not work for us in 2007). We did La Clytte twice, then climbed to the S for another run (little crusty). Then back over the Keffi bump by a new way for me that has quite a steep drop-in into the chutes that take us back. Some stuff today was WAY easier on AT gear. The group is very strong. 5900 feet climb.

Monday: 8:15 - 4:50 again, so longer than yesterday, but only 5400 climb. To the Diamond Glacier and the serac tour which was truly spectacular. As I was passing the second serac area, there was Pierre BELOW me. How did he get there? Well, there is this year a ski route through the crevasse. Very cool. Returned to lodge by Zen Glacier as usual, with a side trip to see the old water hole. It is no longer used as the pumping system now works perfectly. Sauna in evening.

Tuesday: Weather was snowy but it seemed like we could get through Crampon Col so off we went. The ski down Keffi Col was in very low vis and we just took a low angle down. One the next climb I had gloppage and fell back a bit. But vis was improving so Pierre moved along as far as he could. When I caught up we were looking at a straightforward ski traverse into the col, something that Pierre said he had never done before (it usually requires booting the last part). The ski down the other side was a fine run in steep powder, and the trip from their to the Lyell Hut was straightforward. Finally, after many trips here, winter and summer, I was on the other side of Crampon Col. I was quite tired by day’s end and needed some recovery time in the hut. Getting the stove started was tricky, but Pierre got it and after dinner we did a twilight ski up the slopes of Twilight Peak. The powder was fine and cold. At nighe Ben cleverly fixed my gloves with dental floss and a bit of wire. Impressive effort.

Wednesday: Woke up to the familiar murk, but we headed out enthusiastically to the Lyell Icefield and got as far as the 2-3 col. There we were surprised by a whoop and a party of three skiing down to us. They were Steve Senecal and friends coming through on their traverse from the Alexandra Glacier to Peyto Hut. They had just spent two days fermenting (their word) in the tent, so were happy to be moving. They got to the Mons Hut that night. The sight of the heavy packs did lead many in our group to wonder about the virtues of true ski traversing, with tents and all the gear. It did indeed seem like a lot of work.

We cruised back to the Lyell Hut somewhat disappointed that a Lyell peak had eluded us. Harvey especially was keen on a summit as he had been up to the hut in the summer but steady rain kept him in the hut the whole time.

Thursday: One of the greatest ski days ever! We woke to a clear sky and took our time getting going as we enjoyed the views from our high home. As soon as Pierre left the hut, we sensed that he was going for Christian Peak, but we did not ask. Ben’s beacon failed so he was beaconless this day (Pierre fixed it at the next hut; a bad lead of some sort). We headed right for Christian and skinned up the high steep switchbacks with no problem. Then we left our skis and Pierre led out on the short traverse to the summit, making good steps in a very exposed location. The drop down to the left was gigantic so we all focused intently on each step. A steep little climb at the end put us on the summit; sadly some clouds blew in so we saw little from this 11120-foot peak. But Harvey and all of us were very happy. On descent we backed down the steep part and were very careful on the traverse. One step collapsed a little, but the snow was really very good here. A short rope was pulled out for one member and we all breathed a little easier when we were back at our skis.

Then we skied right down the face on a steep pitch, and followed that with endless cruising and powder runs down beside Icefall Icefall to the rim of Icefall Canyon at 6200 feet: a 5000-foot descent with no break except occasional pauses. Harvey and Logan made beautiful 8s down the nicest slopes. We took a leisurely lunch at our low point admiring the frozen waterfalls in the canyon below. This was the spot where Don McTighe dropped us in 2003 so the terrain brought back good memories of that trip. After lunch we headed up beside the north-facing cliff to gain the pass that leads down to the Mons Hut. But instead of down we went up more, to the top of a snow peak NW of the main (West) summit of Division, a climb of 3400 feet. From there we skied down quite a steep pitch (the run is called Raging Bull Hamster) to the Mons Hut at 7800 feet. So for the day we had 7100 feet of descent in excellent conditions and 5500 ascent.

Kim felt that the Christian descent from summit to Mons Hut was her best ski run ever!

Friday: Bad weather and some stove-starting problems delayed our departure. We went first to the ice cave (GR: East 97915, North 47872) and spent some time there examining the remarkable ice. We had found this in 2003, at which time it was a tunnel (see my report on the 2003 traverse), with a hole at the far end. It seemed a little smaller this time, with no hole. Some of the ice is extremely dense (formed under great pressure) and smooth to the touch. Remarkably it feels warm and it is hard to believe that it is 32 degrees or less, though surely it must be. This is probably related to the fact that ice has low heat conductivity. After some time there we wandered up the Spider Glacier for a pitch but did not go very far. Around 4:40 pm we headed out again (some stayed behind missing a great run) and went all the way up the Spider Glacier almost to the same snow bump of Division that we visited on Thursday. There was a very steep section through the cliffs that skied very, very well.

Saturday April 21: The forecast was good so we rose early and left the hut at 7:30 in an attempt to climb Mons. The ascent was fast -- and much nicer than when we did it in 2003 in low visibility. We headed toward the east ridge and got very high on it, but the snow was a little slabby on the slopes above so we stopped there and skied a magnificent run back down the steep parts of the east face. At times the views on the climb were phenomenal: Forbes north face and looking north at the terrain between Icefall Peak and the Lyell Hut. We were back at the Mons hut just after 10:30 and the heli came in with no problems to pick us up. We zipped over to the Lodge to get one more person, and then the fine trip down to the cars.

After hanging around at staging for a while (saw Monique and Andy from last year) we headed to town where we spent the night. Ran into Maria Coffey (companion of the late Joe Tasker) at the bookstore. She and her companion were doing a show on elephants that evening.

Sunday April 22: We skied Mt. Field to just below the summit (conditions were fine up high, not so good lower down; one slab avalanche had released near the ascent route), had an enjoyable visit with Chic Scott in Banff, and then drove straight through to Colorado. Saw a huge shooting star in the middle of the night.

One problem: There was a problem with one of the heli seats and it destroyed the seat of the pants of whoever sat there. This happened on the way in and we assumed it would have been fixed by now. We have no idea what the issue was (no smell). But Kim’s ski pants were ruined on the trip out.