Trip Report

Personnel: Stan Wagon, 54; Katie Larson, 41; Rob Nachtwey, 27
Heli company: Selkirk Mountain Helicopters, Gerry Matthews owner/pilot (250-837-2455)
Dates: Start Wed., April 19. Finish Friday, April 28. 9 nights. 10 days.
Reference: Chic Scott's book on the Columbia Mountains; Ruedi Beglinger's article in the 1994 CAJ.

Itinerary:
3 nights at the Bourne Glacier dropoff at treeline (6600'). One day spent carrying a load to Cat Col.
2 nights at treeline in Big Eddy Creek (6500')
2 nights at treeline in Frisby Creek (6800')
2 nights at treeline on the west ridge of Tour Ronde (6850')
Pickup at 5600' at flat area on south side of Tour Ronde.

Fuel budget: One-half cup of white gas per person per day was our budget, and we stayed within it. Some of the meals were fully dehydrated while others required cooking.

Preamble: My last traverse was the Wrong Way in 2004 and that was satisfying, but difficult. So I was a little nervous going into this one. Yet conditions for travel and skiing were near perfect, and it all went very well. The details.

Wednesday: Our flight in was delayed by my forgetting to pack any socks for the trip. I had to wait until 9:30 and store-opening time to buy two pair. But the weather was good and the fly-in in Gerry Matthews's Long Ranger was uneventful. We could see the camp in Frisby Creek that the ACMG was using for its month-long guides' course and exam (they would be leaving on Saturday). Circling around to pick out the drop-off point can be exciting. We looked low, then high, and I finally settled on a treed knoll 400 yards due east of, and 400 feet higher than the planned dropoff. This turned out to be a perfect spot, since it was protected by trees and allowed easier access to Cat Col, the first high pass. After making camp we skied to the summit of Pyrite Peak, avoiding the steep main face by a traverse/switchback on a ramp to the north (see photo). But then we skied the main face down (2200 feet) and it was super: typical of the steep and stable powder we have always found in this range. One disappointment was snowmobile tracks at the summit. There is easy access from the west, and this is perfectly legal, but one likes to feel alone. In any case, the ski back to camp was super.

Thursday: We carried a load to Cat Col (9250'). This is quite tricky to find for a combination of reasons: (1) the location of the name "Cat Peak" on the map is problematic; (2) one cannot see the small notch until one is just about on top of it as it is hidden by a giant wind scoop; (3) the terrain is generally complex and map-reading -- at least our map-reading -- difficult. I should have just gone directly to the GPS point I had programmed, as that was perfectly correct, but we did not. In any case, we finally did find it. It is a cool notch in a very alpine setting (see photo), but the supposed rappel was not there on the other side. I mean: We could just walk right through. This was due not so much to a big snow year as to the wind patterns during the winter. There is no question we were at the right place. So that saved us time when we went through with heavy packs later. The ski down was fine -- mostly corn snow in good condition -- and about 3000 feet long. From the col we saw two skiers to the south across the Big Eddy valley; they were from the ACMG guides' exam camp in Frisby Creek. We also saw the somewhat intimidating high pass that would be required for the travel out of Big Eddy.

Friday: Wind, snow, and low barometer. We spent the whole day in the tent. But this storm was not unwelcome, as it would refresh the conditions in Frisby Creek after several weeks of the ACMG group. In the evening I decided it would be best if I read my book, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime", aloud to my teammates. This worked well, but we had to ration it, as the book is not long. So I would read a chapter every time the barometer climbed a hundredth of an inch.

Saturday: We carried up to Cat Col on a nice morning and walked through to the other side. There we had a nice long descent to the valley of Big Eddy. We should have stayed a little more left and at the end we had to climb back about 400 feet to get to the perfect campsite, on a bench near tree-line. This glacial cirque is really spectacular: Ruedi Beglinger has written that "It has some of the best ski-mountaineering terrain to be found anywhere in North America or Europe." We had a sunny evening and were pleased to have the heaviest carry behind us.

Sunday: A super day as we explored the high col (9200') near Egghorn to make sure it would work. Beglinger got to this col via the SE arm of the glacier, but the NE arm is more natural and probably easier. The climb went very well; we roped up, but would not do so later with heavy packs as the ramps were fine. The final bit was steep, requiring a few very tight kickturns and a very small side-stepping section below the top. And beyond the top was a second top, as there was a giant wind scoop there. But it was all straightforward and stable and we had lunch on the other side looking over into Frisby Creek and Glacier. The peaks here, which are sometimes climbed this time of year, all looked difficult as many, such as Egghorn, were covered in rime. The ski back down was 3000 feet on the usual great steep powder. We did one section twice. And lower down we skied a steep face that we had avoided on the way up, and it was excellent. I did not want to yo-yo that one, but suggested that the youngsters re-ski it the next day while I trudged behind them at my slower pace. On the way back to camp we found an open stream -- the only open water near us on the trip -- that allowed a little foot-bath.

Monday: We carried to the aforementioned slope: Rob and Katie skied it and then caught up to me just before I reached their packs. The finishing moves through the high pass were fine. I should add that there is another way through here via a pass to the SE that is much broader and 700 feet lower. We could have gone through that, but the team decided to take the high road, as there was no problem with it. The ski down the south side was fine and we stopped well short of the bottom on a terrific tree-line bench at 6800 feet.

Tuesday: Slow start with pancakes for breakfast and then a tour up the head of the glacier to the large col and the ridge to Glacier Peak. We stopped short of the summit ridge, and for a ski down we went back to the col and up the other side a bit under the face of Glissade Peak so as to get a nice north-facing run. While up high we got a quick view of a face that was one of the most spectacular I have ever seen, and we identified it as the north face of Tour Ronde, which we would pass under the next day. A large slab had come off near its top, but that did not detract from its striking form. I called Joan in the evening on the satellite phone. Having seen both Frisby and Bug Eddy it would seem that Big Eddy is the better valley for pure skiing. We repeated some runs there and they were steep and clean, while the Frisby Glacier presented more crevasse problems. Moreover, we did not even explore the large valley near the SE lobe of the Big Eddy Glacier.

Wednesday: A hard travel day from 8 to 3:30 with only a short break. We descended 600 feet from our camp to the bottom and then roped for the glacier ascent (some crevasses) to the gentle col east of Glissade Peak. The weather was all right, with some light clouds. As we hit the pass the winds came up, so we kept moving. Then came the traverse of the very firm south face of Glissade looking for the ridge down. Well, we found it and it looked tricky. Following this ridge would mean going along a narrow section with cornice and drop-off on the left, and just drop-off on the right. But Katie headed right into in, winding through the contorted shapes on the crest to reach the end of the ridge. But then we saw that the hoped-for easy slope was not there; instead we faced a quite steep slope, but one which, with care, would work to get us to where we could traverse into the saddle at the head of the Jordan River and below the face of Tour Ronde. Weather was now coming in -- light snow -- but it was not a problem. We had to look this over a bit before figuring out the best way down. Rob and Katie then side-slipped the steepest 50 or 60 feet, and I followed, side-stepping slowly for security. This was a no-fall zone, but in fact the snow was softer down here than on the face and ridge we had just been on, and it was not difficult. Then Rob found a little passage to the right where we could traverse into the easier terrain leading to the pass. No problem, though my technique on this sort of thing means that my legs get tired.

We got to the pass and continued through to the area above the lakes we needed to get to next. There was a lot of debris from wet avys on the left side, but the other side was fine, and we skied down and then traversed some ugly debris into the small upper lake below the final couloir climb to camp. This was where we got the biggest surprise of the trip. Katie was first to the lake and spotted a wolverine in its middle. When he (or she: I think even a wolverine expert would have a hard time getting close enough to one to tell) saw us he took off up the gully we would follow later. Wow. None of us had ever seen this rare creature before, though we have often seen tracks. Finally we took a lunch break at the lake, right by the spot where the wolverine had urinated -- very yellow and thick. Then we climbed that 900-foot gully to a great campsite, just at treeline like the others. And, like the others we would spend two days here. The storm was now in, so we dug out a deep site for the tent. But it seemed to be a light storm. I called in our coordinates to the heli company so that they would know where we were in case we did not make it to the primary pickup spot around the corner of Tour Ronde. This ridge spot was quite spectacular as there are steep rock faces all around.

Thursday: Heavy fog in the morning meant we weren't going anywhere for a while, so Katie cooked the potato-egg breakfast and we relaxed a bit. At around 11 the weather started to improve, so we headed to the pass leading onto the south side of Tour Ronde. It was still cloudy, but improvement was steady and we could see the summit, so up we went. Well, the final summit tower was coated in rime, so we had to settle for the west summit. But it was steep just below the top and we had to carry skis and kick steps. Of course, this was the day I left my ice ax in camp!

From the saddle Robbie had a good look at the north face of Tour Ronde. As noted, this is an amazing feature. The overall slope of this 1300-foot face is 45 degrees (from the map) but it appears that the steepest 300 feet is about 58 degrees. Has anyone ever skied this? Will anyone ever ski this? It looks just possible for an expert who knows the conditions are reasonable. In any case it was interesting and scary to look down it. Our ski down the south face of the peak was fine only for the first few hundred feet, for below that it was breakable or soft. We returned to our saddle and went up the other side a bit so as to ski a nice-looking face. I went down first and immediately started a small wet avalanche below me. But it was no problem to traverse out of it and get a few good turns in farther along. Then back to camp for our last dinner. We packed everything we could so that we could start early the next morning and get to the pickup spot early. The weather looked good for the pickup, which was nice.

Friday: We woke early and traversed into the pickup area between 6:30 and 8 a.m. We stopped at a flat spot one km NE of what we marked as the primary pickup spot (the lake), but there were some misunderstandings in my communication with the pilot. Suffice it to say that I should have given him our UTM coordinates. So, 33 minutes, later, we watched a helicopter fly overhead, heading to our previous camp. Then it came back to us, and then returned to the direction of the camp. Finally it came back and landed at our spot. Well, all's well that ends well, and we enjoyed the ride back down on this, our tenth day in the range. We had completed a challenging traverse with excellent skiing, some summits, great camps, and extremeley cooperative weather -- it was all that a backcountry skier could hope for!

Gear notes: Rob had the new Black Diamond free-pivot telemark bindings and liked them a lot. He also had a new product for Black Diamond aimed at stopping snow buildup on skins, and that too worked well, causing water beads to form. Katie had the same skin-glue problems with Black Diamond skins that have plagued her and me over the years: the glue would blister and come off, as has happened to both of us many times before, but only on trips to Canada. We think it is a moisture problem. My BD skins were the yellow ones and they did not suffer the blistering disease this year. The weather was perfect so that I managed the whole trip with ski gloves, never putting on my warm mittens. Katie had a new MSR SimmerLite stove (in addition to the Dragonfly) and it worked fine, though it sputtered a bit from time to time, and we are blaming year-old fuel for that. I had a new Mountain HardWear sleeping bag rated to 15 degrees F., and that was fine. I also had a new Gregory pack with good capacity, and that too worked out well. Katie and Rob each had small day packs, while I did not, so I had to use my big pack for the day tours; this is always a tough call: whether to bring an additional small pack.