Trip Report (see also Canadian Alpine Journal, 2005, p. 121-122)

Here is a report of a one-week ski traverse from Snow Ocean to Battle Abbey followed by a week at BA. The traverse was on terrain that is often skied by helicopter-carried skiers, but had never been traversed before. Actually, two other traverse teams were in this area just before we were, but their routes were quite different than ours in the large and in the small, even though we all started south of BA and ended or passed through BA.

Thursday was a food-packing day in Golden for Katie, Phil, and me. Bob and Rob arrived by Greyhound at 6 pm. On Friday we had the customary wait of several hours at the hangar as we waited for the weather to clear. But we have learned how to handle this stressful part of the trip. Actually, we did it more remotely (telephone), and also broke up the day with a nice lunch at the house of guide Tom Raudaschl, whom we would meet at BA a week later. By 3 pm we were back at the hangar and the weather was improving a little. We formulated a backup plan (drop-off near McMurdo Hut) and that gave pilot Don McTighe and us confidence to try to fly in to the primary landing. Despite reports of poor weather at BA and Bobbie Burns, our spot was not bad at all and Don dropped us off at a perfect landing and camping spot at 6900 feet, about a half-mile NW from the base of Snow Ocean (Gyr Glacier). Round-trip flying time was 42 minutes. We made camp and then Phil and Rob skied about 600' above camp.

The evening is filled with anticipation. We are certainly happy, well-fed, and comfy as we relax at a great campsite. But what lies ahead? Surely some bad weather. And what of the terrain at the end of the trip, about which we have little information? Well, we may as well live day-to-day. We have plenty of time and so we will just sit for a day and ski the famous Snow Ocean run, the view of which inspired this trip several years ago when we were at Battle Abbey. We had poor visibility for the ski day, but still enjoyed it. Snow Ocean is a pretty glacier that is neither steep nor much crevassed, so it is very popular for the heli skiers at Bobbie Burns Lodge. Our total climb on the ski day to the saddle between Gyr and Skirmish Peaks was 5100 feet, an excellent total for a day when one is camping.

Sunday was our first travel day and we hoped to get to Gobi Pass. Our packs were heavy, but not oppressive (about 55 pounds). We carried first to the easy col atop the Paradise Glacier, another great heli-ski run that we got to ski down. From the helicopter these slopes looked quite steep, as in: "How will be able to exit this spot?" But in fact the terrain was moderate. There was one steep descent before getting into the branch of Laidlaw Creek, but we sneaked down without a problem and then cruised down the creek in decent snow and nice terrain all the way to the junction with the main branch of Laidlaw Creek. Here there was a nice waterfall in a small canyon, and we started the long climb to Gobi up the left bank of the creek. Katie led from here to Gobi Pass, taking a steep line at the end that brought us slightly above the pass but was nicely direct. The weather was good this day and the views of Thumb Spire spectacular. We did notice about 30 yards of what appeared to be a ski party's up track. This turned out to be tracks of a party going from the Nemo Glacier to Revelstoke. But we saw no other tracks or camps.

From the pass we descended about 1500 feet to an excellent camp in the trees, with open water. This was farther than we expected to get to this day, so we were ahead of schedule. Total climb was 3300 feet. The open water is great, both for taste and availability. On the next day a storm came in with light winds and snow and zero visibility. We skied first to the foot-shaped glacier near Gobi Pass; then back to camp for lunch and a second ski run in the neighboring valley to the Wrong-Erratum Col (I did only a few hundred feet on this run). This second excursion gave us a good view of the next day's long climb to the Wrong-Vistamount Col; such scouting is always helpful.

On Tuesday we carried over the col following the track set swiftly by Phil. The climb went well and visibility was good, so the descent of the mildly crevassed upper part of the Wrong Glacier was enjoyable. On the climb Bob and I spotted a gyrfalcon, a purely white bird of prey whose sighting is somewhat rare. Given our trip's start on the Gyr Glacier we took this as a good omen for our trek north. At this point we had to decide on a route to Oasis Lake, there being two choices: (1) descend to the snout of the Wrong and work through it directly to the lake; (2) climb around Mount Goodrich to get to the West Wrong Glacier, which photos showed would give an easy descent to the lake. The first choice won for several reasons: we had photos that indicated that there was a passage through the snout; we were told that several people (notably Sam Silverstein, first ascender of Moby Dick) viewing this from the high ridges near Battle Abbey thought it looked quite difficult, and we were keen to resolve this issue; and, perhaps most important, if the route works it would be purely downhill; it is hard to choose a 1000-foot carry when a route with zero uphill beckons.

We quickly got to the much anticipated chute of clean snow on skier's left of the imposing icefall at the snout of the Wrong. This was a spectacular spot that definitely got our attention. Bob went first down the steep snow line while Rob and I positioned ourselves so that communication would be smooth. Bob was quickly down without problem and spent some time searching for an exit from the bench below the snout. He thought it would all work somehow so Rob and I joined him, followed by the other two. There turned out to be an excellent exit line on a ledge on the hard left, and once we passed through this we were on a gentle slope that would take us right down to Oasis Lake. This was very satisfying as the route we had planned on from map study would have taken us a couple hundred feet below the lake, with a climb back up to it. As Fred Beckey once wrote, climbers are never unhappy when an unknown route proves to be a little simpler than expected! Total climb was 2500 feet. We celebrated with a limerick:

Go left on the Wrong to go right;
The icefall's a wondrous sight.
There's a cliff at the end,
So follow your friend,
And your turns had better be tight.

Oasis camp too had open water, so we set in for the usual two-night stay. Here we could use the radio to listen to weather and ski reports from Battle Abbey and CMH. We were not too far from BA here, but we had lots of skiing to occupy us. On the next day, in clear weather, Robbie and I set a steep track towards the Goodrich-Odysseus Col on the West Wrong Glacier. We stopped well short of the col, since skiing is always the first priority and this offered the best run. So we skied the large face below Goodrich multiple times: 14 sets of tracks in all. Here too there was a spectacular icefall to view as we skied up. There was lots of new snow and it appeared to be very stable. Katie, Phil, and I did two laps, and Bob and Rob did four. Katie and Phil spent the afternoon resting in camp while I skied solo about halfway to Oasis Pass, our planned route to the Houston Glacier. From a skier's perspective this camp at Oasis Lake was the best and it would be an ideal spot for spending several days. We learned later that guides Tom Raudaschl and Robson Gmoser spotted our tents here through binoculars from Battle Abbey terrain. Total climb for me was 5000 feet; 6000 for Bob and Rob. We saw a pine marten near camp, and so buried our food in a hole.

The next day had more good weather and we decided on the high route to the Houston Glacier via Oasis Pass, as opposed to a route down from the lake to low-lying Houston Creek. The latter would have been a short route, but staying out of the trees is always more attractive. The climb to Oasis Pass was easy, and from the pass we had super views of entire ranges to the north and west that we had not seen before. The next part of the planned route had no glaciers, but that does not mean that it would be easy. On the contrary, these high slopes above Kellie Creek, while an easy route in summer, are on steep south- and southwest-facing slopes that could provide serious avalanche hazard on a sunny day, as this one was. The first part was a slightly descending traverse over terrain with a lot of avalanche debris; because of temperature and aspect this slope seemed safe at this time.

Next came several hours of labor and puzzlement. Our main information was from Sam Silverstein, who had gone this way from Houston Lake to Oasis Lake in 1959. He suggested that the best plan was to pass through a "Never-Sun Col" to the Houston Glacier. Since Houston Pass leads to an area beside the glacier, not to the glacier exactly, I had interpreted this to mean that there was a col high on the ridge of Vere that led to the glacier on the other side. Now, a week after our trip, we learned from Sam that Never-Sun is just their old name for Houston Pass! And also there appears to be some confusion as to where exactly Billy Budd, Vere, and Claggart are. The maps appear to be incorrect. Going by the marked photo in David Jones's guidebook, it appears that Vere Summit is the peak one sees from Kellie Creek, with the other two farther east. We will use this terminology here.

In any case, our team did get to the ridge of Vere but we went up too soon, and were well uphill of what we thought was the col. We proceeded down the ridge and did find what appeared to be a col, but we did not go right into it and were not certain it would work. So after some discussion we decided to head down and try to traverse straight into Houston Pass (of course, this was apparently what we should have done right away). The problem is that there is a west-trending ridge perpendicular to the main ridge that blocks passage. It was not too steep on our side, but it turned out to be a cliff for almost its entirety on the other side.

Bob and Rob investigated a promising gap while Katie went a little lower. Her line took her across a bad aspect and snow was starting to slide, so she could not get to the crest. Meanwhile, Bob was investigating the gap and it looked like we could sneak through. We ferried packs over a 20-foot rocky stretch, Katie skied back up, and we regrouped at a spot where we thought we could drop in. Robbie was going to check it out on belay, but then decided he could try it without a rope. It was a steep snow drop with a slightly unknown section at the bottom, but in fact he simply traversed the top of it beside the bottom end of a steep rock wall and once around the corner it went quite easily. This was certainly a relief as our options were not so clear had we not found a way through to Houston Pass. And looking back it does appear as if this was the only way through this transverse ridge. We could have retraced to the previous camp, but no one would have been happy with that, and it would have been dangerous in the warm part of the day. It appears that this is the same place that the 1959 party passed through en route to their first ascents of Goodrich, Wrong, and Scylla.

From here we could cruise on a slight climb to Houston Pass where we finally settled in to a late lunch at 4 pm. Then we skied easy terrain down to the lake where we set up our last camp. Total climb was 3800 feet.

As often happens, the wind walls we built on this nice day were insufficient when the storm rolled in on the next day, with high winds, snow, and no visibility. We heard on the radio that the heli-skiers were shut down that day (Friday). But some of us really wanted to unravel the mysteries of (what we were taking to be) Never-Sun Col, so Bob, Rob, and I headed out into the murk to try to boot up the col to its top. Rob got to the base of it first and started to set steps. It was very steep terrain, measured at 52 degrees in spots by Bob, and over 50 for a long section. But the new snow was stable: despite the high winds causing some slab to form elsewhere, the wide couloir was protected from that, and the powder was good. Climbing the steps was hard work and with a heavy pack this would have been quite difficult. But the total length was only about 400 feet and it did not take too long. At the top it became clear that this col, which we could have (should have) reached the previous day, would have offered a fine route down. Heavy packs are little more than a nuisance when skiing in the same direction as gravity, and we were quite sure that, after checking for stability, we would have taken this route down had we made the col on the previous day. That would have been a very elegant line, though I would not suggest it in the opposite direction, as carrying a pack up the slope would be exhausting and take too long.

The ski descent was challenging but not scary, and we named this line White Chocolate Couloir (it is such a sweet ski line!). Given the post-trip info, one is tempted to call this Wrong Col, but that would just add to the confusion. The grid ref. for this col is 698414 at 8400 feet. The GR for the passage through the transverse ridge is about 695414.

The storm continued through the night, with low temperatures and high winds, but dawn was not too bad and we tried for an early start since Phil was trying to reach the helicopter at BA for the afternoon ride out. The line to the Typee-Forecastle Col was simple enough, but a large snow face where the serious climbing started proved to be a pain in the foot as, even after the storm, it was pure hardpack, making for very difficult skinning. Some of us resorted to boots after an hour of sideslipping, but once the steep part was crested the rest of the climb became much easier. I broke a pole basket on this section, which Katie repaired with baling wire. And later in the day my ski touched the ski of the person in front of me and the bail on the skin broke; that was easily fixed with a ski strap. The col itself required a guess as to which notch would take us through, but we guessed right in that the easiest notch, about 150 feet higher than the cliffy low point, worked well. We took a break and then began traversing under the north face of Typee over to Steepness. We started spotting ski tracks here, and so were home free. Total climb this day was again 3800 feet, somewhat more than we expected.

As always, the final descent to a lodge after a week of traversing is an exhilarating moment. The pack comes off for good as one prepares for the influx of fresh water and fresh people. Indeed, those first hours were a case of total sensory overload as we chatted with the departing crowd from Breckenridge (which included the two winners of the Leadville 100 km race that I competed in March) and reconnected with guides Tom Raudaschl and Robson Gmoser, cook Simon Bew, and skiers Brice and Kara Addison and Steve Taylor, whom we had met at Sorcerer two years ago, and their nine friends and relatives who were new to us, as well as Peter Coburn, a friend from Boulder. By week's end, we were all fast friends.

At the lodge we learned of two other teams: one had gone from the Nemo Glacier to Revelstoke and the other from the town of Ferguson to Rogers Pass. These groups had excellent weather and made some noteworthy ascents en route, such as Moby Dick. And their routes, which passed through the Abbey were much longer than ours. Yet our line into BA was perhaps more natural, as it followed the spine of the Westfall Group from bottom to top. What is remarkable is that the three groups got through the steep terrain near the Wrong group in entirely different ways: The Stan Metcalfe group went from Oasis Pass to a col between the two peaks of Claggart and down the north ridge and northwest face of Billy Budd, while the other group got to Oasis Lake after finding a way through the Chinese Wall. From the lake they went down to Houston Creek. We were the only group to pass through the snout of the Wrong or to travel by the west side of Billy Budd.

One sad note: At the exchange, a party of four came in and headed down to Butters Creek en route to Rogers Pass. But on their traverse Bob Enagonio perished in a crevasse on the Deville Icefield.

Except for one day, the week at BA was one of sun and warmth. This made for challenging skiing, but at least we could see what the challenges were! And occasionally the snow conditions were superb. The most amazing aspect of this week was that, even though this was Katie's and my third visit to the Abbey, on every day but one (storm on Tuesday) we skied terrain that was new to us. On Sunday we visited the burnt forest for corn skiing among burnt trees. On Monday Robson Gmoser led us up Butters Peak, which offers a 4800-foot ski descent, surely one of the longest in the range. On Wednesday we climbed Little Ahab and then about half the group went down to Pequod Pass and descended 1200 feet of the North Moby Dick Glacier to below Yes, Please spire. This is a seldom visited and beautiful valley, with great views of Proteus and Harpoon and their north-side glacier.  After this we climbed to a spot above Pequod Pass on the hut side that starts perhaps the best single run of this area: 1200 feet of powder down to Butters Creek. And of course all week we had views of the entire terrain of our traverse, as well as the peaks to the east, which included many I had climbed (David, Sibbald, International, Horseman, Syphax).

On Thursday we climbed to the skier's summit of Omoo and followed that up with a climb and walk to the summit of Foremast. And on Friday came the finest tour of my three weeks at the Abbey. We started with the summit of Typee. After the usual ski down its upper section, we continued west to the spectacular glacial basin of the Upper Pequod. From here we visited two nearby cols on either side of Pequod Peak, offering superb views of the east ridge of Moby Dick, which is not very far from this spot. On return Bob, Robbie, and I climbed Ridiculous to look at an extreme line down its east face: Robbie skied the rocky 50-plus degree slope in breakable crust. He certainly called on all his skills as one of the top five extreme telemarkers in the US to get down this one in good style. We named the previously unskied line Boggart, after the worst-nightmare demons of Harry Potter's world, who are deterred only by the RIDIKULUS incantation. My total climb for the week was 32000 feet. Excluding the storm/rest day, this is a 6000-foot average for 5 days.

Naturally we spend time comparing the many ski lodges and huts we have visited over the years: Mistaya, Purcell, Fairy Meadows, Great Cairn, McMurdo, the Wapta huts, Sorcerer, Selkirk, Durrand, and others. But comparisons of terrain, steepness, length, and accessibility seem beside the point. The fact is, the character of each of these huts is unique, something determined by a combination of the building and its history, the guides and the terrain, and myriad other factors. Like the other lodges, Battle Abbey has excellent skiing. But the real joy of a visit here is the pure personality of the lodge and its location in the heart of the beautiful Melville group of peaks. With guides such as Tom and Robson who never tire of the alpine delights of this region, one is guaranteed exquisite tours regardless of snow conditions.

Other highlights of the BA week:

My spectacular four-cartwheel tumble on the steep part of Steepness.

Tom's sense of humor, which continues to astound us: his white hat, his personalized jokes, his ability to make amusing puns in English. Example: "Which is better, good skiing or good sex?" Tom: "Well, you know, they are really quite different."

Our joke on Tom, in the form of a ballad composed by Conrad (Brice's 14-year-old son, named after Conrad Kain) on a topic that will remain unmentioned.

The energy of Simon Bew, the Australian cook, who, along with Kara, became extremely animated during a vicious chocolate mousse food fight; at its end the two protagonists were very pleased that the Abbey has a shower.

Bryce Addison's recitation from memory of Jabberwocky in German.

Robson's spirited rendition a a very long limerick on a topic much discussed in huts.

Two chess games between John Addison and me using the ornately carved Buddhists vs. Hindus chess pieces. I suggested that it was Jews vs. Episcopalians.

Robbie's bold ski down Boggart on the east face of Ridiculous.

Bob and Rob's Big Day Out (the Little Ahab day), during which they did a bonus lap to get to a total climb of 10700 feet, something Bob had longed for years.

Katie's handling with aplomb a difficult personal situation, one that led to astonishing radio communications broadcast to the whole dinner table.

Bob's despair after losing a ski down a rocky couloir of Omoo; we all sympathized, but the situation had its comic side as well. Tom clambered down the steep terrain to recover the ski.

The generally good skiing abilities of the Addison group: on the Little Ahab day there were 17 people at the summit.

The long poem composed by Kara and others about how amusing my tricks, falls, attitudes, etc. are. I was quite touched.

Some conclusions:  The start of a traverse is difficult as the packs are heavy and damp and cold conditions take some getting used to. But after a few days one gets into it. Our team was the strongest traverse team I have ever been on, and my partners did not mind that I was a little slower from time to time. It is such a delight to ski with younger skiers, whose skiing and camping skills and general enthusiasm make the difficulties melt away (usually). And being in terrain that has not been explored before added nice excitement to issues of route choice. While serious discussions about navigation and other more personal matters do arise from time to time, the activity is such that there is rarely only one way around a difficulty. And on the personal side, a group that knows and respects the personalities and idiosyncrasies, strengths and weaknesses of the other members can survive what could become difficult situations. In short, we had our moments, but the team handled them in an appropriate manner, and all enjoyed a great adventure on new and beautiful terrain.

PostScript: Sam Silverstein was pleased to learn of our trip and made up for his pessimistic views in an earlier e-mail with a limerick:

When a fifty-pound pack I am draggin,
And my britches are soaked and saggin,
It's relieving to learn,
There's no need for concern,
When I follow the tracks of Stan Wagon.
 
So top off the foam in your flagon,
There's no need for boasting or braggin,
The traverse from Snow Ocean,
Stan led sans commotion,
Let us now down a flagon to Wagon!