Wapta Traverse

James, Guy and I took advantage the high pressure system a couple of weekends ago and headed to the very rocky Rockies.

Sticky skins on Peyto Lake

The rockies are definitely lacking in snow this year, so we did a bit of hiking and route-finding (or not finding) on our first day. This meant for 2 hours of glacier travel by headlamp. Thankfully we had tracks to follow.

Skiing back to the Peyto hut on day 2, after climbing up to the shoulder of South Rhondda. The snow was surprisingly very, very fun. (You can see our noodles in the background.)

A group of seven coming to join us at the hut. I love how tiny people look on icefields. It was a long weekend in Alberta, so there the huts were generally full, which meant they were warm as there are no stoves in them.

Hiking over the col to get to the Vulture glacier.

Right after the col I lost my ski trying to traverse on some hardpack snow with my dynafiddles. I chased after it and managed to land on it, but then my other ski came off. James went after that ski, but of course, he was only on one ski himself, as his dynafiddle binding had also released. He eventually had to give up and we watched my ski head off down the mountain, in the wrong direction. Luckily it got caught up in some rocks soon after and there was no harm done. Except maybe a serious distrust in our bindings.

Views from the Balfour hut in the afternoon sun.

Dawn on our last day. It was COLD and WINDY. I was wearing all of my clothes.

Coming up to the scary icefall

We had an exciting moment when we got to watch some ice fall trigger an avalanche that then headed straight for us. We had a gaping crevasse on our other side, so we didn't exactly have the best escape route. Luckily the avi conditions were pretty solid and this slide didn't propagate.

Looking back on the scariest bit of the ice fall.

James feeling exhilerated after going through scary icefall and crevasses.

Guy and I feeling relieved and thankful for our lives.

Our sexy GS skis. Mine are the Lucious - the sexier red ones with cherries on them. I love them. Great for powder, climbing, touring, hardpack, chunky snow.... plus they're sexy. Did I mention I love them?

Coming up to Mt. Niles

A happy crew after some sweet turns on our long day out.