Snowspider

On March 28th, my dad, my dog and I had a late start. After sleeping in we drove up the duffy to the Van Horlick logging road. After taking the spur leading towards Snowspider we stopped at around kilometer 11. We unloaded our beater snowmobiles and left our truck at 12. We snowmobiled for another 5 kilometers before leaving them near a creek.

We walked in the flat meadow for about half an hour. Shortly after that we stopped to have a snack and admire the landscape. Even though it was very foggy, we could see that the trees around … Read more

Cayoosh Cols

On Monday March 20(aka the first day of Spring), I had an awesome day. My dad, my dog and I left our house at 6:15 hoping to reach the summit of Cayoosh mountain. It is accessed from the Duffy lake road. In the parking lot for Cayoosh there was only one other vehicle. My dad unloaded our antique snow mobile. We started up the logging road and watched the sun glow on the mountains, but it didn’t actually rise for another hour. Joffre and Mattier looked especially amazing. We took the left hand fork when the road turned right near … Read more

Three Huts, One Day

On Saturday March 11, my dad and I ski toured until dark on the Duffy lake road. Before we left I put Leukotape on my blister prone zones on my feet. Having read about this and tried it once I decided to tryout for blister prevention. We left our house at 8:15. Our goal for the day was to train, not to ski powder. We were planning to hike into and out of as many huts as possible in one day. The max would be four huts. We arrived at the salt shed parking lot at 9am. Our dog jumped … Read more

Whirlwind

On Monday February 27th, my dad and I left our house to ski Fissile Like a Missile. The avalanche advisory for the backcountry was low in the alpine, tree line and below tree line. It is very rarely low across the board. My dad did not think it should be that low, he thought that wind loading was definitely a problem now seeing as it has been very windy in the alpine lately. The visibility was not very good so we knew we might not make it to our preferred ski line. Fissile is a mountain that is accessed from … Read more

Columbia Icefield

On Wednesday January 18 my dad and I left for the Columbia Icefields. We were planning to leave two days earlier, but were held up by work and weather. We drove to Blue River and spent the night there. The next morning we drove to Jasper and bought a backcountry camping permit. We then headed to the Icefield Parkway. We parked at the Big Bend. We left our car at 2 pm. This was my first trip using a sled to haul gear. We skinned until it was almost dark, we still couldn’t see the Saskatchewan Glacier our entry point … Read more