Rogers Pass Jan 2016
Plans were altered to accommodate sudden unexpected bluebird that didn’t happen to beeline to Rogers Pass.
We booked into the Best Western as they have great a breakfast, comfortable, warm and quiet rooms. Since there is no accommodation at the pass now, this is a good convenient location.
Day 1 Avalanche Crest
The first day we went up Avalanche Crest. Skinning in the alpine was tough due to wind and low snow, we managed to get to MacDonald NW looking into Crossover and Herdman when things whited out. If we knew this route it would be interesting to check out, but you do exit near Hermit which would be a long walk back to our car.
We thought about skiing down partway down NRC and heading up to NRC Col and Avalanche Peak but whiteout persisted so we skied down NRC and called it a day.
Temps -3 in alpine. HS 135 on W slopes at 2400m. Winds light from SW. S and SW aspects have solar effect.
Skin up. Rogers Pass is Skied out!
Variable vis and snow, low snow too…
Snow was good in the trees!
Elevation Profile
Day 2 Perly Rock
Today we drove up with Glade and Jen who skied the practice slopes off Vaux, while we check out Illecillewaet glacier with John, Linda, Doug, Tre and Rob. It was colder in the morning -8 in the alpine. NE wind affect in alpine with a stout wind slab making for sporty skinning to the terminus of the Illecillawaet. Glacier’s really broken up with many new transverse slots at the top of the terminal moraine so be warned.
Managed to navigate down through thin snowpack and even get decent turns at treeline elevations.
The Illecillewaet river heading to the Glacier
The Icefall
The Group
Skiing down the treed slopes.
Elevation profile of our out and back.
Day 3 Loop Brook – Cougar East Chute.
The conditions were not very inspiring but since we were here we had to go out again. We wanted an ‘easy’ day. After Lee talked to Robert he said this area is pretty good! Lee didn’t tell us the skin track was challenging or that the snow coverage was low… it was an interesting adventure.
Overview map at Loop Brook. We skied down the first slide path on the lookers right of the ROSS text.
The skin track was challenging.
The views were good at the top, as was the snow but we need more.
Steep sections!
Tree slalom.
Pick a line!
Route and elevation profile.
At least we had a comfortable room at the Best Western!
