I may expand on this basic TR later, but for now here’s what I have. I’m lazy.

Our week started out north of Pemberton with a couloir on Joffre calling our name – the obvious one.

Dropped our overnight gear at the hut and got moving.

Up the anniversary glacier to the small icefield

Vantage peak. This was hit the next day in mixed weather.

Couloirs. The right one doesn’t go through cleanly.

Booting up the aussie couloir. Some others had been up there before us, but made excessive turns on the way down. Oh well – the snow was too baked when we got there anyways. The couloir would be super fun to flow down with speed in good powder conditions.

Matier in the background

on top

gorgeous, endless terrain

Rapping into the couloir. By far the gnarliest couloir I have ever been down. 2 rappels, the second of which our rope wasn’t quite long enough for, 60 plus degrees, 2000-2500 ft total fall-line, bergschrund at the bottom, mostly by headlamp. I was gripped.

sunset in the couloir

Weather was moving in, so we drove down to Vancouver, gorged on sushi, visited my buddy at his place downtown, and headed out to Rogers Pass.

Heading up towards Illecillewaet.

The Asulkan hut = $$$. It has a thermostat.

The view from the hut is terrible.

Heading up on the same day to Youngs Peak.

Booted up the obvious couloir, should have come around from the top.

It was deep, then turned to unsupportable facets.

Nice pic Kyle!

No pictures of riding down. The clouds moved in before we could strap in, making it a low-vis experience.

Some people go to the huts in style – toasted brie and wine. One dude even brough a full-sized electric guitar. Our ghetto food was not up to snuff.

Next day, the Asulkan hut was full, so we had to lug our heavy packs through deep snow up to the Sapphire Col. Some beautiful lines were spied on the way, and we thought it might be feasible to come around from the top and make it a big one.

View of Sir Donald

Saw this rock ride on the way. Where’s Jonaven when you need him? Unfortunately, it may be rather crevassed below.

The lovely tin can on Sapphire Col. It’s actually not too bad for warmth once you cook dinner, plus it’s lined with insulating wood.

We booted up to Pollox (Jupiter), and had some amazing views of the Dawson Range. An attempt to traverse the ridge to our line was thwarted by holes between the cornices and the rock. We discovered these menaces when Kyle suddenly sunk up to his chest, revealing a 15-20 ft deep crack. I was amazed that the cornice still hung there even though it was so well separated from its anchor. Stepping closer to the other side of the ridge put us on a severely exposed, rime-encrusted face that was not easily protectable. We ditched the traverse and turned around.

Two Norwegians followed our bootpack up to Pollox. We later found out that one of them had made an attempt on K2. They were just cruising around Canada all nonchalant bagging classic Canadian climbs. Badass.

I made a run down to the glacier.

Then booted up Mt. Swanzy. Unfortunately, clouds and low light stopped me again, and I was forced to ride down my ascent line from 2/3rds of the way up the ridge. The other lines would have to wait.

The hut was small and cozy. You get the picture.

Unfortunately, the next day dawned as a near-whiteout. A few turns were made down to the glacier below Swanzy, after which we loaded up our heavy packs. The ski down to the Asulkan valley was slow so as to avoid crevasses,

Cruising with my behemoth of a double pack.

Poles help with lots of weight.

We had plenty of time to get down to the Wheeler hut, so we stopped along the way to check out the possibilities. I was seriously considering this drop, but ultimately decided to skip it. The distance to clear the rocks was actually quite sizeable when viewed from the side. In hindsight, I should have built a lip and runway, which would have made it feasible.

Kyle dropped this pillow line as the snow became wetter.

Next day with weather and sketchy avalanche conditions arriving, we decided to head back down to Montana (Saturday). I really wanted to make it down to splitfest, but it was just too far of a drive. Next year!

While we didn’t get very far, more importantly my eyes were opened to the sheer quantity of amazing possibilities up in Canada. We only scraped the surface, leaving me yearning for more of that vast, wild, snow-covered land. I will be back to explore the deep valleys, huge icefields and endless terrain. It is just so damn sick!