TR with Pics, Selkirks Mid January
Better late than never.
Here is an article Ms. Telechuck wrote for the Boulder Newspaper on our trip. This is the unedited version with the drinking parts left in. This describes it well. Lots of snow, but we didn't ski much nor see much.
Sitting in the Selkirks, watching the snow fall
Halfway down our second run on day four, our backcountry ski guides told us to stop and put our climbing skins back on; we were going back to the lodge. They had observed motion in the snow seldom seen in that part of British Columbia, where the snowpack is known for stability more reliable than Colorado’s. All around us we saw signs of slides, even on slopes typically considered too low-angle to be of concern. On this day, and the rest of the week, the avalanche danger was simply too high to ski.
Instead of having the trip of a lifetime last month – a week with friends in a backcountry lodge in the Selkirk Mountains, followed by a few days of resort skiing at Kicking Horse in Golden, B.C., capped with a day of heliskiing – I came home feeling just a little more aware of being alive. If I had to be caught in the mother of avalanche-rich weather patterns, I’m glad it was in Interior B.C., where the combined avalanche forecasting and guiding protocols are unparalleled.
Rudi Gertsch, owner of Purcell Heliskiing in Golden, said that the weather was the worst he’d seen in the 40 years he’d been in Canada. He canceled flights for nine consecutive days in a row.
On the day that we intended to ski with Gertsch, a low fog prohibited the helicopter from taking flight. Instead he gave us a tour of his company’s avalanche forecasting command central, an office filled with charts and graphs with daily updates on temperature, snowfall and snowpack monitoring data.
Much of his information comes from the four or five guides he has in the mountains every day. But he also draws from a wealth of information compiled by the Canada Avalanche Association, a nonprofit organization that hosts a network of backcountry professionals from heliskiing operations, snowcat tours, wilderness lodges, national parks and the highway department.
Nowhere else in the world has an equal density of professionals monitoring the backcountry and the infrastructure to compare conditions across the region.
“In the heliskiing, we are competitors,” says Gertsch of the 17 or so operators in the greater B.C. area. “But when it comes to safety, we are very open about the information we are sharing.”
While we were at the Sentry Mountain Lodge, our guides Jim Gudjonson and Jeff Honig had a satellite phone and internet connection. They could post their weather and snowpack observations, and receive updates from the CAA network and the lodge office.
That week, the shared information was uniformly bad news. It was a unique combination of events that made the snow unfit for skiing.
Temperature fluctuations can play a significant role in snowpack instability, and we saw a spread of 60 degrees within two days.
.When our flight from Denver landed in Calgary, the temperature was -8 F. In the course of our three hour drive north to Golden, it dropped to -20 F. The next morning as we prepared to travel to the Sentry Mountain Lodge, it was -35 F.
The weather was good for flying, however, and we boarded a helicopter that took us to the lodge, perched just below treeline in a stunning valley. Floating in the air within the bubble of glass, we could view high peaks in all directions: the Selkirks, the Purcells, and in the distance, the Canadian Rockies.
We were able to ski for the first few days. Our guides broke trail going up and led us down through steep forestest slopes and mellow glades.
Back at the lodge, our chef Mahina Arnold had gourmet meals waiting: lamb with polenta, prime rib with braised fennel, salmon with potatoes and broccoli.
But then there was the weather. On our third day the storm moved in and brought temperatures above freezing and several feet of heavy, wet snow. With that kind of weight, every unstable layer in the snowpack became a prime candidate for a slide. We headed back to the lodge before our day had really begun.
The next morning we learned that a Colorado man heliskiing in the Selkirks had died in an avalanche.
It kept on snowing.
Our guides tried to arrange for us to be flown back out early but learned that once we reached civilization, there would be no where for us to go. At lower elevations, near Golden and along the Trans Canada Highway, roads and sidewalks were covered in a three-inch layer of ice. First snow had accumulated on the ground, then the precipitation turned to rain. As the temperatures cooled below freezing, the rain/snow mixture solidified into a skating rink that extended for miles. People wore crampons to walk around town.
If the ice wasn’t enough to shut down the highways, massive avalanches on the roads sealed the deal.
The e-mail from the Sentry Mountain Lodge office read: “We’re in full lockdown baby, so car bombs away.” The “car bombs” was a reference to the group’s favorite drink: chugging a glass of Guiness with a shot of whiskey and Bailey’s Irish Cream. For two solid days, we didn’t leave the vicinity of the hut. The group was industrious. By the end of the first day we had a luge track, complete with curves and burms, traveling from the lodge down to a lake approximately 150 feet below. There was a Nordic track encircling the lodge, and a ski jump out front.
In the afternoons we had avalanche class. We dug a huge pit in the snow, six feet by 15 feet, to look at the layers in the snow. No one questioned the decision not to ski. We practiced finding buried avalanche beacons.
A break in the weather allowed us to take a helicopter out a day early. In the sunshine the views reminded us of all that we had not been able to ski: the alpine bowls rising up above us and the forested slopes descending to the valley below.
And so it was for our remaining days in Golden: we were inspired by the potential of all that the region has to offer, yet the weather kept us from enjoying it in full form.
Skiing at Kicking Horse Resort, we could see enough to know that it is a resort with few rivals in North America for expert terrain. Yet even inbounds, avalanches were a concern and only a few sections of off-piste were open. Then it started to rain on the summit.
By the time Gertsch cancelled our day of heliskiing, we resigned to simply give up and go home.
We’ll be back. I understand it’s a great place to ski.
The helipad. It was about -30C and clear as can be. That would end.
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The next day, it started to snow and warm up. This is the beginning of our 1.5 hour skin back to the lodge at the end of the day. I think the guides wanted to tire us out as the partying was in full swing the night before. :) We got back in the dark. Me and Ms. skinning up.
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It kept snowing and warming up. Here is a pic of the next day. I think the camera focused on the gigantic and plentiful snowflakes and not Ms. Telechuck.
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The next day, the guides called our day after a run and a half. Here is a crown we saw on the way back to the lodge. It was about 1/4 mile long and ran the entire ridge. I took it through my sunglasses so you can see the crown. It is about a meter deep at this spot.
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By this point it was 2.5 day into our trip and we were faced with little skiing until the snow eased off. It didn't. It kept snowing at 0 degrees C building up a toatl of about 2 meters of super wet snow on top of depth hoar our guides described in technical terms like "trash" and "shit".
Part 2, What to do when you can't ski below
Part 2: What to do when you can 't ski
So, skiing was off. So we did what any ambitious group would do. We built stuff. A big kicker, a luge track, and a nordic track.
Here is Ms. Telechuck landing off the kicker. My photo skills are just above those of a gnat, so no steezy air shots.
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That night in a drunken frenzy, we hit hte luge course. Our guides gave us the safety talk, "if you get hurt, no heli can get here, so you will die. So, have fun!!!" No pics of this, but needless to say, it was quite fun sledding down in a blizzard, in the dark, drunk.
It kept snowing. Hard.
This is the same kicker from the previous picture. But, as you can see, visibility has decreased. Ms. Telechuck is in there somewhere.
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We did some great avy class and practice in the afternoons. A beacon buried 2 meters deep vertically is quite interesting. This was particularly educational as we did multiple deep burials. It dook a long time to dig 2 meters deep. And, we only dug a small hole. Not large enough to get a person out. It is amazing how long that takes as you need a large diameter hole to get someone out who is that deep. Please keep that in mind when you start digging deep. Make the hole large from the start. Also, get a good shovel. Some in our group had the small lightweight ones. In this wet heavy snow, they were damn near worthless.
Through all this, we ate like kings. We had a cook and it was all four star. Breakfast would be eggs and sausage with home made scones. Lunch some deluxe sandwich like hame and brie with carmelized onions. Dinner lamb or salmon with salad, bread, soup, the whole works. This is our cook, Mahina. He was a great guy and kept us filled up and laughing when we couldn't ski. This lodge is worth it just for the cooking along.
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Finally, after fiv days, it quit snowing. We were at decision time. Get a heli out a day early or see if we could ski. Since the wind blew hard the night before, all the new snow had a nifty wind crust on it. A quick examination of the snow made our decision easy. The snowpack still sucks, lets go ski Kicking Horse. So, we hastily packed, skipacked a landing pad and waited for our ride out. Here are some scenery shots from the last day when we could actually see.
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So, we made our way to Golden with plans to ski Kicking Horse the next day. Rain at the bottom, snowing hard at the top. If you haven't been to KH, go, the terrain was excellent. We coudln't see much and parts were closed due to inbounds avys, but what we skied was super fun adn the potential is amazing.
As Ms. Telechuck says in her article, we are definitely going back to this area. The terrain is amazing, people great, and rumor is the skiing is superb.
