Icefall Lodge, BC Rockies, Feb. 2016
My wife and I spent a week in late March at Icefall Lodge last year and were blown away by the terrain there. There are so many huts to explore in BC, I figure there's no point doing a trip to the same hut twice. But by Dec. we found ourselves without a trip booked so we made a last minute decision to return to the guaranteed good time that is Icefall. We were not disappointed.
Video of the down:
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Pics of the up:
Starting the day up the drainage the lodge sits in
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Joining a guided trip as a couple is a bit of a crapshoot based on the people. At Icefall, the guides always set up 2 trips everyday - a longer one and a shorter one. We lucked out and ended up skiing everyday with a super fun group who wanted to pound vert and did ironman triathlons in their spare time. As the only short-legged asthmatic splitboarder in the group, I got this view a lot. They apparently didn't mind though, as they asked us to join them on another trip next year.
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The top part of the 400m NE-facing run called Home Run that ends right at the lodge. We ended half our days with that run.
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We're from Vancouver, so we don't get much of this
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Our assistant guide Igor and our objective for the day, the Diamond Glacier and Icefall Peak, in the background
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Heading up the Diamond Glacier. We did this exact tour last year, but with views like this, I didn't mind
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Not a bad lunch spot
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Cool layers in this serac
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Mandatory shot of Mt. Arras. Larry, the owner of the lodge, apparently skied one of those couloirs. What couloirs? Exactly
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The view from our room at sunrise
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Our tracks down Home Run
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Icefall has 2 satellite huts in the high alpine. We went to the Lyell Hut at 2800m. Our tracks down Keffi Pass on the way to the hut
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The scenery was ok
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Mt. Arras again
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Skinning to Crampon col (crampons not required today), which leads to the Lyell Icefield that the hut sits on
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Our guide Pierre with the Lyell Icefield in the background. This guy was amazing and an absolute machine
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Pure N-facing goodness down from Crampon Col
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Lunch on the Icefield
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Our tracks down from the col
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The long trek across the Lyell icefield
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Almost at the Lyell hut
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View from the hut at sunrise
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Probably the highest shitter in Canada. I had the misfortune of needing to visit this thing 4 times. I blame it on HAFE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-a...atus_expulsion), which one of the docs in our crew verified was a real thing.
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Decent views of the icefield
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