Tent Ridge TR

[Idris]

After a nice days lift served skiing at LL. Redskea, Little John and I headed south into K county in search of some backcountry powder. We had been given a few places to check out by friends but had no definite plans. Driving down the spray lakes road towards the end of Spray lake we spied a nice looking snow covered ridge. According to the map this was tent ridge and there should be a trail up it.



From the roadside pull off there was some recent ski tracks heading up a creek bed, the map however said he rail followed an obvious cut line. The cut line traversed the hill the creek bed went up, we followed the creek bed.



Redskea and Little John (lurker)



A bit of bushwhacking to begin with but a nice enough way up the hill. The creak bed gave way to meadows at the bottom of several slide paths along one side of tent ridge. The map showed the trail going up the crest of the ridge. We decided not to bushwhack our way to the ridge but head up one of the slide paths, keeping mainly to the trees.




Not far up we started hitting dust on crust, sending me deeper into the trees in search of something I could ski uphill on.



After tens of kick turns and lots of waiding I started to get clear of the top of the trees onto some easier angle terrain. Only to hit wind buff and crust. A few steps of sliding around and I decided to boot pack straight up…sometimes the going was ok, over exposed rocks it was easy, but sometimes I was just trying to swim uphill. As the conditions changed every few feet there wasn’t much point in putting my skis back on. Eventually I hauled myself over the cornice to the ridge line and wait for Redskea Little John and Red – who had been whining to have here booties removed to grip on the slabby snow.

Spray lake



Heading down I almost bailed on the first turn….Freerides in tele mode!….my fault, too much snow and the locking lever not all the way down…Doh!. The dust on crust was much better to ski rather than climb…and deeper than expected in most places

Redskea making the best of the conditions



Little john with some madd steze

[Lurch]

I don't want to cunt up your thread. But you are skinning up a very bad terrain trap right there

[Trackhead]

Beautiful. I miss the Canadian Rockies.

[powstash]

Keep more of this coming Idris. You've been awful quiet this year on the board - I hope that means you're skiing too much.

[Idris]

I don't want to cunt up your thread. But you are skinning up a very bad terrain trap right there

Just a creek bed - only a flat medow above...the onl thing that could slide on you is the walls of the creek bed...yes if there were slopes leading into it then it would be dangerous.

[Idris]

Keep more of this coming Idris. You've been awful quiet this year on the board - I hope that means you're skiing too much.

No...working to much...+ access to everything is such a pain here!

[Lurch]

Just a creek bed - only a flat medow above...the onl thing that could slide on you is the walls of the creek bed...yes if there were slopes leading into it then it would be dangerous.

Creek beds with steep walls are classic terrian traps. A slide on a slope only 10 or 20 feet tall on each side can fill a small creek bed with 8 feet of snow.

[Redskea]

Creek beds with steep walls are classic terrian traps. A slide on a slope only 10 or 20 feet tall on each side can fill a small creek bed with 8 feet of snow.

This depends on the snowpack. On that particular day, in those particular conditions this was a safe route. Dust on crust after 5+ weeks of no snow, avi danger low at all elevations, no significant slopes above us, nothing running anywhere, no signs of instability (slab or loose snow) only result from stability tests is failure below a crust down about 5 cm with not enough weight on it to slide.
In other conditions this would not have been an appropriate route.

[PlayHarder]

Pffft, what you know about assessing avy risk, Redskea.
We looked for you today, they said you were working either off standish or wawa but we must of missed you. Too much fun in the dive.

Nice report Idris, after 30 years I still get chills over the views in k country.

[Eldo]

Nice stuff. Tent Ridge is a fun ski. I haven't done it for probably 20 years.

Did you notice Mt Sparrowhawk on the east side of the valley? A big tilted slab mountain. We skied it in mid June one year back in the early 80s. At the time it was supposed to be the mountain that the 1988 Olympic downhill race would be held on. Slalom and other races were slated for Tent Ridge. But the access issue up the road from Canmore meant that everything was switched to Mt Allen and they built Nakiska.

I'll try and dig up a classic photo I have of us skiing Sparrowhawk. Our leather double boots, Silvretta bindings and K2 244s were an amazing AT setup in those days.

[L7]

Pre Olympics they used to heli-ski on tent ridge. I used to ski with a guy who guided for the outfit but sadly he was killed in a slide up there.