Wapta Speed Traverse

It's hard to think that up until last winter, my idea of a great day ski touring was lugging a set of Marker Dukes up for a lap or two at Black Prince or Tryst Lake (not that that isn't fun too). I've come to realize this winter that with light gear, legs of steel, and strong lungs, you can accomplish a lot in a day. After reading Mel and Ian's trip report of their Wapta speed traverse in 7:35 from 2012, it looked like the perfect blend between ultra running and skimo. I was stoked to give it a go!

I have spent the last couple of months religiously watching the weather forecasts for the Waputik Range, (so much so, that the only thing above mountain-forecast.com when I open my internet search bar is Facebook) there were a few promising days here and there, but every weekend, the clouds would roll in and dump a blanket of snow on the glaciers (Fresh snow is the worst right?). There was finally a promising weather window on Sunday, with minimal new snow, low winds and no clouds. This was going to be my last ski weekend for the next 3 weeks (and possibly the season), so I knew I had to give it a go. Texts were sent, Peter was in, and a couple days later I was packed and ready to go

Once the obligatory gear packing photo was uploaded to Instagram we couldn't back out

When I rolled into Canmore on Saturday night, Peter had just got back from skiing moist fresh snow up high on Mt. Bell and isothermal garbage lower down. He was skeptical that Wapta would be as fast as I thought it would be. We spent an hour or two going over route descriptions and weather forecasts and finally decided to give it a go, and ski as fast as we could to Peyto hut. If conditions were too slow, we would bag Mt. Baker, Mt. Habel and Mt. Rhondda, then ski back to the car at Bow Summit. It travel was alright, we would give the full traverse a shot. We left Canmore at 4:00am, dropped a car off at the Great Divide Lodge, and were on the trail at Bow Summit by 6:00.

Peter starting the climb up the Peyto moraines as the sun 

A solid freeze the night before left us with an awesome crust on the descent down to Peyto Lake. We hit the lake shore in just over 15 mins, and skated to the base of the moraines in 30. Peter led the way up to the toe of Peyto Glacier, cruising up the icy skintrack. When we got onto the glacier, there was 1-2cms of new snow on top of a very supportive crust and it was actually faster to ditch the old drifted in skintrack and make our own. We could see the peak of Mt. St. Nicholas on the horizon, and made a B line for it without even considering the Peyto Peaks plan.

Starting to get excited about the good conditions on Peyto glacier

Making it count - Joffre in a day and fun on Mt. Hector

What does a true weekend warrior do when faced with an elusive long weekend? Maximize the time spent getting rad in the mountains.

We started the weekend off at Heroes Knob to check out the snow and planned to ski a few different aspects. We headed up the south side of the valley and topped out at a col with a great view. After descending, we decided to head a little farther west up the valley and check out the snow. On a North Facing slope at around 2100m we remote triggered a size 1 wet slab which moved slow enough for us to back up, pull out the cameras and film it going by. The snow softened up way more quickly than I was expecting despite the lack of direct sun so we called it a day. After that, we knew extra early starts were going to be needed for the rest of the weekend

Peter and Bill putting in the track

To top off the day, on the drive back to Canmore, I managed to get stuck in a rut in the slush, spin out and end up in the ditch. After 1:30 of digging and pushing, we got back on the road to realize that a bush I had creamed left us a present in the tire. We threw on the spare tire and limped back into town. An avalanche, a car accident and a flat tire all in a day must mean I had used up all my bad luck for the weekend, so it was time to get after it for the next two days.

The bush that fought back

Peter and I had spent the last two weeks checking the weather forecast in the hopes that it would cooperate for an attempt for a fast time on the Wapta in a day. We watched as it slowly deteriorated forcing us to change our plans.

Mentally prepared for a long day, we decided to give Joffre a go. Peter had tried skiing it before, and I have been up there in the summer to run Northover, but neither of us had made it to the summit before. Based on the conditions the previous day, we left the parking lot at 6:00 to make sure we got across the lake when it was still frozen. A good freeze and no wind the night before meant we could skate across the lake and make great time to the creek by Hidden Lake. From there we began the climb up the North side of the valley through the trees towards Fossil Falls. At this point I realized that I had left my camera in the car. So all the photos from the day are from Peter. Check out his blog here

Skating across Upper Kananaskis Lake on the crust

Skimo Season

In need of a way of staying fit without beating up my body too much this winter, I thought I would give the sport of Ski Mountaneering or Skimo racing a go. It closely mimics the biomechanics of running with no impact, and lets me get out and have fun in the mountains while training. Plus, who doesn't love skiing...
If you don't know what Skimo is, for a great interview from a couple days ago that Alberta Primetime did click here

I ended up racing 6 times (2 were canceled due to the stupidly cold winter we had) here are some brief details from each: