Cesar's Blog

 Another amazing backcountry trip this weekend. This time we went up Mount Whymper. Steep ascend and fun scramble to the summit of Mount Whymper. It was windy, but the snow quality was great for the ski down. I went with Andy, Stef and James. In our way up we saw a party of three coming down when one of them trigger a size 1 avalanche. That changed our mood for a while as we kept observing the condition more closely.  Almost at the top we boot up to avoid a few extra turns in the super steep slope. We left the skis and scramble to the summit. Not a clear view of the mountains, but worth the climb @! We headed down (which was faster than I though it would be) and once with the skis ready took some incredible turns in fresh pow!. From there we had lunch and put on the skins one more time to go up another couloir for an extra 400 mts ski run. Getting out of the valley to the car was fun and fast, the warmer temperatures made that single track nice and slick ! better than my first...

  Nothing but goodness today. This time I left home at 4:30am to meet Stefan and his college friend James at the Lake Louise Overflow Parking where they were camping for the last few nights.. We prep our gear and drove to Lake Ohara parking lot. Went up the road for about 2kms and made a hard left up the hill. We found some tracks and stayed on them for a while, near the top we veered left around the rocky top and down to the valley. Once we were on the valley and could clearly see our objective (12o'clock of the above picture) we could then start navigating towards it. To negotiate the climb we had to boot packed a Gully that wasn't that long, but steep.  Once at the top of the gully we put on the skis again and continue to climb to the right side of the triangle mountain.  From there we zigzag for at least an hour, with very poor visibility James and Stef had to keep an eye on me and let me know when to make the next turn. It is quite amazing what the glare of the white...

Pow day !! Went out with Stefan for a fantastic powder day today. Great turns, snowing all day, nice temperatures. We ski in Kananaskis Country near Black Prince, it requires a bit of navigation and bushwack to get there, but with Stefan in the front it is all possible.