Cesar's Blog

  Near the top, skinny ridge nerve racking  Sunday was a great day in the mountains once again. It seems like good skiing conditions still available for great turns. I was trying out new boots (La Sportiva Spectre 2.0), but unfortunately my feet didn't like them.. so back to my Scarpa Maestrale. Today we drove towards Bow Summit and parked on the road right across. With an easy approach to Observation Peak we found ourselves climbing for the first 2 + hours right away. Near the top we book packed a bit, then put ski crampons and right after that we put the skis back on to cross a super skinny ridge that was just nerve racking ! I think I held my breath all the way as there was no room for error.  Once at the top snow stability felt great and we got ready to ski down. The snow was great (probably 25cm deep) and the run was long... more than 1 km down.       

Second time this year parking at Saw Mill to head out skiing in search of a North Facing slope.. Snow was very icy, very very icy as it has been warm all week.  We went out trying to find a pass towards some north facing couloirs, but even them had a mixed snow (icy and soft), very unpredictable. We had a great touring day, but cloudy and without a view.  

  Taylor Lake   Finally we made it !!! I managed to get the kids to the top of Taylor Lake and ski down ! yes, hike up (7kms with 600 mts of gain), put on skis and enjoy an easy way down to the parking lot. We decided to have an overnight at Lake Louise overflow parking to avoid traveling back and forth the same day, that way we could sleep in on Saturday and be fresh for the day. We invited a couple of friends from Nick's school along with their parents, they all were keen on hiking and the weather was spectacular for the nice day in the mountains.  I built a Pulk with an old sled to be able to carry all the kid's ski gear. I managed to work my way up pulling all that and the kids hike up without any extra weight.  The trail winds its way up on a nice single track. It goes up for ever without offer much of a view. In the last 2 kms you can start to see the top of the mountains, the glacier lake at the top is spectacular (even though this time was still frozen and co...

North Bell Couloir Most epic day again !, wait I thought last week when we did Cathedral was the most epic.. well, let's say it was another epic day in the mountains. It was a 2,000mts day, with 2 Couloirs and tons of sweet turns in boot deep powder.  We started at Taylor Lake parking lot, and skin up to the lake. Nice a gradual climb of about 6k. From there and once we crossed the lake, we could almost see the Mount Bell North Couloir. Wow it was epic, super steep (probably 50% at some point). We skin up as much as possible and after the first rocks on climbers left we had to boot pack. Just before the summit we were able to put on the skis again to finish up to uphill. At the top a party of three skimos caught up to us, thankful that we broke trail, they waited for us patience until we descended. Using radios Andy went down first, then Galvin, me and Stefan. Super cool run, fresh power with good stability.  At the bottom of it we decided to ski down to the lake, then back up...