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(Click any image for a larger view.) |
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Best
Western Glacier Park Lodge - A group of us from
the Norseman ski club headed to Rogers Pass for a long weekend of
skiing. Jo
& Steve Riggs (organizers), Rod & Liz Elder, Betty & John
Alliston, Larry & Karen Fischer, Roy Scarisbrick & Carol Guthrie, and
John Davies who arrived on Saturday.
Friday, Jan 24th - After checking the weather conditions and the
avalanche report, which was
rated as high above tree line, the decision was made to ski Urs' Trees. It
was -5C when we left the hotel. |
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Karen & Larry crossing bridge. |
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Steve crossing the bridge just up from
the hotel. |
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Regrouping on the other side of the bridge. |
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But first a lunch stop is in order. |
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Here we are just leaving the main trail and starting our ascent up
through the trees. The snow was so deep you couldn't step off the trail
without sinking in knee or hip deep. |
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Karen and Larry |
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Betty |
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John |
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The climbing was steady and with the warm temperatures it
didn't take long to get really warmed up. It continued to snow throughout the whole day. |
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Roy |
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After a long slog the gang is almost at the top of the
ridge we plan to ski. |
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Once reaching the top we had
another quick snack and dug a pit to check out the snow layers. We could
easily identify the Jan 20th surface hoar layer as well as the rain crust
layer in Nov. But the conditions seemed good as we were on a gentle slope
and mostly in the trees. |
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Ready - Set - Here we go |
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Jo is quick out of the gates.... |
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....whoa, hold on a minute..... |
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.....well I almost had it! |
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Here comes Steve smokin' through the trees... |
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Nothing holding him back. |
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Roy seems to have the hang of this too. What style. (But where'd he get
that belly?) |
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The snow is up to Liz's thighs but she just rocks on through. |
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Rod - Darn Rogers Pass snakes! |
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Nothing fazed Betty: she cruised down the slopes with
ease. Always cool. |
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The snow was so deep it was hard to keep the tips
floating. Rod wasn't the only one who's tips dug under. We all left a lot of
craters in the snow. It wasn't always pretty, but it was sure fun. |
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John sails by with ease...... |
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.....but what happened here? I
didn't know John was a tree-hugger. |
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Just having a closer look at this tree. |
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Larry cruises by with ease. He discovered that poles don't make very good
props in these conditions. |
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For someone who didn't want her picture taken, Karen aced a perfect turn
in front of the camera. Way to go. |
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Leisure Larry. |
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The gang enjoying a nice hot tub in a foggy pool room after an exhausting day of skiing.
Honest, we're in there. |
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It was a wild day.
Yikes. |
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We had a birthday celebration for Roy after having dinner at the buffet. Can
you count the candles? Roy got some new goggles but it was pretty hard to
keep them from fogging up with the warm weather and heaps of snow out in the
Pass. |
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Saturday, Jan 25th
It was still snowing and about -2C today. After a long climb the day
before it was decide to ski Grizzly Shoulder as it was very close to the
lodge. Somehow, some of us thought, because it was closer it would be an
easier day. Just didn't work out that way though. We climbed about 850 m
(3000 ft) and I think it was mostly straight up. The up-track was very steep
and quite a few of us were having trouble sliding backwards with our skins
on. It's those youngin's with their big fat wide skis and extra wide skins
who set the track and they just cruised right on by us.
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Re-grouping at the edge of an avalanche slope where we turned right
towards Griz Shoulder. |
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Here we are along the edge of the avalanche
slope.... |
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....and now we're starting our long climb up
through the trees. |
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Rod and Liz climbing through the trees. |
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Roy with some fancy foot work. |
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We hit a series of about 10 switch backs that turned about every 10 paces.
The trees were tight in this area. |
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The Retreat. |
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We'd been told by a couple of guys that we could make our way across the
slope and through the trees to a more open area. Well the trail didn't go
far before it became impossible so we headed back to the main trail.
When we reached the main trail we had our skins off and were ready to ski
down, (a couple got in a few quick turns) before we were told by someone
else that we would be better off heading for the top where there was more
open areas.
We slipped, and slide (and cursed) our way to the top. As it turned out
we ended right back where we were in the first place. And there were
NO open easy areas. So much for 2nd hand information.
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Well this is where my camera died on me so I'm sorry (although others
weren't) to say there are no pictures of our amazing descent. I think there
should have been a few medals given out for skiing some very technical,
steep, treed runs, that most of us would never have attempted had we known
what we were in for. It was certainly an adventure and one that won't soon
be forgotten. We did make it back before dark. But just! |
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Thanks to everyone for an excellent weekend and special thanks to Jo and
Steve for organizing the trip. Until next time!
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