The day after skiing the Womb, I convinced Cedrik to ski a Rogers Pass classic, Camp West, spanning from the McGill Shoulder, the southern arm of rugged Mt McGill. We mostly knew what was waiting for us. A large alpine bowl funnels down to a number of parallel gullies into an open avalanche fan. What we expected was not what we got. We braved stiff wind slabs, an icy creek, and a waterfall to claim this line. Was it all worth it? Always!

Related: The Ravens: A Burly Line For A Burly Storm

Report from January 16, 2020

After touring more than 2300m the day before, we sluggishly rolled in the Bostock parking lot a few km west of the Rogers Pass Discovery Center. I could tell my body wasn’t quite awake yet but it didn’t take long for my mood to improve. Call it Pavlovian conditioning or ski touring mojo magic, I was fully alert once I clipped in my Plum tech bindings. I told Cedrik I was planning on taking it slow today. Boy, was I wrong! We raced up the McGill Shoulder’s established uptrack, a testimony of its frequent use. We whizzed by the heavily loaded trees avoiding snow bombs left and right. Unlike the tracks laid up the Fingers on the foothills of Mt MacPherson, this path was progressive and expertly crafted. It was clear an experienced rider had created it. In our ski touring lingo, we call this “having a vision”, a clear one at that.

Climbing the McGill Shoulder in Rogers Pass is no joke. It’s a long ascent with a constantly steep incline through an endless forest. At treeline, we eventually passed a couple of quiet European skiers, judging from their foreign gear. We leapfrogged each other until they dropped into the McGill main SE chutes after triggering a meter-wide wind slab nearby. This fact didn’t alarm us since it was an isolated event, that can be avoided with careful route-finding and a good dose of experience. We pushed on, climbing the narrowing ridge ahead.

Once we became sick of kick-turning every second, we resorted to bootpacking the McGill Ridge. The moment I stepped off my skis, I sank down to my waist. This is the BC Interior after all. We get a lot of snow. I literally had to crawl on all fours, grabbing the sporadic buried trees (or what was left of its very tip) for assistance.

The snow hardened into a thick slab as we gained the top of the exposed ridge. High winds during a particularly brutal storm had displaced loose powder and packed it down, creating touchy wind slabs on all aspects. Every step or so, I plunged my pole deep through the snow’s surface, feeling for a discontinuity in the snowpack’s structure. Experience definitely helps understand what’s under your feet by evaluating the force required to punch through the distinct layers. As suggested by the daily avalanche bulletin, those wind slabs would be our biggest concern today.

We proceeded as high as we could before deeming the risk too great. At that point, the slabs were reactive to our weight, judging from the hairline cracks shooting past my skis. We hastily transitioned for the descent and backtracked to a group of small trees close by. That was our safe spot for the time being. From there, we skied extra conservatively. As much as I enjoy promoting safety in avalanche terrain, I’m no Avalanche Canada poster boy. I’m comfortable with some level of risk. This time though, I made sure our path through the mountains was as safe as humanly possible. We avoided convexities and wind-loaded pockets, kept constant visual contact, and skied the lowest incline. Even then, we triggered a few isolated slabs in the gully below. Thankfully, the slabs wouldn’t propagate further than a ski’s length since they were a few days old.

As for the powder… oh goodness gracious. It was sublime. I knew I had stumbled across perfection. This was it, although not as good as yesterday’s snow in the Monashees. That was perfection. I think I’m just becoming a snow snob these days. We also encountered a sketchy icefall hidden beneath some snow. I ended up sidestepping down with the help of nearby bushes. Fun times! And so, our adventures on the McGill Shoulder of Rogers Pass ended with copious amounts of snow and a short (loud) tour along the Trans-Canada Highway’s enormous snowbanks.

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