Related: Christiana Glades: Skiing The Old Growth

Report from February 16, 2025

Tom, Steph, Kaitlin and I started the day at the Bostock Parking Lot, ensuring our winter-restricted permits were visible on the car’s dash. We navigated past the refrozen, plowed snowbank that leads to the Bostock Trailhead. After two weeks with little precipitation during Rogers Pass’ busiest month, the trail was in rough shape. The cut bank was packed with snow, creating a slippery track, slanted towards the rugged slope leading into Bostock Creek. Nonetheless, the walk through the old-growth forest was pleasant and progress was darn fast. We crossed the tracked-out McGill Main Chutes exit.

After a quick water break, we started the ascent up a narrow shoulder leading to Wolverine Ridge. Tree branches, pine needles and old man’s beard (moss) were scattered over the old snow after a bout of strong arctic winds. I broke trail through rotten faceted snow, barely supporting my weight. Progress was slow and demanding but we finally linked up to an existing uptrack, as suggested by Kaitlin. The refrozen track was much more supportive and expedited the ascent.

To be honest, I wasn’t too confident we would find good snow as I was breaking trail from the valley bottom. A firm sun crust on steeper pitches covered the surface while the preserved snow was littered with tree bombs and blown-over branches.

However, things improved dramatically as we climbed the shoulder. As we gained the treeline, we heard several “whumpfs”, perhaps a buried surface layer letting its presence known. By then, I had abandoned the refrozen track, slippery and way too aggressive and was setting a gradual, “guide’s” uptrack through sparse trees and open slopes, making sure to avoid the steeper, south-facing features.

We stopped as the trees led into an alpine ridge, Wolverine Ridge. The open slopes above were visibly wind-scoured by the NW winds and would offer terrible skiing. After discussing our options, we decided to transition behind a small thicket of trees, sheltering the group from the cold, icy wind. We opted to ski the upper part of the shoulder with patches of open terrain, basically reversing our uptrack.

The mellower upper slopes offered great skiing in boot-deep powder. The incline was too shallow to be affected by solar exposure at this time of the year. Given the “whumpfs”, evidence of buried surface hoar sitting on a sun crust, I steered the group away from the steep south-facing slopes. Once we were below the hazardous feature, I veered skier’s left into a patch of sparse glades. Battling with a variable sun crust in a few spots, we linked the mellower forested clearings and made our way down the valley, where the snow was surprisingly good.

Pleasantly surprised by the quality run we just skied, we stuck our skins and walked a little way down Bostock Creek to set us up for a speedy descent to the parking lot. We ripped the skins early on and favoured side-stepping through the short uphill sections so that we could ski down the rest of the trail. It worked out great! We were at the Bostock lot within 30-45 minutes!

Route Info

6-7 h	1300 m	15 km	980-2140 m

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