Related: Burnt Knob, Revelstoke: The Perfect Macpherson Slidepaths

Report from January 7, 2026

On a foggy, cold January morning, Freddy and I rolled into the Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club parking lot. The dream: spend the day slashing powder turns down Fuzzy and Burnt Knob. We followed the Main Loop Trail, generally aiming for another very popular ski touring zone, the Macpherson Fingers. After 20 minutes of easy progress, we branched off the groomed trail on an unnamed skid road, traversing the east face of Mt Macpherson.

We marched up the skid road, carving a deep trail in more than 60cm of fresh powder. The hard work was only beginning. Thankfully, someone had already set a trail a few days ago, leaving a barely noticeable depression in the snow. Looking across the valley, the frosted slopes of Mt. Mackenzie (Revelstoke Mountain Resort) glistened in the sunlight as the rays pierced through the clouds. The valley fog was obscuring the town of Revelstoke. What a stunning sight!

After 3km along the gently graded ski road, we veered right and followed the south bank of Wells Creek. A narrow band of clearings led us through the dense forest into the old-growth above. At last, we could set a “guide’s” uptrack, minimizing direction changes and accelerating our uphill travel. Since we had received more than 60cm of snow in 48 hours, the uptrack looked more so like a trench than a trail.

We navigated up the big timber, utilizing natural features such as tree wells and flat-topped pillows to complete our switchbacks. Concerned about a persistent weak layer of hazardous surface hoar, we stayed away from the open, sheltered slopes right below Burnt Knob. They seemed like ideal surface hoar farms where the persistent slab problem would be found.

We continued up the forested slope to an obvious col delineating the two minor summits. We then headed north towards Fuzzy Knob, contouring past Wells Creek. While the ascent from the creek to the knob was quite short, the deep snow impeded our progress. We laughed at how ridiculous it was to break trail through the very deep snow. After much effort, we crested the hill and completed our transition at a relaxed pace, slowly recharging our exhausted batteries.

The descent was an absolute treat. We slid into the short, steep pitches right off the knob. At every turn, the unusually light snow was kissing our faces. Faceshot after faceshot, it was exhilarating. We made our way down the mature forest, effortlessly weaving through the sparse timber. Given the large quantity of new snow, we carefully planned our descent to maximize our falline skiing. Traversing was simply not an option in those deep powder conditions. At about 1050m, we traversed back to the upper end of the string of clearings we had initially ascended. Battling trenchy powder and nasty alders, punching that traverse wasn’t easy.

After such a wicked lap, we couldn’t just head home. The amazing snow conditions called for another lap, especially after spending much effort laying our uptrack. We slapped the rugs on and headed for Burnt Knob. There’s no denying it’s a step-up from our previous lap. The Burnt Knob descent takes you through two large slidepath and forces you down a convoluted system of gullies, pillows and steep, eroded slopes. Having assessed the avalanche conditions on our previous lap by ski cutting steep, unsupported features, Burnt Knob seemed like an acceptable risk at the time.

As expected, the descent from Burnt Knob was excellent. There’s nothing better than skiing a 500-meter slidepath filled with champagne powder. See the instragram reel below for a pretty good summary of the ski conditions.

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A post shared by Olivier Denis-Larocque (@theuptrack)

Route Info

4-5 h	1050m	13 km	650-1685 m

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