Teddy Bear Trees: Storms And Avalanche Closures

Teddy Bear Trees, located in Rogers Pass (Glacier National Park), offers an excellent continuous descent that weaves through sparse trees, mature timber and open clearings. If you can handle being exposed to the Grizzly Slidepath (which avalanches every few storm cycles), the area is perfect for conservative storm skiing while the Winter Restricted Areas (WRA) are closed due to highway avalanche control. From the Rogers Pass Discovery Center, it takes less than 35 minutes to reach the base of the shoulder. Don’t be fooled by the stellar accessibility of Teddy Bear Trees. The steeper, eastern pitch is classic avalanche terrain with a 35-degree incline and a dangerous terrain trap at its base. On top of that, it runs out into the Grizzly Slidepath. The unsupported eastern aspect has slid in the past and caused a few serious incidents.

rigel blowing through powder on the upper pitch of teddy bear trees — Rigel, hitting a powdery stump on the top pitch of Teddy Bear Trees. Photo: The Uptrack

Report from January 13, 2022

For Teddy Bear Trees, a late start is no problem. Our whole day got an early derailment when we found out through DriveBC that the Trans-Canada Highway was closed due to a vehicle accident. With a storm raging in the high mountains, warming temperatures, the avalanche hazard at 4-4-4 (High), and a late departure, we sat down at our local coffee shop and discussed our options. Due to recent avalanche closures of Winter Restricted Areas, our options narrowed down to one route: Teddy Bear Trees. It took a sketchy drive on the re-opened highway to arrive at the Rogers Pass Discovery Center ready to rumble. Within minutes, we were gliding along the uptrack bordering Connaught Creek.

group of skiers crossing connaught creek at rogers pass — Freddy, Steph and Rigel, gliding along the winter uptrack. Photo: The Uptrack

After 30 minutes, we arrived at the base of the Grizzly Shoulder, harbouring popular ski touring routes. Due to the avalanche closures, this area was closed for the day. We continued along the creek and traversed a major terrain trap, the Grizzly Slidepath. This avalanche path is generally steep and slides almost every storm cycle. Chunky avalanche debris carpeted the lower fan. Given the high hazard, we thought it best to space out by 30m (a school bus’ length) as we crossed the potentially dangerous path.

Spacing Out and Group Exposure

Spacing out the group as you travel through an exposed feature, i.e avalanche fan, slidepath, unsupported feature, is a great strategy to mitigate your group’s exposure. Common wisdom recommends spacing out the group’s members by about 30m or the length of a school bus. This minimizes the chance that the entire group gets buried by an avalanche. If unsure, you can also send one person at a time through the feature.

skiers crossing the grizzly slidepath in connaught drainage — The crew, spacing out through the Grizzly Slidepath. Teddy Bear Trees to the right. Photo: The Uptrack

As soon as we had crossed the slidepath, we veered right and up into the nearest forest, Teddy Bear Trees. By then, the snow turned to mashed potatoes (or cream cheese as some prefer), evidence of rapid daytime warming – a clear red flag. Best to stay away from that giant slidepath and keep things conservative. We carved a fresh uptrack through the sparse mature timber with much difficulty. Our tails kept sinking into the bottomless, almost isothermal snow while the tips stayed afloat. It felt like we were forging a path straight up a 40-degree slope. This must have been the hardest trail-breaking I’ve done in a long time!

skiers climbing through teddy bear trees — The crew, ascending the mature forest of Teddy Bear Trees. Photo: The Uptrack

As we gained more elevation, the trees thinned out on the shoulder’s east aspect. Still, we stuck to the denser forest in fear of triggering a moist slab in the open terrain. As my hip flexors were about to give in from trenching through more than 50cm of dense snow, we arrived at our high point of 2100m, not so far from the bootpacked ridge leading up to Grizzly Couloir.

teddy bear trees overview with overlay — An overview of Teddy Bear Trees, taken from the Grizzly Shoulder. Photo: The Uptrack

After digging a test profile, we transitioned for the descent. Surprisingly, the top 400m pitch through sparse trees offered decent moist snow, akin to coastal pow! We weaved in and out of the trees, jumping off features when we had a chance.

freddy carving a sweet turn down teddy bear trees — Freddy, carving a beautiful turn down the upper slope of Teddy Bear Trees. The terrain trap was 200m below. Photo: The Uptrack

At about 1875m, we ducked into the tighter trees to the skier’s right (in line with the shoulder) to avoid a piece of dangerous, unsupported terrain riddled with unskiable gullies and bushy alders. While the upper slope offers the more open skiing in perfect 35-degree terrain, it’s best to be aware of the feature below, a big ol’ terrain trap, if you were carried away by an avalanche and dragged through the narrow, rocky gullies.

valley bottom view of teddy bear trees with overlay — Teddy Bear Trees from a different angle. Photo: The Uptrack

Once we traversed back into the mature timber along the shoulder’s crest, we skied through an uninterrupted string of clearings which made for an amazingly continuous and playful descent given the dense “cream cheese” snow. At the bottom of the shoulder, we sped across the Grizzly Slidepath and effortlessly skied down to the car. We then enjoy some ice-cold beers out of the campervan, courtesy of Rigel and Steph!

happy skier slashing some powder — Rigel, having the time of his life in the lower pitch. Photo: The Uptrack

Route Info


4-5 h	800m	4.3 km	1330-2100 m

For more epic trips, check out the Uptrack’s Route Map. It’s your one-stop shop for Rogers Pass ski touring beta.

ROUTE MAP

Route Info

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