Any one who tours at kootenay pass is no doubt aware of our visibility problem, the problem being we usually have none! You either bitch and hide in familiar terrain, or get over it and stick with your plan.
Having a seven month old daughter my days are limited, so knowing I had Saturday free to splitboard, Vince Faucher and I made plans on grabbing Ripple Mnt. and riding one of a few north lines. Keeping an eye on the weather and avy reports leading up to the weekend I was hopeful for the perfect day..........should have known better! None the less we headed out knowing there are plenty of south facing glades to ride on our entire route.
Early Start.
We started the trip by following the well travelled skin track towards Lighting Strikes which dissapeared after gaining the ridge. Easy trail breaking took us to the top where vis was crap and winds were moderate.
Near the top of Lightening Strikes.
From the top we dropped south until about 1900m where we contoured around the east ridge of a small peak between Lightening and Ripple. We were able to glide (with about 3 min of booting) to Monk creek at 1800m where we split our boards and began our climb to a saddle on the SE ridge Of Ripple Mnt.
Best vis of the day. You can almost see Ripple Mnt. from just above Monk Creek.
From Monk creek we followed a draw directley below the previously mentioned saddle to a bench. From here came the hardest skinning of the trip. the final climb to the saddle is steep and the hard snow made it tough to gain purchase.
Vince benching out above Monk Cr. Lightening Strikes is on the right in the background.
From the saddle we began our final ascent up the mountain on skins, but lack of coverage forced us in to boot packing up. Winds remained moderate and visibility got worse. After climbing up and over a couple of false summits we were on top. It always feels good to be on top, view or no view. Now because of our lack of vis, and more than likely cross- loaded slope we opted for the south facing run from the top, and let me tell you that was a damn fun ride with fantastic , carvable snow!
Vince bootin up!
On the Summit......What a view!
After a couple high fives we switched back to skin mode and climbed back up to the saddle and followed our tracks back to Monk Cr. Which turned out to be yet another damn fun ride. Again some high fives and we began our climb to a saddle between Lightening Strikes and the Headwall above Twin Lakes. We dropped in for a fun but wind blasted ride down to Twin Lakes where we put on head lamps and skinned back to the Car.
Headwall above Twin Lakes shortly before the darkness came.
All and all it was a great day with summits, pow and good company. Hopefully our next day is a little more clear!
