My wife and I managed to catch the last day of Skoki Lodge's 09/10 winter season on saturday. As usual it was a super enjoyable trip!
Unlike past years we've been there where they drive you up to the Temple lodge, now that Louise ski hill has taken it over, they provide a 1-way gondy pass up to the top of Pika. They ask that you "download" on the Ptarmigan Quad for "safety reasons"; a nice sentiment which was subsequently ignored. One thing I will say, though, Louise has by far the best beacon practice areas anywhere at the bottom of Pika before you head up Richardson ridge – one of those new wireless jobbies. Highly recommended if you are in the area and hankering for a good practice session. After departing LL ski area our plan was to tour up the backside of Richardson Ridge and perhaps find a safe line down through the trees, bearing in mind that the avy-haz was rated as High, High, Considerable…
Here's a shot of what we intended to ski but abundant whumphs, shooting cracks and bottomless facets in shaded spots had us avoiding anything over 20deg and begging to be on the established XC track again…
Bluebird skies and a lack of wind made the classic tour in all the more enjoyable. Here's a shot close to Halfway Hut, below Mt. Redoubt, Temple in the far background.
I wouldn't really call it spring conditions, though. Temps were -12 in the morning and only got to about -4 in the blazing sun. Even so, we worked up a bit of a sweat climbing to Deception Pass
Here's looking back towards Redoubt. The obvious route to Skoki crosses Ptarmigan Lake. Meanwhile, the "Pumpkin Traverse" follows the ridge on the upper left of this shot – unfortunately, not in great condition this year (imho).
That said, we did manage to get a few decent dust-on-crust turns in the "bunkers" skiers right on the north side of Deception Pass.
After a bit of playing, we decided to dump our supply of wine and lodge gear, and enjoy some freshly baked cookies and tea at Skoki lodge itself.
Suitably refueled and unloaded, we elected for a quick tour up behind the lodge onto Skoki Mtn proper and enjoyed a pretty fun run back down through tight trees (sorry no shots). Upon arriving at the lodge, however, we learned that you are no longer allowed to consume your own wine at the dinner table inside; a situation easily remedied by the attending guests as we enjoyed a sip (or two) in the warmish evening sunshine!
After that, things got a bit blurry. I can remember some excellent food, more wine, loud conversation, some guitar playing, a game of trivial pursuit…things got ugly when the twister board came out, you get the idea.
Next day, looking across Castilleja Lake up towards the Merlin valley basin. Would've loved to have gone up there for a tour, but it was not to be on this trip. There is, however, some excellent skiing to be had up there…
Settling in for more of a hike, we decided to circumnavigate Skoki Mountain itself, which neither of us had done before. This turned out to be a very enjoyable trip with lots of interesting/complex micro terrain that eventually dumped us out onto the broad expanse of the upper Red Deer River where it is joined by Pipestone Creek
If one were interested in continuing on, this would eventually lead to the start of the valley leading north into the Drummond Glacier, which is definitely on my list of trips to do – but again, not this year.
Meanwhile, as we turned for home, the weather came in, the temperature dropped, the winds picked up in a cheek-bitey sort of way. So far, April has been more wintery than most of our actual winter was!
One thing that struck me, though, as we climbed back up Deception Pass again was how many fresh cougar tracks there were! In fact, we seem to be spotting more cougar tracks in general over the past few seasons. I remember growing up in the rockies and seeing only one or two paw prints every few years, now we see them on almost every trip, and up in Skoki they seemed particularly abundant. This is a good thing, I'm sure, but definitely another thing to have your senses tuned into while wandering around in the sticks.
