Rogers Pass - January 31

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Rogers Pass
Eagle Peak - Glacier Crest - Feb 2, 2007

Words and photos by Lee Lau unless otherwise noted.

|| Day 1 - Balu Pass - Ursus Major - Bruins Pass || Day 2 - Hermit - Rogers/Swiss Col || Day 3 - Eagle Peak - Glacier Crest || Day 4 - Cheops ||

USEFUL LINKS

Mountain conditions reports with a lot of Rogers Pass references
Local forecasts for the Columbia mountains. Revelstoke is West Columbia; Golden is east Columbia; so you have to read both to get Rogers Pass
Snow profiles for Rogers Pass
Glacier National Park avalanche forecast
GNP front desk number - 1 250 814-5232
Maps of Rogers Pass including large 1:250 scale
History of Rogers Pass - It started with a train...

What a strange day. Initial plan was to do the classic Avalanche Crest tour and come out via the NRC Gullies. It was freezing cold at the Asulkan parking lot and then warm, warm, warm just as we got to tree-line. This scuppered plans as the turns on the west facing slopes would have been fugly. It's always a challenge to change routes but we did manage to find good snow again.

Day started with a drive from Revelstoke as we were booted out of the Glacier Best Western due to the hotel being booked by the Rotary Kid's Camp. Breakfast at the Frontier Restaurant is highly recommended as are cinnamon buns and eclairs and cream horns at the Chalet Bakery!

Side note: We had dinner at Emo's Restaurant which I simply cannot recommend. Food is very ordinary and expensive.

Railway grade to Wheeler Hut

Steep convoluted skin track up Avalanche Crest trail

10cm surface hoar coarse grains below tree-line

It took a long time to break out to treeline. As we got there, temperatures spiked.

Rob and Jimi taking in the views of the Great Glacier

Following a very efficient skin track to the crest of the Eagle Peak ridge

Group shot at ridge crest

Looking out to Eagle Peak, there are two logical routes to get to Avalanche Crest. Getting to the col north of Eagle Peak would have meant we would have had to drop back down to the north bowl and traverse some low-angle slopes. Clearly we didn't have to climb so much to get to that col. Getting to the col south of Eagle Peak meant the same thing except that we would have to navigate a NE facing valley to the south col. Again, we climbed a bit too much.

Snow quality seemed doubtful with the temperature spike. Across the valley were the north slopes of Glacier Crest - we made the decision to head there to begin a quest for pow. This meant dropping into the SE face off Eagle Peak into some variable snow.

Rob coming down off Eagle Peak - Sir Donald and Uto are in the background

Sharon on these SE slopes

Jimi dancing with crust

Tim "now I remember why I like fat skis" drops in.

Jimi exits the slab of Eagle Peak utilizing the tele-scorpion form

After dropping down this SE face, we began a traverse that can only be described as "adventurous". After Rob suffered a misadventure by colliding with a tree (and later on we found out, cracking ribs), we made it down to the toe of "practise slopes" at the Great Glacier trail and Illecillewaet Creek. From there it was a short skin to Glacier Crest which we lapped and turned into a mogul field.