Caitlyn was able to lock up 5 nights of hut reservations for the Bow-Yoho Traverse during COVID when the huts were being restricted to a single party at a time. I was thrilled to get an invite to join her and 6 others for a nice-sized party of 8 to spend 5 days exploring the Wapta Icefield and evirons.

None of us had been in the area before and we hoped for spring-like conditions, blue bird skies, and low avalanche danger. We weren’t sure how prepared to be for the crevasses and any technical terrain for side summit objectives, so we ended up bringing what ended up being extra weight (aluminum crampons, light axes, a few pickets, etc.).

Unfortunately, the weather and conditions didn’t quite line up with our hopes. We were in a whiteout across the Wapta and otherwise had limited visibility with high avalanche danger and a good amount of new snow to break trail through. Regardless, it was a good experience with a really strong, positive crew and nice to be fully off the grid for the better part of a week.

Day 1 - Bow Lake to Bow Hut

We had all arrived in Lake Louise the evening before and so our first day was pretty simple. With three cars, we dropped off five of us at Bow Lake while three members of the group graciously ran two cars to the exit. From Bow Lake to the Bow Hut is a short 4.5 miles with only about 2,000 feet of elevation gain, which we did with our heaviest packs starting the trip in just over 2.5 hours. We caught glimpses of views, but it was snowing and pretty socked in. After getting fires going in the Bow hut and setting up shop, we went for some short laps just above the hut in the afternoon. The hut was plenty cozy, with a nice kitchen and living area on one wing and a sleeping room on the other.

Day 2 - Bow Hut to Guy Hut

Best visibility of the day, headed up the icefall toward Mount Collie

We awoke with grand plans to ski Mount Gordon on our way, but as soon as we had ascended to the Wapta plateau from the Bow Hut, it was clear we were going to spend our day in a whiteout. We adjusted course and spent the day rotating different rope teams in the front with the leader breaking trail and trying to go straight while the person behind them watched the GPS and suggested they bend left or right a bit. Turns in the front were vertigo-inducing and odd—we each saw features that didn’t exist like cliffs or rises in the snow. It was a real bummer to spend hours in the most jaw-dropping terrain of the traverse without seeing anything, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. We successfully navigated the icefall up toward Mount Collie and then down the gentle slope from its saddle toward the Guy Hut. The final section along the ridge to the Guy Hut was tricky to navigate safely with such low visibility, but we eventually made our way just above the hut and noticed some cairns that helped us avoid descending too far. This day took us right around 6 hours. The Guy Hut was awesome—brand new and warm when we arrived. Our only debacle there was needing to replace a poop barrel, including chopping the top off a “shitcicle” to cover the barrel.

Awkwardly skinning downhill, nearing the Guy Hut

Day 3 - Guy hut adventures

The sunniest point of the trip, heading back up to the Guy Hut

Climbing back up to the Guy Hut after some laps on the glacier

Mont des Poilus looked like a fun objective during our pre-trip planning, but considerable avalanche danger and minimal visibility continued on our third day, so we instead toured up the glacial valley just West of the Guy hut to the saddle between Mond des Poilus and Mount Collie and did a couple laps there on lower-angle terrain before sliding down our skin track magic carpet ride back toward the Guy Hut, then ascending up the ridge from the hut to the summit of Yoho Peak. The ski down Yoho’s North Face was the best skiing of the trip. I bit the bullet and went first in flat light and low visibility, which was fine until it wasn’t, resulting in one pretty spectacular submarined tip wipeout. With glacier glasses wet from that crash, I didn’t see a wind lip while carrying speed to get across a traverse on the last bit to the hut and took another tumble, effectively front flipping into a split with my right leg outstretched. I felt my right hamstring partially tear and the subsequent pain was pretty real. In the very center of a 5-day traverse was not a great place for this. Oof. The team did a great job of feeding me whiskey and playing some fun games in the hut that night to take my mind off it.

Day 4 - Guy hut to Stanley Mitchell Hut

The only warm seat in the Stanley Mitchell Hut

We decided as a group that the direct path via Isolated Col was too risky with considerable avalanche danger (influenced partly by some guides we had talked to on day 1 who had recommended against this route) and so we opted for the Whaleback alternative route instead. I was nervous about my hamstring and not sure how it would hold up. Thankfully I was able to ski gingerly and the initial descent from the Guy Hut was mostly a traverse, seeking to coast as far as we could. We made it to about halfway across the frozen moraine lake at the toe of Glacier des Poilus before switching to skins.

Again, thankfully, skinning on relatively flat terrain wasn’t too bad and I was able to keep up with the group as we traversed our way toward the shoulder of Whaleback without incident. There were some big cornices on Whaleback threatening some of our traverse, but we picked a shallow-angled path and scooted across it quickly. The ski down from the shoulder of Whaleback near the summer trail with heavy snow and tight trees was the toughest part for my leg. Thankfully Kelsey and Lizzy offered to side-slip sections to make it a bit easier on me and I made it with some lip biting.

From there, it was an easy skin up the trail to the Stanley Mitchell Hut, which was a very different accommodation from the brand new, flagship Guy Hut, but charming in its own way (albeit cold—the fireplace seemed to defy thermodynamics). This day took us about 4.5 hours. I stuck to the cabin for the afternoon to tend the fire and ice my leg while the rest of the crew did some laps nearby. It was a much colder night than in the other huts, but a 30-degree sleeping bag ended up being a doable, light choice for this trip.

Day 5 - Stanley Mitchell Hut to the Highway

Having made it through the prior day, I knew at this point that I could get myself out to the car. A few members of the group headed up to the President-Vice President Col early in the morning and enjoyed the ski down before rendezvousing with us, packing up, and beginning the long slog out. I’d been really excited about summiting the President and/or Vice President before the trip, but it just wasn’t in the cards. We skinned from the cabin down until the angle steepened above Laughing Falls where we ripped skins and I gingerly made my way down. We got suckered too far right near the falls and had to do a steep traverse back left near the bottom, but it otherwise went smoothly enough. From there, we were on the road for a really long ways. The valley and views were quite pretty and we had the best visibility of the trip, which helped us get through the slog. This day took a little over 5.5 hours.

I wish we’d had better visibility, lower avalanche danger, and that I hadn’t hurt myself, but you can’t always get what you want. It was great to spend some time in a new area with some great folks. I was glad to check out Lake Louise and Banff for the first time on the way home as well. I’ll be back! Time to rest and rehab this situation…

It had been too long since I’d gotten some quality mountain time in, so when the forecast looked decent on Saturday, Kelsey and I decided to get out there no matter how “firm” the snow might be. After doing a bit of research, we decided to do a ski tour back to Wright Mountain, near Gem Lake and Snow Lake at Snoqualmie Pass, aiming to climb the Oyster Couloir on its West Face and then ski down the South Face to Gem Lake.

Leaving the car at 8:30am, the skin track was quite icy up to Source Lake and we made good use of ski crampons to reach the saddle above Snow Lake, but things otherwise got better from there. We made it to the far ridge line above Snow Lake near Wright Mountain in a little over 3 hours and did a quick ski descent and traverse over to the Western flank of the mountain at about 4,600 feet. From here, we put the skis on our backs, put crampons on, and pulled out the tools.

The couloir was never steep enough to need two tools, but it was engaging enough to be fun. After about 500 vertical feet of climbing, we topped out the couloir at a short rocky step that wasn’t terribly steep, but it was pretty exposed below and quite crumbly. We searched around a bit to pick our way through this as gingerly as we could before pulling over the lip and onto the easy slope to the summit about 5 hours into our day.

After lunch on top, the ski down the South Face had actually corned up and we had a lot of fun getting back down to Snow Lake. A quick skin back across and up the saddle brought us to the ice luge part of our day. Everything from here down to Source Lake was an ice sheet and scraping down it sounded like we’d engaged the afterburners. At least it was a quick way out! We were back at the car just over 7 hours after we’d started, enjoying oat sodas in the Alpental parking lot.