In following article I will try to describe our escape into the wild :-) The truth is that we didn´t take off our plate and we didn´t burn all our dollars (who saw a movie Into the wild, will understand) but beside that was this trip something amazing for us. Exploring other parts of ourselves and great experience.
Well then...to the point of our trip. After our first backcountry trip we were accepted by comunity of other skiers here in Revy and our dear friends "Krtci" (Pája and Stáňa) were planning a 4-5 days trip to the Kootenays. They reserved the huts and managed all the informations. It supposed to be a big trip and it was planned that 7 people will be in. Well, unfortunatelly Pája broke his collar bone a week before departure so they together with Stáňa decided to rather go to the Mexico and other guys started canceling the trip as well thanks to misunderstanding or just because lack of the experiences. Anyways it was just me and Kuba at the end.
But we borrow all the important software like beacon, shovel and probe, as well as map of the area, a guide book and very appreciated GPS from Krtci whom we are very grateful to :-) When we had all this we came to see Adam from Powder rentals and thanks to him we got a great price for the touring sets. I decided to take the skis instead of the board in this case.
To the trip itself...our trip has a name Bonnington traverse in the Kootenays or Selkirk mountains on the south of BC. More precisely 17 km to the south from Castlegar. More on http://backcountryskiingcanada.com/index.php?p=page&page_id=Bonningtons
Whole travesre has a 45 km. You are staying in a small huts which were build by volunteers from KMC (Kootenay mountain club). Along the traverse there are four huts. But in the last one sleeps almost nobody because last day is just riding down so pretty much everyone just keep descending. Six people can sleep in these huts. Because we ended up going alone with Kuba we had the huts for ourselves :-)
Date of departure was soon, trip was planned from 17-21st of March and we were following the avalanche warning which was still on level 4 at the alpine area. Only a suicide would go out in these conditions. Anyway we were lucky because it dropped to no. 3 so on Sunday evening we packed everthing, jumped into our car and start speeding to catch the ferry which goes once in a hour. Only thing after catching the ferry was reach Castlegar tonight. It´s about 250 km from Revy and roughly 4 hours of driving. On our way we met a tree across the road and not that far away were two huge stones size of Honda Civic sitting in the middle of the road. Something that is possible only in Canada :-) Anyway Kuba didn´t hit them so we can continue. We reached Castlegar and spent night at Tim Hortons carpark. Barely croll from front seats to the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.
In a morning we see that there is no snow whatsoever. It felt like a spring...which is awesome but not that much if you wanna go ski touring :-) Traverse begins at 1200 m above the sea level so there was a chance.
The description in a guide seems pretty obvious. Follow the power line and when you reach tower number 154 turn right and continue to the hut. Today´s part is 9 km long. Which should be allright. So we put our backpacks on, heavy especially when we add a food in them, but what you can do :-) So let´s go find a tower no. 154. After a while we find out that the only numbers appearing on th towers are 12-01 or 14-02 which makes it a little bit confusing. Well they´ve must changed numbers since they printed a guidebook. What a betrayal! So by using a common sense we figured out which way we should probably go and we are going into the unknown woods now. After a while we reached a trail which starts climbing up and we are gaining the elevation so first views are available. It´s partly cloudy so conditions are good. We are not going super fast, our backs trying to get used to the weight of backpacks and in my case is also getting used to a new ski boots (and yes I had a blisters after). While climbing up Kuba is checking right direction on GPS. We are not very far from the first hut and I can hear him shouting at me: " From here it´s just descending." OK then let´s go. I would like to point out that I´m mainly snowboarder who tried if still can ski a week before we left. And haven´t been skiing for almost eight years. So I just saw smooth prints from Kuba´s skis on his way down and I tried to do the same but all these trees and a deep snow and me going down too fast caused that I fell twice...anyways I made it :-)
The first hut we reached is Grassy hut in 1900 m and we made it in 6 hours. Elevation gained around 700 m. Beautiful, little hut with nice view to Grassy mountain slopes and Selkirk mountains afar.
We are hungry so Kuba started to make a fire in the fireplace, we are melting snow in pots provided, changing our clothes and starting to be warm and cozy inside the hut. There are two bunk beds in the hut wide enough for two people so eight people can fit into this hut.
We are thinking about Krtci, how they are doing in Mexico and also thinking that it could be fun to be here with more people. It starts getting dark so we are going to sleep. Kuba will test his brand new down sleeping bag. We are thinking about what next day brings.
Second day we are waking up to the sunny day. Today we have 10 km ahead, we should gain elevation around 750 m. At the begining there is a part on the ridge. Beautiful views from top of the Grassy mountain. Descriptions of the trail in a guide book are not that detailed so we are checking direction on GPS. We are still climbing up towards the Twin peaks (which is local name for two unknown peaks) and on the second summit we realized that we lost the trail and we are lost. Well not exactly lost but on the other side of the mountain which changed a lot. Don´t have time to come back and can´t go to the pass we should be in beacuse there is a huge cliff in the way. Have no choice but start descending through deep forest and pretty steep hill. We took the skins off the skis, put the bindings to the ride mode and started slowly coming down. In practice Kuba went down slowly and very calmly. Stop when he needed and try to choose next way down. I was desperately flying on the skis like a flag trying to coordinate speed and direction. I fell so many times on every possible way that you can probably fall. So exhausted from getting up. F*cking backpack was so heavy and always pulls me down or other way than I needed. Anyways we managed get down after I would say an hour. We stopped in little valley, looking to the pass on our left side where we should be. But we descended almost 400m so now it´s time to climb it back up again. We are checking our situation on GPS we are in half way to the hut and still need to climb another 600 metres up and it´s startig to be a late afternoon. We need to speed up a little bit.
Weather is still good, sun is shining but snow became wet. It means that skins which we put back on are soaked and snow started to sticked on them. It´s just pain in the ass. Not enough that you tired and exhausted you also have to drag these skis with wet snow on to the steep hill. Kuba said something like: "F*ck this next time I´m going to Mexico too." Both of us are tired. But we know that we have to make it to the hut today no matter what. Last kilometer remains, it takes ages. Hut on the tip of the Siwash mountain is closer and closer. Get there we still have to traverse a steep hill where the avalanche risk is high. Kuba is first I followed him when he gets to the safe point. From here the hill is to steep we need to take the skis off and start boot packing. It´s getting dark. Well I put my skis on the backpack which is even more heavy now and tried to climb up. At the moment I took my skis off I was in the snow to my thighs. This is not gonna be easy. Well for ages I tried to do my first step. Finally! Kuba reached the pass and he´s coming back to help me with skis. Last 40 m of climbing up I´m almost in a trance. So overtired. From pass we reached is steep descend down under Siwash mountain and somewhere on the glade there´s should be a Steed hut. We descended to the glade and trying to find the hut. We are close..100 m can´t see anything...so 50 m still nothing finally from 30 m I can see a little part of roof under snow. Thank to GPS exact direction we found it. Huge relief and joy. It´s dark outside.
Finally in the hut. We have no water left so Kuba is making the fire. We are melting the snow in a big pots. Put our clothes and skins to dry. Having a dinner a really happy that today is over. Instead of 750m we did something around 1200m of elevation. How many kilometres we walked I have no idea.
Third day we need to reach a Copper hut. It´s 11 km far away and "just" 500m of elevation. We woke up into the white dark. It´s dumping. It must started at night. It keeps snowing, visibility is 50m. Good to locate trees around but you can´t really see the mountains and all surroundings. We descended a little bit and Kuba is making a trail. He´s getting tired fast because of the fresh snow. I tried to go first but I wasn´t able to do it very long. We reached a lake under snow..the only way we can tell is GPS. You can really see the water. Hard to say where is the bank so we rather take a longer way just to be sure. Fall in the water is the last thing we need.
Back in the trees another part of going down. I go first because going in Kuba´s prints make me go faster and I don´t want to run him over all the time :-) All of the sudden I saw a big, deep and dark hole in the snow. Just to make sure what it is I stopped and realized that is a creek...deep down. It´s deep 3 metres and water is running down at the bottom. We have to be really careful about this...it could be even worse than lake.
End of descending, we began to climb up again. It keeps snowing and we still approaching to the hut. It feels better than yesterday body get used to the ballast and moving through all the snow feels better. For me for sure, Kuba is still first so it´s harder for him. The climbing up is slow and sustained.
But nothing last forever and even today we found a hut. Copper hut is buried under the snow. Kuba climbed on the roof to make sure that chimney is not under snow. It´s ok so nothing is in the way to make a fire, melt the snow, cook dinner, put clothes to dry and go to bed.
But we weren´t sure what to do a next day. Because it was snowing all day we don´t know what is the avalanche risk now. Next day we should go over three summits on very narrow ridge. Two sections are too steep for skis so you have to boot pack. We are a bit concerned what to do. We don´t want to risk. There is an escape route from the Copper hut in case that you are trapped by bad weather. We are considering to go by this route. In case of avalanche there is no way how to call help. There is no reception in the mountains.
When we went to bed all of the sudden I heard the avalanche coming down. It was apparently far away from the hut but still. After that we decided to go by escape route the next day.
Next day we are adding some more orientation points in to the GPS. Description in the guide book is not really detailed. It´s sunny again. Due to sun warming the avalanche risk can be even higher. We are definitelly taking the escape route. It starts with descend really close to the snowy creek. We have to be careful again.
After a little while of descending down we need to climb a bit up again. We are planning the directions on our way. We are leaving the Copper mountain behind and getting closer to the forest road which should lead us down to the road.
Everything goes well and after another hour we reached the forest road. But from almost 2000m we need to descend to 800m. Is it gonna be snow down there? Well, long story short. No, it is not snow down there. Anyways we started descending. We pass a heliskiing parking lot. Thanks to heli they are maintaning the road very well. There is almost no snow at the top. When we getting lower it starts to be more muddy than snowy. We reach the point where is no longer possible to go on skis. Damn it! It´s still 5 km to the road. We taking our skis off and start walking. I don´t have to point out how complicated and highly uncomfortable it is. Heavy backpack, heavy skis, ski boots on. Feet with blisters....After almost one kilometer we decided to stop for a snack. All of the sudden I heard the engine. It´s a truck going down with clients from heli. I´m jumping around, waving, trying to stop him. The guy stopped and looked at me, curious what I need. I´m explaining our situation and asking him for a ride down to the road. He said if we can jump in the trunk of his truck he can take us down. Ohhh, we are so happy that we don´t have to walk all the way down. It would take ages.
He dropped us off at the begining of the road. Well now the real adventure begins. Kuba swapped his ski boots to sneakers and because I don´t have any other shoes I stayed in ski boots. We slowly start walking towards the highway.
Our car is parked 50 km away so we need to hitchhike. Hoping that people with backpacks and skis in spring nature which is down here are not suspicious and everybody will give them a ride. After a while the first car is stopping. It´s a man in a van with two boys going fishing. He gave us a ride to the highway, roughly 4 km. He said that hitchhiking culture is big here so we won´t have any problems to stop a car. We belive in that to so full of energy we stand beside the road with a thumbs up. After 45 minutes when a lot of cars passed us by but none of them stopped we decided to walk a little bit more. Then a guy stops he goes just another 2 km to the intersection but there is a bigger chance to hitchhike so we go with him. On the intersection there is an office of heliskiing an ATM machine that´s it. We are waiting for another
30 minutes. Tired of seeing all these cars passing us. I decided to go to the office and ask how we can get to Castlegar. Two girls in the office are really bored so I think they were quite happy that I came in. I asked my question and I was suprised that there is a bus going to Castlegar just across the road and it´s leaving in 20 minutes. Awesome! So happy, I´m running out from the office shouting at Kuba that we are going by bus!
Bus arrives in time and we are trying to manage our way to the Bombi summit, he´s not going there but driver thinks that for us it will be the best get off at the airport. So we did.
Now we are standing across the road from Castlegar mini airport, 17 km from our car and really hoping that we can stop some car. No chance. Another half an hour, nothing. It´s 5pm. Get here from the forest road took us 5 hours so far. I didn´t expecting that. Anyways when I decided to go the airport to call taxi, one taxi was passing by. We stopped it. I´m asking the lady if she can give us a ride-of course we need to pay for it-but she agreed and that´s all the matters. Happy again jumping into her taxi with all our stuff and finally getting to our car which was abandoned for four days.
We made it! Saying buy to the taxi lady. Changing our clothes and happy-like never before-returning back to the Revelstoke! What an amazing trip!
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