Time: 2 days
Length: 50.2 km round trip
Elevation Gain: 830m round trip
Avalanche Terrain: ATES 1 (simple)
Rating: 6/10
Done: Feb 2008
Overview: Definitely a slog for a weekend. Some nice views, and a good safe option for avalanche risk if you’re inexperienced. But for the distance, there are definitely nicer place to go. Unless you have a good few days you can spend at the huts themselves. Then it would be a different story.
So Ian and I thought it would be a great idea to a longer, harder trip where we moved fast and travelled light. So we picked the destination of Naiset Huts in Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park. After some research it was established that it should be fine heading into this destination on cross-country skis, instead of back-country alpine touring (AT) skis, or telemark gear. It would make the first (and last) 12km of groomed trail easy, and the trip over the pass itself only marginally slower. Yeah right (see later). Just to be on the safe side, we rented the heavier, wider, metal edged cross-country skis that are often referred to as ‘ligh-touring’ gear. We also got these with 3/4 length skins, as recommended by the shop, Gear Up Rentals in Canmore.
Friday night after work we left Edmonton, arriving at the ACC Clubhouse in Canmore at 8ish where we had dinner and then did some avalanche beacon locating out in the forest (both being quite new to this).
Saturday morning we were up bright and early and ready to go from the Mt. Shark trailhead at 8am, just as dawn was breaking. The ‘quick and easy’ first 12km of groomed trail didn’t go quite to plan. Food stops, photo stops and blister stops (for Ian, struggling in boots a full size too big) and the small amount of fresh snow over the groomed tracks meant it took around 3 hours to reach Bryant Creek Shelter. This section of the trail is realtively unispiring. Lots of trees and limited views, but fairly decent skiing. Bryant Shelter itself is in quite a lovely setting, and would make a nice place to spend a night.
Here we had a quick lunch before heading onwards. It quickly became apparent no-one much had passed this way. The trail was weakly broken and sloppy, and badly messed up by either moose or caribou. It looked like only one skier had gone this was for a very long time. And not come back?!
About 5km later, we saw our skier. A park warden out for a jaunt, he had decided to ski out to the base of Wonder Pass and back. Which was good news for us because the skiing would have been slow without his tracks, but also bad news because he informed us that there were no tracks heading over the pass at all, and that possibly no-one had yet been in or out that year, as Assiniboine Lodge and the heli-skiing didn’t start for another few weeks (it is common for people to fly into the lodge, stay a day or two and then ski out).
Sure enough, at the start of the climb up Wonder Pass, the tracks stopped and we started breaking trail. Sinking around 8 inches to a full foot on each step. We soon stopped to put skins on as our waxless skis failed to stick and herring boning constantly on a tight trail became ridiculous. On examination of the skins we found out they attached at the front via a strap, and stuck to the ski with glue, but had nothing attaching them at the back. No strap or anything. Huh.
Well 5 or 10 mins later the problem started. My skin came off one ski, the glue simply stopped sticking. And once it had snow on, there was no way it was going to stick. Some medical tape solvded the problem. Until my other one came off. More tape. Then Ian’s came off. More tape. The last of th tape. And Ian had problems with his bindings freezing up when he took his skis off, and it would take a long time to defrost them in the -12C. Time was ticking on, progress was brutally hard with the trail breaking and the shoddy skis. I think we topped out on the pass around 5pm, as dark was falling. Still 3 or 4km from the huts, and dog-tired. Althought the section was now downhill or flat most of the way to the huts, we had to keep the skins on, because we had no tape left to reattach the skins for the ski out and over the pass the next day.
So now we were limping along in deep snow, skins on, more hiking with skis on than skiing. And water ran out a long time ago, and we were too cold and tired to stop and melt snow. Stopping now would mean stopping for the night, and with no tent and temperatures of -25C forecast we decided to press on for the warmth and security of Naiset Huts.
After two hours of trudging through the dark as we neared exhaustion, we finally decided it was stupid and we would probably not find the hut anyway. So we found a sheltered spot under some trees and spent a night. Our spirits cheered up after some water and food, and digging myself a snow-shelter kept me nice and warm. Ian elected to sleep outside, in just a zero degree bag, huddled close to the firelogs we brought for the hut. It did indeed drop to -25C that night, and I have no idea how he was warm enough. I was in my snow cave in my -10C bag.
An ice-cold morning greeted us, and the prospect of exactly back-tracking our steps. Urgh. Frozen boots, blisters for Ian….but wait…it was sunny! The way in had not been very inspiring due to the cloud, the dark, and the pain/worry. But now with a broken trail to follow out, blue skies, and some stunning scenery (great views of a clear Assiniboine) and some good views from Wonder Pass, things were looking up. The descent from Wonder Pass really sucked on cross-country skis though. Even with skins still on…very out of control.
A long day got us back to the car…again in the dark…after 10 hours. Not much faster than the 11 hours it took us on the way in…despite the fact we broke trail and did most of the uphill on the first day!
We still had the 5 hour drive back to Edmonton too…quite the weekend.
