Trip Description:
Dubbed the “Canadian Alps” by Swiss guides at the turn of the century, Rogers Pass BC has now become world-renowned for its backcountry powder skiing. From the Trans-Canada Highway obvious classic and extreme ski descents await the adventurous ski tourer. The area was sculpted for it. The extreme descents are there, but by the time conditions are right there seems to be no one around with the higher skills, and dedication to make those pioneering descents. If these peaks were in the French alps, the major chutes and faces would have seen premier descents twenty or thirty years ago.

On April 10th 05 Troy Jungen, Doug Sproul, and Greg Hill from Revelstoke set out from the Loop Brook parking lot in a attempt to make a first ski descent of the ice ramp on the North face of Mount Bonney (3107 meters). The three had been skiing full time in the area and felt the conditions were finally in their favor. The day began clear with convective clouds forming by late morning which was a blessing in disguise. Objective hazard was always a concern on Bonney. April solar radiation could drop tones of cornice if temps were too high. Luckily the weather worked in the group’s favour.

From a distance, they saw that serac fall on the lower face had wiped the obvious ski line down to bare glacier ice. As the trio approached, a variation to descend off the ice ramp was observed. Looker’s right of the ramp was a 150 meter fluted face above a 10 meter jagged cliff band. Fortunately an exit chute through the rock band happened to be filled in. It looked like an ideal way off the face. As for climbing the ramp, it was simply out of the question. Breaking trail through the steep and deep would be to taxing while constantly under the threat of the mammoth cornice. They decided to probe down the ridge to try to find an entrance with a diminished cornice. Bonney has 5 kms of continual ridge line cornice. The only other way to gain the mountain was the time consuming Bonney traverse. They were thinking fast and direct with the good stability. After a little deliberation, the team started up tracking to a smaller corniced area thinking to tunnel through the wall and gain the fortified ridge line.

After a brisk boot pack to just below the cornice, Troy roped up and started digging into the two meter vertical wall. Within five minutes the cornice had been breached and the party was standing on the Bonney Neve. -10 Celsius and moderate wind greeted them. Another hour of easy ski touring brought them to the seldom visited summit of Mount Bonney. A quick ski down to the ramp entrance and the group set up for cornice control. A ski anchor and a munter hitch belay on a 9mm rope brought Greg to the edge of the 500 meter drop. As he probed the cornice for an entrance, a van size piece broke and slammed onto the slope below. The rope went taught as Greg’s legs dangled over the precipice. Only his head and shoulders were visible to his team mates as he yarded on the rope and pulled himself back out to safety. Reassured after seeing the slope take a hit and not move, they dug a snow bollard to rappel the four meter cornice. The top pitch proved to be steeper than anticipated at around 50 degrees. Snow quality turned out to be cold, firm yet forgiving and fun at such an angle. Memorable intense first turns led to the relaxed middle section of the face. A powder filled tubular feature or natural half pipe delighted the skiers with downward fluff and hollers. A quick traverse left at the end of the pipe linked them to the exposed 45 degree exit pitch off the face. The fluted soft powder face was a clean enjoyable exit for the ski mountaineers after they had just ticked off an objective high on their Rogers Pass hit list.

NE Face of Swiss Peaks

The next day the same trio were back up at the pass. Fueled by such a fine premier ski descent they started to gnaw at another great potential steep ski within sight of the road. The Swiss Peaks have a colourful history of mountaineering, being the area that was one of the starting points of alpinism in Canada. The name of the mountain says it all. It was the Swiss who brought their mountain savvy to Canada and introduced and influenced a high standard of mountain guiding. The south couloirs of the Swiss Peaks have routinely been skied in the past twenty years but it is the northern side of the mountain which holds the prize line! Skiers driving up the Beaver Valley from the Golden side of the pass have been drooling over this north face for years. The line had been skied once, in the eighties, by a resident warden and avid skier. A generation later it remained with still only that one descent. Understandably the team wanted to ski the north face. They were packed with a season full of epic touring days. With good snow stability, it was now time to turn it up a notch and go for the super tours and big lines of the region.

Their first attempt was to ski under the face, to see if it was feasible to tackle it by climbing the line before skiing it. With no visibility on the glacier to view the objective, the skiers agreed the steepness and the foot penetration in the deep snow would not be realistic for that approach. The most practical alternative would be climbing the southern coulior to the summit, and then strategically drop in. With daylight fading, the trail out was set in this rarely visited area of the pass. The next time they left this valley hopefully another great descent would be behind them.

The following morning Troy and Greg were knocking on Doug’s door. With no sound of him stirring, his teammates gave one more knock and decided he needed to refuel on sleep instead of adrenalin. The day cracked a brilliant blue but the convective cells of April were already forming early clouds. These cells formed earlier and faster everyday with spring temps gaining strength. None the less, Greg and Troy ventured up from the Hermit parking lot at a steady pace. Within an hour or two the clouds had brought snow to their alpine resting point. Greg’s undousable optimism gave Troy a boost. They tried to visualize the current convective cell as being only twenty km wide, with patches of blue on either side. Onward they pushed, up the Swiss glacier to the south facing chute that led to the summit.

The small storm gave waves of fresh snow as they bootpacked upward. Small streams of fresh snow tinkled down the steep chute. The winds were blowing from the south, loading up their objective for a possible deeper descent. When they reached the high col, they could see the bright glow of the sun just above the clouds. Snow flakes were illuminated through the sunlit cloud. With patience, they waited at the true summit for their time to come. And it did. By about four pm the earth started to cool as the evening approached. The clouds started to dissipate bringing Greg and Troy mysterious views of the north side of Hermit and Swiss Peaks. Back at the high col, Troy roped up and stepped out with probe in hand, looking for a place to hack through the cornice. They still had not got that viewpoint to see what to ski.

Uneventfully, Troy shoveled an entrance to a skiers dream. The face looked to be perfect deep powder. A seven hundred meter drop of mid to low forty degree skiing lay ahead. Greg hopped in and declared the slope a go. They had to keep in mind that close to half the face was on an unsupported slope with cliffs below. Greg scouted for the line of least resistance. The line unveiled itself in the form of a soft exit chute spilling through the cliffs to a massive open slope below. With the angle eased and the way quite obvious, the pair settled into a sustained knee-deep delirium of powder skiing. Even the last pitch of the north face yielded a thigh deep surprise, thanks to storm snow sluffing during the day. Back down at the road the duo looked up over eight thousand feet to the summit of the Swiss Peaks. A run comparable in vertical feet to the Western European Alps. After a run like that they knew they had their own Alps. The Canadian Alps.

It was quite a top off to a long awaited second descent of a mountain familiar to so many skiers, mountaineers, and tourists alike. With another feather in their caps, the team’s momentum was now in full swing. They sought to expand their horizons to a higher place, a place they had yet to venture. A place not in the physical world but within themselves. They were near the zenith of their touring season, and it was time to dig deep and commit to one of the Grand Traverses in a new fast and light touring style. What more fitting adventure than to go from Rogers Pass to the Bugaboos in three days…