Two 11’ers in a day, sounds brilliant right? Mt Woolley and Diadem are two big summits sharing a nice, high col. Doing them both at once only seemed to make sense. Continue reading Double Dip →

Emperor Peak’s been on my list for a while. A rockies-like sheet of ice for a north face, but in the west Purcells, so with the bonus of a huge snowpack. After a series of difficult longer trips with little payoff and lots of blood and sweat, this was just what we needed. Continue reading Regicide- Volume 2 →

There isn’t really any high end ski line in the Rockies more recognizable than Mt Victoria’s NE face. Sitting at the back of Lake Louise, one of the largest tourist draws, dropping seracs every few minutes on a hot summer’s day, it commands attention. Continue reading Regicide- Volume 1 →

The “Rockies Classics” thread on Biglines has always been a big inspiration to me. It really opened my eyes to the crazy stuff people were skiing and made me strive to gain the skills and experience to be able to chase the same sort of things in some semblance of safety. What exactly the ski legend Ptor was referring to by the “Nface of Murchison” always kind of irked me. My appreciation for the whole production of finding and skiing lines kept me from asking, and after enough research I finally figured out something that looked skiable. Continue reading Scorched Earth →

I’ve been eyeing up this SE face of Terminal South Peak for a couple years now. At first, it was just something that looked sweet and would be cool to ski maybe. Last year I got out and got a picture of it and finally understood how technical it could be. Then this year I’m chasing the technical side of skiing more than ever, so once it seemed it would be filled in, I sent it. Continue reading CYGE →

When driving to Rogers Pass, I’ve always been tempted by Swiss Peak’s north face. Incredible looking line, and the highway points straight toward it for just a bit, long enough to grab your attention but never enough to drink it all in. Continue reading Swiss North →

Mt Harrison. How I’ve longed and fought for this beast. So begins an epic fantasy tale of failure, elation, perseverance and hardheadedness. Oh, and melted steel, as any good dragon story. Continue reading Third Time’s The Charm →

I’ve been feeling slow lately. Because of working day shift, every day of the weekend is super valuable, the only days I can actually get into the mountains. Then because of the high value, I feel I need to try to go and get something big done. Then in mediocre weather, I drive and sled a bunch, maybe skin part of the way and have to turn back at the bootpack, putting a whole days work into a few hundred meters of easy skinning and slowly draining fitness. Continue reading Spring Speed Stoke →

When I first saw Doug Sproul and co’s first descent of Sir Sandford’s south face I was in the infancy of my touring days still, but it was super inspiring to me, absolutely huge line with always-fickle conditions due to the large elevation band and sunny exposure, and yet done in great style with a sled/ski approach further complicating logistics. I felt conditions were lining up perfectly for this railroader to have a go at the railroad king. A long series of wetter storms getting stuck to the face, (in my mind) bridging or ripping out whatever formed during the dry spell, and improving valley bottom travel for sleds, followed by a day of sun punch for testing, then a little cold storm just as my weekend starts. And a full moon. Unfortunately, work called Ian back right at the start of the window, but I felt that other than doubling my work battling through the numerous avy paths crossing the road, it wouldn’t be that different to solo. So I did. Continue reading The Big Slog →

This whole week, I’ve been hemming and hawing about going for a Purcells 11’er or heading north to a couple sweet couloirs in the Bush River. Waiting to see what the weather did, snow accumulations, stability. Eventually, the wind convinced me I should go north. Continue reading Big Bush →