I’ve been waiting for the right time to do a big mission out on the Columbia icefield for a while. With this rapidly maturing spring making most peaks with a valley bottom approach an extra slog to get to, the season was right. And after the thermostat was stuck on high for so long, then a crucial cold snap happened, conditions for crevasse bridge trustworthiness were ideal. Then a little storm passed through and the weather went blue, time to go! Continue reading Summits and Icefields →

The Bush Mountain massif has been the secondary objective of a few trips now. Last year, we were going to ski some of its three peaks (Rostrum 3284m, Icefall 3195m, Bush (peak) 3081m) after Arras peak on the other side of the valley, but ran out of weather window.  Then this April, Ian and I decided we would abuse the sleds on gravel one last time to do a long trip, skiing as many of the plethora of 3000m+ peaks in the upper Valenciennes River and Icefall Brook logging road systems over a full week, but were turned back by the state of the road, not enough snow to get the sleds over a large washout no matter how much roadbuilding and sweat we put in. So, with a short weather window, I decided to bike it now and concentrate my efforts only on Bush Mountain. Continue reading King of the Bush →

I hate unfinished business. I’ve felt Murchison taunting me since my poor routefinding and sleep-deprived state nixed my first attempt. I thought the route to the summit ridge could be feasible but never got the chance to give it the full inspection up close to know for sure. So I had to go back and close the door on this beast, either finding a way through or knowing for sure it wasn’t going to happen. Continue reading Redux →

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 →