We flew in under a grey-blue ceiling to the most spectacular playground I have ever seen. On the Pika Glacier, rock buttresses rise like sharks’ teeth from the valley, their ridges separated by perfect ribbons of snow that plunge into the glacier below.
Over a three-week period in 2016, Aaron and I attempted a particular summit five different times. All five attempts were thwarted. This year, with a limited amount of free time, Aaron Diamond and I figured that we could reasonably make the peak’s first ski descent… if we were lucky.
The Grand Teton has captivated me since I saw it ten years ago on a family ski vacation. It’s an iconic mountain for all sorts of alpinists, but it’s the skiing that really draws the winter climbers. Little did I know, one day I would be ski guiding the Grand Teton.
Chasing winter in the summer is exciting for many reasons, and this year clean air was among them. Hot and dry weather was already fuelling record-breaking forest fires that have continued in western North America. While there were no fires that immediately threatened my hometown of Whistler at the time, we were still inundated with thick smoke and ash. Luckily, …
Thinking of words to describe the experience of circumnavigating Crater Lake ski tour in two days is difficult. Perhaps there hasn’t been enough time since having the experience to fully process it. Perhaps there just aren’t words to describe the ups and downs – both figurative and literal – of such a venture. Let’s just start from the beginning. Planning …
It’s a Saturday night in downtown Portland and we are getting ready to go hard. The streets are filled with bar goers and party hoppers, the atmosphere is loud and boisterous; It’s the perfect time to get out. Except, we aren’t about to go hard to the point of stumbling out of the local brewery down the street. Oh no, …
I recently went on a trip to BC’s Coast Range near Pemberton to see what all the hubbub was about. I was with two of my long-time ski partners, one of them my longest backcountry ski partner. In typical fashion, the coastal mountain weather didn’t make it easy for big objectives, but after several days of getting shut down by …
The Commando Run. It’s a ski tour from Vail Pass to Vail which is named for the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division soldiers who used the route for training in high altitude skiing combat and commando raids during World War II. From a base in nearby Camp Hale, over 10,000 men traveled the mountains in west-central Colorado from 1942 to …
It was the spring of 2012, my senior year of College at Montana State University. I was just starting to cut my teeth as a serious ski mountaineer, and I was becoming eager for something more meaningful than continually pounding out ridge laps at Bridger Bowl. My Friend had a copy of Turiano’s ageing guidebook to skiing in the Tetons, …
There’s an embarrassingly daunting four hundred vert left to the summit. We slog through a foot of dense, sun-saturated, week-old, mercifully stable powder. I’m out of breath and my calves are yelling at me beneath a massive swath of oppressively blue, hot sky. I cringe when my hip flexer seizes up as a crashing realization washes over me; this is …
