Rogers Pass - Cold Smoke at Lookout Col
The Mecca of ski touring in BC: Rogers Pass. The behemoths that tower over you as your drive through the Columbia Mountain Range shrouds you in wonder. A wonder as to how anyone decided a railway could make it through the myriad of mountains.
The pass was discovered in 1881 by Major A. B. Rogers (whom the pass and mountain are named after). The man truly merits those two honors as he not only oversaw the surveying, but also participated in finding the passage through the Selkirk Range, having to climb Mt. Sir Donald to get a sufficient vantage point. Keep in mind there is no road or rail for miles. Truly a pioneer and adventurer if there was one.
Major Roger’s trip was unequivocally pioneering and while the pioneering aspect may be gone, the spirit of adventure in Rogers Pass gets passed down. We got the chance to follow somewhat in his footsteps. Our target was lookout col which has a distinct view of Mt. Sir Donald and the surrounding valley and mountains.
If you’ve ever skied at Rogers Pass, you’ll know just how much snow accumulates, so avy conditions are crucial. Lucky for us, we had stable snowpack conditions. Beyond just stable snowpack, you’ll need a few more administrative stuff to make sure the Canadian Armed Forces don’t shell you.
Check out the Parks Canada page before you go to understand the specific details of skiing there.
The time it take to ascend to lookout col is heavily dependent on conditions and how risk-prone you are. The traditional approach takes you up the face of the pillow lines. Though the pillows look tasty, when you skin through them, there's lots of terrain traps. Navigate judiciously and with care as steep skin tracks around tepid corners do not allot for much margin of error. While it may seem tempting to traverse high on lookers right, it is quite obviously a hazardous approach. You do want to take lookers right to exit though because of the terrain traps on the way up, just be careful on your exit strategy.
As tempting as it may be to push towards the right to summit, stay on the central path. You’ll make it to a flatter section where you’ll be greeted with a view of Vaux glacier. For us, vis at one point was quite poor and couldn't see much past 10 meters.
Luckily, we had an inversion that day and the clouds only stayed low. The moment we reach Lookout Col, Valhalla opened and we were greeted with epic views.
As mentioned above, don’t skin to lookers right. Here’s another reason why. The picture below is a SZ2 crown that slides right underneath. Talk about minimizing your exposure.
We transitioned a bit higher up and unfortunately for me, I missed the mark on getting a post-card worthy shot with Mt. Sir Donald in the background and Brett shredding his line. I didn’t go all the way here to lament missing the shot, I came here to get some of that sweet sweet pow!
