Yet another climb in the winter…
Okay, okay… it turns out this isn’t really a climb at all, just a little winter adventure. The year was 1980. Bruce and I decided that we should climb the NW arête of Sir Donald… in winter. How hard could that be? We left the city on Boxing Day taking the trusty Greyhound up to Rogers Pass. Everything was going along just about as nicely as it could when the bus crapped out in Salmon Arm.
The hound broke down and left us all stranded in downtown Birmingham.
– Chuck Berry
It was going to be a while until another bus arrived and it was uncertain as to how they were going to prioritize putting passengers on it, so we did the most logical thing possible, and that was to hitchhike. We got our packs from the tanks, put on some extra layers and stomped around at the side of the road in the icy winter air with our thumbs stuck out. Wondering out loud what type of person was going to pick up two guys with huge packs in a little Podunk town like this, and more importantly when. In a very short time both questions were answered. Some dude in a pick-em up truck pulls over and in we get. It was a bit unclear as to his story, but he was some sort of sales rep or some such thing and headed to Calgary if I remember correctly. It didn’t really matter much to us; it was warm in the cab of the truck and we were headed east to the mountains. As is often times the case the most dangerous aspect of climbing is the travel involved in getting to the mountain; in this case it was no exception. This guy had apparently been up for days driving, he had a bottle of Seagram’s rye tucked between his legs that he was swigging from and we were barrelling up twisty snow covered mountain roads. Maybe we should have waited for the bus after all…
But to his credit and our delight he drove us without mishap directly to the ranger station in Rogers Pass. The rangers were needless to say a bit surprised at our arrival and even more so when we announced our plans. They even did their level best to try and talk us out of our attempt. Just doing their job I guess. We assured them that we would be just fine; and oh by the way could one of you give us a lift back down the highway to the trailhead? Well they actually did give us a ride and gave us some apples to boot. The ranger was actually pretty concerned about us, saying that he felt like he was driving some condemned men to their death or something like that.
He dropped us off at the side of the road and sped off back east. We got off the road as quick as possible. In case you have never been on the TransCanada in winter they have these gangs of snow plow trucks that just haul ass up and down the highways clearing snow and anything else in their path. So we got over the considerable berm and then started our trek into the mountains without delay.
And I was just getting up, hit the road before its light
Trying to catch an hour on the sun
When I saw those thrashers rolling by,
Looking more than two lanes wide
I was feelin’ like my day had just begun.
– Neil Young
Our packs really were ginormous. We had winter camping gear, food, lots of clothes, ropes, ice and rock gear, and who knows what else. My pack weighed an honest thirty six kilos. We were on snowshoes so you can probably imagine how arduous the going was. We passed the ACC hut which was deserted and kept on going more or less up the Illecillewaet creek drainage on the east side.
We were pretty knackered by the time we called it quits for the day. The days are pretty short this time of year as well with sunset being around 1600. We stopped where the forest started to turn into sub-alpine. We figured that we would make an attempt at a snow cave but it was half hearted at best, and once we were thoroughly wet we opted to erect the tent. The clouds were low and the peaks were completely socked in and it was gently snowing. We never saw the peaks but man oh man did we hear them. There were thunderous avalanches we heard all night long. The next day brought no change in conditions. Socked in, snow, unseen avalanches rumbling higher up. It seemed pretty obvious that we were either in way over our heads or that it really was a fool’s errand to attempt the peak in these conditions. I believe that we may have stayed another night in our camp to save face, but the day following we broke camp and began the slog out.
The venerable Crestline Expedition tent
Not far into our escape who did we run across but the good ranger who had given us the lift. This was his day off so he thought he would ski in and see if he could spot us. Nice guy. He said that he wasn’t surprised at our decision and was quite relieved, and also had indicated that there was indeed a lot of avalanche activity. He was going to spend some more time skiing in the area so bid us farewell. We made it out to the highway but now had to hoof it back to the Glacier Park Lodge. It was toss-up between relative speed walking on the road and risking getting mowed down by plows or snowshoeing on the side. We did a combination of the two. Once a set of plows went by we figured the road would be safe for a bit. But there still were cars and transport trucks flying by so we needed to be careful. At spots it wouldn’t be easy to get off the road because of the tall snow banks.
But all’s well that ends well… and we eventually made it the five kilometers or so back to the lodge where we hunkered down in the restaurant drinking Irish Coffees waiting for the next west bound hound.