Swiss Bowl Solstice

Sometimes you gotta go to know.  As J-Rock and yours truly slogged up the South Fork Trail beyond Hiland Road, conditions above looked really boney.  Windblown snow with exposed patches of tundra seemed to promise survival skiing. As we slowly ascended, step after step, I imagined breakable crust, rocks and pain. We finally arrived at the ridge line and looked over the edge into Swiss Bowl.

Swiss Bowl is a little ways off the beaten path.  Well known by skiers, but this north-facing bowl between Ship Creek and the South Fork of Eagle River receives less pressure due to the extra mile one must slog to reach it.

Reaching Swiss Bowl today held a pleasant surprise. As Jon and I peered over the ridge cornice we saw the nice blanket of powder on the best line down toward Ship Creek. The ridge of Swiss Bowl protects its slopes from the prevailing winds and almost perfectly catches the snow fall.

Jon and I followed an existing uptrack back to the ridge between the Ship Creek and South Fork Valleys and skied a very fun line back to the South Fork trail head. Though the east-facing slopes looked awful from below, we were able to link large swaths of the slope with good coverage and good skiing.

Revelstoke, British Columbia

Early season skiing at Revelstoke is on.

Kruser and yours truly skied the Revelstoke Mountain Resort in frigid conditions, temperatures below -10F with wind.  But, that was last week - temperatures rose and snow fell. We met up with Doc, Tara, and a terrific group to heli-ski in the Selkirks and Monashees with Canadian Mountain Holidays Revelstoke. I followed up with 3 day trips ski touring with Matt Dellow east and west of Revelstoke.

Revelstoke Below the Fog

Entrance to Narnia Conifers

RMR - a sweet spot to hang

Hill was slightly boney in a couple of places

Revelstoke from the other side of the Columbia

Kruser

Darby

Diane and Grey

Doc

Dad and Daughter

Tara

Grey

Kruser

Yours Truly

Doc

Ed

Diane

Tara

Hatcher Pass Touring and Turning

Hatcher Pass skiing has been incredibly good over the past several days and skiers have been pushing lines to awesome levels. We skied the northern-most areas of the area between Goldcord and The Pinnacle.