A few days ago, on April 23rd,
Raphael and myself took advantage of the good weather and stability to complete the traverse from Burstall to Tent Ridge. A welcome change from skiing the steeps and a fine day in the mountains close to home with fantastic vistas and serious terrain.
On the top of Commonwealth Col after our first climb, the remote Royal Group behind.
Still some nice powder on our first decent down into Commonwealth Creek.
Steep, southfacing climb below the Fist, reminds me on my home turf in the Dolomites. No Rifugios with Cappucino's and grappa's on the way though, on the other hand we did not run into any other people.
Just before the summit of Repeater Mountain, with the stunning north couloir of Commonwealth Peak in the back ground and French Mountain further back on the left. 2 days later I would be there, combining it with the Chute you can see in belows picture bottom left. You can also see the overhanging south face of the Fist in profile, shouldn't there be some rock routes?
The best run of the day was after our third climb, down the north side of Repeater Ridge.
Raph on the last hill of this 2000m vertical day, pointing back to all the terrain we've covered.
Last run of the day off the top of Tent Ridge, with the south face of Mt. Turbulent behind and Spray lakes below.
This is one of the most striking and obvious lines as you drive from Canmore into K-Country and turn the corner around Mt. Buller. There where lots of rumors about it but I actually have not heard from anyone trying it yet. There are 3 obvious rock steps and is was not clear if one could could climb up it or ski down afterwards. On March 25th I finally had a chance to try it out, together with Andrew and Craig McGee. We were not really well equipped for such a goal, since we actually wanted to ski corn on Mt. Nestor.
The first rock step was no problem, since it was partially filled with snow on the left side, but the second step was impossible with the slim gear we brought. 2 ice tools and crampons would be needed for the short but difficult step. I'm also not a good enough skier to jump that step on the way down, so a rope and harness for rappelling would be required too. So about 3/4 up we had to abandon our goal, but still got an exiting run down the deep cleft.
Since the day was young we decided to at least climb the peak via it's west ridge, which was very worthwhile and it also gave us a chance to check out the upper part of the North couloir.
At the summit we finally got a nice break in the weather and we could soak in some rays and spectacular views.
After skiing down into Commonwealth Creek we still had some energy to skin up the steep south facing slope below the fist and drop into the "Fist Couloir" on the Northside. This exiting line brought us down into Tryst Lake and back to the car during another snow storm. All in all an unexpected fun day and the first intro to K-Country for the imported coastal-spoiled Craig, who called it the Mini Alaska.
