The Meanderings of Greg Hill

With the season drawing to a close; mostly because I have to start working, we decided on a traverse into a remote part of the Selkirk range. We drove 70 km north, 11km east up a logging road, then we sledded in 25km and began touring up. This was an area that neither, Dave,Jay,Aaron or I had ever ski toured in.

We toured up 5500 feet to our camp, were we dug a half snow cave/half tarp set up. I curled up in my sleeping bag and shivered through the start of my sickness. after a few hours we wandered up towards Mt-Holway, the 31 st highest selkirk summit. It was late and quite whiteout but we wandered towards the summit, by 7:30 pm Jay was boot packing up a steep slope when we called it quits. A little too late and not enough information to continue upwards safely, so we pulled the plug 600 feet below the summit. A quick slide back to camp and into my sleeping bag.

By 9 am the next morning we were off. A great morning ski down the valley. We toured up to Tangiers pass and dropped our camping gear before continuing up towards Sorcerer mountain. My sickness was in full force and every step felt extremely challenging but I had no choice but to dig deep. Luckily I know that regardless of physical shape my stubborn mind usually prevails. 

From where we sat we had to tour up the west shoulder over the ridge, ski down a mellow glacier around the north side and ascend the east shoulder of Sorcerer. It was a bit of a circumnavigation but very aesthetic. Considering the late season we had great skinning up the west and a fun little descent. Skiing under the north face was beautiful and soon enough we were making our way up the East shoulder. A fantastic tour up with views of many summits we have skied from. Soon enough we were standing on the 19 th highest Selkirk Mountain.

A wicked 3500 foot glacial descent brought us down to the valley and our final 1200 foot tour backup to the ridge and a traversing sun crust run back to camp. Exhausted and elated we dug another snow cave and had dinner by 10 pm.

Awake by 7 am touring by 8.45 we skied down valley and up the Sissons drainage. We were a little unsure about our ascent but it turned out that overcast skies kept things a little cooler and we ended up skinning up a 40+ degree couloir.

We easily skinned to the summit of Mt-Sissons and were set up for a great ski back to our sled.  a great little mini tour that opened our eyes to more endless Selkirk descents. 

The day we left for this traverse I awoke at 3.30 am to finish off the Comstock movie, I finished it but could not upload it, and we were off at 5 am. So I will get that posted ASAP. I will also have one final movie with this traverse and that will be the end of my season. 

Being a cheapskate I always try and do things around the house that I feel I can do. Be it carpentry, plumbing, snowblowing whatever.

  I awoke to a very stiff neck this morning and I am thinking that maybe I am not an arborist. Over the last few days I led a climb up my birch tree and set an anchor up there. and yesterday I climbed back up with a chainsaw and proceeded to cut the top off the tree. It was a bit of a precarious cut with a specific landing spot for the tree. If it went too close to the house it could bust the deck I built last summer. So we tied a rope to the top and I pulled up the chainsaw. Sitting back on the anchor I lifted the saw above my head and cut the backcut. It wasn't very clean but with Dave pulling hard on the tree I knew I could just cut the tree without it falling my way and pulling me off.  So I hefted the saw up again and cut through. It cracked and fell and I sat up there swinging in the breeze. Pretty fun macho stuff but  my neck sure is stiff this morning.

It's spring time and there is still great skiing out there but I have a few chores around the house to accomplish before work really begins. I am working on my latest movie and will be done in a few days and then I will work on the Hasler film which has some epic footage.

Then in later April I have a mini traverse planned and that will be it for the season.  

Wow when we threw our nets out I, hoped, but never figured we would net the big fish we did! Things went amazingly well considering the weather and objectives.
We left town at 4.20 and then started touring from the Illecileweat around 5 am. At Asulkan pass by 8.30. I have never skied down Asulkan and it was great, some decent dust on crust turns and then hard melt freeze crust to the bottom. Which was great considering what we were skiing down, at one point I caught an edge and found myself sliding head first down the crust. All went well and we were touring up by 9am. At 10 we met up with the Golden gang, who were camping, and headed off as a group.

Staring up the Comstock we could all see that it went but knew we had a lot of challenges before we even got to the top of the ultimate line. We toured up to twisted rock and then down onto the Selwyn glacier and up to the Selwyn/Hasler col.

From there we climbed up and over a little bump and worked our way over to Hasler. This is when things got interesting. Here is Conor "a la cheval".

Hasler is the second highest summit in the Selkirks and a prize well worth waiting for. We scurried across the ridge till we were finally on the summit. Sitting there at 5pm it was almost 12 hours of hard work to get there and so little time to enjoy it. We were on the fence as to go forward towards the Comstock or back the way we had come. Mark was very determined and worked us down the ridge and to the top of the Comstock. I could not believe it, we were standing on top of the Comstock looking down thousands of feet to the valley. It was a little whiteout but the rocks that bordered the chute gave us perspective. Soon enough we were in it and leap frogging 6 people down the biggest unskied line in the area. The snow was perfect, tightened but very carveable, but we were hesitant that at any point it could change to glacial ice, so we skied with our ice axes at the ready. But the snow remained perfect and we finally exited the choke and skied out the fan.
The highest point between Golden and Revelstoke gets skied by both towns together. A unity of strengths. Pretty amazing. I also got some of the best footage of the year.

Yesterday morning we woke up and started touring up towards Mt-Fox, the sun was shinning and it looked like a perfect morning. Soon enough the clouds rolled in and we were high up in the whiteout. But being so close to the 17 highest summit we couldn't stop ourselves and we booted up to the summit by 2.pm

The skies cleared just in time for our descent down the Nface of Fox. I missed the bench I was aiming for and was a little lower than I wanted but it all worked out with a deep powdery descent down the face. 

It's wild that we can get so lucky. Sitting at the bottom of the face we were blown away by our last two days. Perseverance and stubborness seem to really help in achieving lofty goals. But it was far from over we still had to tour up the Geiki glacier and get home.

The whiteout got thicker as we toured up the glacier  and I started to tour us  towards the east when we wanted to go west. Things started to feel funny as the wind and sun changed direction so we stopped and pulled out the GPS. It showed us off track and we started heading West towards Young peak so that we could ski Forever Young. By 7 pm we were at the col, I was supposed to be home by now so Tracey could go to a staggette and have some girly time. But I was far from home and hated that I had screwed up her freedom.  What an asshole!

We skied forever Young, a 1500 foot couloir and headed home. Beaten and tired we were psyched to be in the car. Mission accomplished, big fish caught.