Wapta Traverse, 2013

THE WAPTA TRAVERSE

This last October Dave and I decided we were going to have a great back country ski season and planned on doing a longer trip too.  After some research we found out more about The Wapta Traverse and read it was the Canadian version of the Haute Route in Europe.  We thought this would be a good compromise and a much more affordable trip too so we booked the trip for Easter weekend and eagerly started buying the gear we would need and I started reading more glacier travel books.

 

Don't be scared of the "bird beak"

After quite a few nights in the basement learning from Dave how to do crevasse rescue including ascending and descending, setting anchors, rope work and glacier travel, we were pretty excited to get on the road and head North.  The drive was 18 hours of beautiful scenery.  It was fun to stop and see Dan and Tiffany on the way up.  We stayed in Canmore for a couple nights which is a mountain town outside of Banff.  We woke up on Sunday morning and after Dave dropped me off at the trail head of put-in as we called it, he headed to the take out.  We were hoping he would be able to hitch hike back.  It all turned out great, he ended up getting a ride with a wild-haired lady with five large dogs in her small car.  We then quickly loaded up and got ahead of a guided group that had also showed up.  We headed down the trail trying to find the right way through the trees to Peyto lake.  The lakes there are huge and it took about an hour to cross the first one, where we then crossed a stream and headed up from there.  The first couple days were so warm that we had all of our jackets stuffed in our packs and were constantly applying sunscreen.  I was surprised how heavy my pack felt and knew that all my hours in the gym were necessary for this trip.  I was glad that I had prepared.  Dave didn't spend one day in the gym as always and was still super strong ("off the couch".)

 

Felt so good to finally lay down and enjoy the sun, I am seriously loving my life right now and feeling pretty lucky!

We skied the face of the mountain in the background on day two, icy conditions, but steep and fast.

Traveling on glaciers is so different from anything in Utah.  It took us about five hours to get to the hut and it seems like you walk and walk and after twenty minutes you can't tell that you've gotten any closer to your destination.  I think the distance is deceiving with everything being so completely white.
The first hut, Peyto was perfect.  There was a great view out of the windows from inside you could sit and watch others coming up the ice field.  There was a group of ten that night.  The next morning Dave and I stood on the summit of Mt. Habel and then had a thrilling ski down a steep slope that made me pretty nervous,then headed over for Mt. Baker.  We opted out towards the summit but still had a fun ski down.  We then toured across the glacier for more turns back to the hut.  It was a 13 kilometer day and we were pretty happy with all the blue skies and skiing we had.  When we returned to the Peyto hut there were two Canadian guys there that were friendly.  After a few minutes of telling them we were from Utah and the one saying he had served his mission there we realized we were all mormons.  It was fun to find a couple guys that we had so much in common with in the middle of nowhere. that we found out were LDS.  Because we had so much in common we became friends quickly and were happy to know we would see them again a couple days later in a different hut.

Top of Mt. Habel

Descending

 

Skiing the headwall down to the bow hut

After our layover day at the Peyto hut we ended up waking up early to go to the Bow hut.  We topped out on Mt. Rhonda first and quickly came down due to high winds.  As we skied back down the group of ten were coming up.  We enjoyed our long walk on gently rolling terrain with cloudy skies to the bow hut.  There's a great ski down to the hut and we passed a few skiers coming up the head wall on our way.  This bow hut sleeps 30 so we were expecting more of a crowd.  When we arrived there we visited with two guys who had brought in food for the group of 10.  They charged 4$ a pound and their packs were very heavy.  I thought that would be a great way to earn extra money and get great exercise.  The huts are great in that people can ski in from the Canadian highway eat lunch make some turns and head back all in one day.    That afternoon we headed out again in the wind and climbed and skied some more just on the head wall below vulture peak.  In the Bow hut there was a group of younger skiers from Montana and Dad and his college-aged daughter and then a couple of other random people and our 10 guided friends.  It was great to sit around the fire and have a large sitting room.  The group from Montana all sat outside in the cold on the deck outside the kitchen for some privacy.  Someone had left some apple cider for the taking and I was pretty excited to have something hot to drink.  We were also both a little sad to realize our toilet paper supply was becoming depleted and I began asking for handouts from other skiers.

The fourth day we headed over to the Balfour hut,  it was starting to snow and the wind was pretty strong as we came up over culture peak.  We decided not to summit now but to head over to the hut and drop some weight.  When we got there the weather turned pretty bad and it was white out conditions.  That night our two friends we had met earlier showed up.  We were excited to see each other and as they came in and started to unpack and cook dinner it was about 5:30 and we decided to go make some turns on the Diableret glacier which was pretty mellow terrain but wind protected by a large wall and it was fun to get out and have a more mellow tour.  We ended up telling stories late into the night with Scott and Eric.  Scott is a dentist and lives outside Calgary, Eric is a single guy with three cute kids, a financial planner that lives in Edmonton.  Both are very active in the outdoors and Dave was salivating when Scott told him that Canadians can hunt sheep every year with a general tag.
We ended up heading out early the next morning to get up the Balfour glacier and hopefully summit Balfour peak.  Scott said it is the most coveted peak on the Wapta traverse.  We headed up through what is known as the crux of the Wapta Traverse, the crevased slopes leading to the 10,000ft. Balfour High Col. This is undoubtedly the most spectacular section of the wapta traverse as we passed beneath Mt. Balfour with its towering seracs and corniced ridges. We needed reasonable visibility for this objective. Once on the high col we looked across the gently descending slopes of the Waputik Glacier to Mount Daly with the Scott-Duncan Hut.  It's phenomenal how beautiful and different all the peaks were each day.  On this day we could see to the north the Front Ranges and to the south the granite spires of the Purcells with the main peaks of the Rockies between!  After trying to find the right summit route for over an hour or two weather and visibility were awful and we had to turn around 100 feet below the top of Balfour.
We had a great ski down and passed the group of 10 pushing through.  They had come a long way and still had a long way to go.  Their guide knew the weather was worsening and they were pushing through and would end their trip a day early.  We headed back down to the hut and spent a second night there.  More fun stories and some mountain house beefy mac rehydrated, yum.

The next morning we stewed over what to do.  The weather had gotten worse and visibility was far less than it was the morning before.  Scott wanted to finish the whole traverse and make it to West Louise Lodge where their truck was parked and we also wanted to but then there was the option of heading back to the Bow lodge where we wouldn't have to cross the Balfour high col in poor conditions.  After three hours of deliberating, we packed everything up ready to complete and headed onward to the Scott Duncan hut.  We were pretty excited and knew it would take a little longer this time, but were glad we had gone up the day before and knew better what to expect.  On our way up we heard some ice calve off the glacier and go tumbling down as we wall stopped and waited because we could see where it had happened.  Dave was in front and Scott in the back with his GPS telling Dave whether or not to head left or right.  At one point as we were getting closer we all had to laugh as we realized we had made a 180 degree circle on the GPS without realizing it.  It feels like you are on the inside of a ping pong ball and everything is really deceiving.  I was ready to get to the hut, as we neared there around 6 p.m.  There was so much snow that had been blown in that we spent awhile getting the entrance cleared out.  This hut was the least modernized as all the others and I'm glad we only spent one night there.  We lucked out over the instant pudding that had been left there and I made up four glasses and set them out in the cold to thicken.  We had fun listening to Scott and Eric's missionary stories.

Saturday morning we headed out in similar white out conditions.  We lucked out though because the clouds lifted and we had good visibility for the way down.  There was about a foot of new snow and the skiing was perfect.  We were all whopping and hollering on the way down grateful to end the trip on a high note with good turns.  The ski across Lake Louise was fun without skins on and then after a creek crossing and some meaneuvering through the trees around some snow shoers we were back at the truck.  I wanted to cry that it was over so soon as I took off my skis.  I was ready to go another two weeks.  What a great adventure.  I love that Dave could have this experience together.  I have a new love for ski touring and am exciting to continue to push myself and increase my confidence as we get ready to climb Rainier this spring and do some other climbing this summer.  Dave and I said goodbye to our Canadian buddies and made spoke about rafting the Main Salmon together in July.   We jumped in the truck got a ton of Chinese food at the deli in Canmore.  We picked up some hob nobs, Scott's favorite cookies, and hit the road.  I stared at the mountains as we drove away, sad that we had to leave.  It was such a memorable trip and well worth the wait, time and effort.  I'm so lucky to have such a great hubby who is always so prepared, competent, positive and willing to put enormous amounts of effort into all our trips.  I know it would been a little easier to take one of 20 friends who is stronger and more experienced with maps and compass etc... and they would have jumped at the chance to have gone, but I'm glad he makes it a priority to do things together as a couple.

Headed out with light snow falling,  the depression is starting to set in.