Cranny

A night in Cranbrook gorging ourselves on Thai food and wine, and reliving the day's excitement restored our spirits for the following day's adventure. Still, noone felt any portent about the day.

Kenny and Aric loading up the sleds.

After loading up the sleds and towing into the trailhead, we lapped knee-deep powder all afternoon. I could feel my quads burning from the skinning and turning but I didn't want it to end. Very little can top a great ski day in the backcountry laughing with your friends. Dinner eventually called our stomachs to turn around, and we skinned up a different route for the last run of the day down an open slope. The snow conditions had not concerned any of us through the day, we had chosen safe, known, treed lines.

As we topped out in the skin track, everyone felt it at once. A drop. We all sank an inch or two in the snow at the same time, our stomachs following. The front of the group heard the "whoomph" that accompanied it. After reconsidering our route and debating the true risk of what seemed like very benign terrain, we traversed across the slope and skiied one by one around the convexity to see our remotely triggered slide. A small one, but with a respectable 60 cm crown, and fresh as fresh could be.

One by one, we dropped into the slide itself, now suspicious of the rest of the slope. As I skiied out the runout, the snow slabbed under me, cracks propogated from my skis and the ground moved as I skied as fast as I could. It didn't actually slide, but it felt like skiing on ball bearings. That was me with the proverbial soiled skipants that Karl refers to!

Once safely at the bottom, we dug a pit and a sheared off slab after slab on a layer of hoarfrost. Then, we got the hell out of there.

Our little slide.

Toured up safe stuff the next day, had a good long run back down and then headed to the city. I've got to start taking more down pictures - I'm just too focused on getting down without falling.

Slide

We paused after our first run of the day, stuffing our faces with sandwiches and cookies packed late the night before, exhilarated by the powder and the sun and the delightful ski we had just finished. The seven of us had convened in the Columbia Valley early in the morning for a weekend of ski-touring. Somebody's sixth sense should have picked up the vibe that something was going to go amiss given that we had canceled our much anticipated Jumbo Pass trip the night before because of deteriorating avalanche conditions. Instead, we were all full of glee and the sweet promise of a weekend of excellent (and safer) skiing and company.

The uptrack. So much easier to take photos on the way up.



As soon as we had put our skins back on for the second run, the local cat pulled up causing us to scramble off the track with our gear to avoid being trampled. Instead, a woman popped out and bounded over to us, telling us there had been an accident in their terrain. Would we mind helping to dig out any burials? I don't think I even looked at the gang, just grabbed my skis and pack and threw them onto the cat. All I could think is that every second counts. The cat didn't know that, though, and it chugged along like a snail across ridges and slopes to the other side of the mountain.

En route, we heard that a group of snowmobilers had triggered a 3.0 avalanche while high-pointing. We still had no idea how many were buried or injured. Aric and I started planning for a mass casualty scenario and began digging through the ski operation's trauma kit, finding oxygen, some airway equipment, and lots of gauze. Truthfully, they had a fairly extensive kit, well suited to the expertise of the guides.

Climbing out of the cat revealed a backcountry village full of cat-skiing tourists whose afternoon had been abruptly cancelled, guides, snowmobiles and a very large avalanche crown grinning at us from above. We learned only one sledder had been buried and had been dug out by his friends, so they asked Aric and I to lend a hand managing his injuries.

It's an interesting experience to try to do your job in the middle of nowhere in the snow with limited equipment. I longed for the trauma bay at one point. Thankfully, the sledder's head was intact and he escaped with only a compound fracture of his tiba and fibula, albeit a particularly nasty one. We reduced it, splinted it, and let the guides figure out an evacuation plan. After sitting in the cat for an hour, a helicopter arrived and we flew him out to Fernie.

Loading up the patient on the sled.

The sled buried under 2 m of snow. The victim was buried to his waist.


Loading the chopper.

Not exactly STARS, but it worked.

A lee slope with an overhanging cornice. The maneuver that triggered the slide was hucking the sled off some cliffs just out of the photo to the right. No comment.


For the sacrifice of an afternoon of perfect tree skiing, we were offered a lift in the cat for one last run of the day. Met up with the surviving snowmobilers back at the cars late in the afternoon, and learned a bit about sledding and sledders over beer and M&Ms. Although we skiied just a couple of runs, it was an interesting day anthropologically speaking, and a helluva first cat-skiing experience.

Retreat

Last weekend was the Annual Emergency Medicine Resident's Retreat, so off we went (again) to spend the weekend in Kananaskis. Aric's last year... Had a lazy hike along Canyon Creek on the way out. Thankfully there was no need for crampons...

Trouble: Aric, Jay and Heather.
After an unusually benign costume party in which we appeared as the Olympic rings, the wives club got off to a late start Saturday morning. Kip, Paddy and I planned on doing the West Burstall-Smuts-Commonwealth Creek Loop since the snow is the pits but stability is excellent. Instead we headed for Burstall with low expectations since it hasn't snowed in 2 weeks. Turns out we were very pleasantly surprised to find fresh soft snow everywhere north-facing except right on top of the pass.

Bluebird day and WARM on the flats.

Just a wee bit windy at the top of the pass.

Tanna with glazed-over eyes from powder happiness and exhaustion.

Paddy looking over to West Burstall at the pass we had originally intended to climb. Reconnaisance...

Burstall Pass is like an old sweatshirt - so comfortable and familiar and it never disappoints. I have only ever had 1 or 2 bad ski days there - there always seems to be snow when the rest of the Smith Dorrien is bare.

Kip up at the top, tearing it up.

New booties (we lost one!) and the skin track.

Chilling out post-ski in the doggy lazy boy.

And just because it's cold and snowy this week and I am yearning for Baja, Kippy embracing his feminine side.