Fairy Meadows

The route passes through Fairy Meadows which has been a renowned ski touring destination for years.

This picture was taken about fifteen years ago on my first trip to the area.

Sir Sandford

This is the crowning jewel of the Northern Selkirks. Hope fully the weather co-operates and we can knock it off too.

The standard route climbs the glacier and ridge on the right side.

More miles to go

Fom this picture on the descent on Iconoclast the route goes to the horizon.

Mt. Iconoclast

If we can knock off a few ski descents on the way that would be icing on the cake. The pleasure of removing the big pack and whooping it up will make up for the miles of slogging. This is Mt. Iconoclast in firm ankle deep powder a couple of years ago.

Sorceror Lodge - Nordic Mountains

I was at Sorceror Lodge a couple of years ago and skied some of the route. This picture shows the crest of the climb out of Mountain Creek and Rogers Pass would be out to the left of the picture.

Northern Selkirk Traverse

It's been a lot easier to "fly" the route on Google Earth. Searching for Rogers Pass and Mica Creek in British Columbia will give a rough idea on the route. There are a couple of variations depending on enthusiasm, snow conditions and weather. We are going to start at Rogers Pass on April 2nd and hope to finish at Mica Creek around mid April. We have a food cache at the Fairy Meadows Hut for 6 days. See you soon. Here is the link to a Google fly-over that I completed after the trip detailing the major peaks and campsites etc. It's pretty cool. Interesting way of doing a guidebook
http://www.kootenayexperience.com/whowhatwhere/Trevor/RogersPass-MIca.kmz

It's all about character

It's all about character. Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Frank Outlaw

Heading out for Roger's Pass

Not too much ski touring this winter. I toured up to the snowcat early in the season, toured into Yurtopia Yurt before Christmas and did a run down Wildhorse Peak before the catskiing season opened up. Stewart Spooner invited me to join him and Andrew Gross on a tour from Roger's Pass to Mica Creek. Should be interesting. We are heading out on April 2nd and hope to complete the minimum of 100 miles and countless thousands of feet of vertical in a couple of days - maybe two weeks. Dan Morton heard this and said "I'd love to do that tour". He's coming too. The tour starts from Roger's Pass and cruises through terrain used by Sorceror Lodge, Selkirk Mountain Experience, Selkirk Tangiers Heli Skiing, Fairy Meadows CAC Hut and CMH Heliskiing. I hope it stops raining.

Picture is of Nordic Mountain in the vicinity of Sorceror Lodge

Blachford Lake Lodge

Upon our return to Yellowknife the long anticipated final conclusion of our northern adventure awaited at the Blachford Lake Lodge. A short 30 minute hop by floatplane took this weekend getaway crew along the shores of the Great Slave Lake and slightly north to a remote lodge in the middle of nowhere, with the horizon stretching out in all directions. A beautiful setting and incredible food with quiet activities for everyone. Sara was fortunate enough to get some amazing northern light photos - but you will have to wait to see those ones.

Great Slave Lake & Wood Buffalo National Park

Following the incredible journey down the South Nahanni River we returned to Yellowknife and had a rental car provided once again courtesy of NWT Tourism and we toured down to Wood Buffalo National Park and saw some of the sights along the way including the town of Hay River where we enjoyed the hospitality of Canoe North.

Cessna to Honeymoon Lake

Our trip on the Nahanni started with the flight from Yellowknife to Fort Simpson with First Air. We change plans and strapped the 17' canoe to the floats of a 185 cessna and flew for 2.5 hours with Simpson Air. Honeymoon Lake was our landing strip and then we looked around and realized we were on our own for awhile....

Yellowknife, NWT

From Inuvik we returned to Yellowknife courtesy of Canadian North and stayed at the Explorer Hotel. We walked around Yellowknife and checked out the Canadian Diamond Mines exhibits and tried to get a grasp of the size of the wilderness up here. Yellowknife is on the shores of Great Slave Lake with fishing, boating and mining exploration in all directions. In the winter I guess it's a little darker, but everyone seems to love the contrast of 8 months of winter and 4 months of spring.

Inuvik and Tuktoyuktuk, NWT

We were fortunate enough to fly to Tuktoyuktuk with Arctic Nature Tours in a Twin Otter and enjoy a tour of the Inuit settlement including a descent 30' into the permafrost where the fish and seal meat is stored. I also enjoyed the balmy 28C day and took a brief swim in the warm waters of the Arctic Ocean. I even have the certificate to prove it. It felt like we were on the edge of the world and thoughts of early explorers for the North West Passage and whalers as well as the historical lives of the Inuit make it a very rich place.

North West Territories

Our trip to the North West Territories was courtesy of NWT Tourism. Sara won the prize as part of the Canadian Geographic Photo Competition. We flew from Calgary to Yellowknife and then all the way up north to Inuvik. We stayed at the MacKenzie Hotel at the end of the Dempster Highway. Getting there in a couple of hours by plane almost felt like time travel compared to the week it must take by car. It would make a great round trip - fly up, and drive down.

Nahanni Canyons

So, the scenery just gets better and better and then once again it is sensory overload. Time to camp and eat and then it's food overload but then it's desert after the four course meal. Better lie down and sleep because Adam will be yelling "Coffee" in another couple of hours... Sara and I were forced to change our 2pm start time to 10am. Life is tough.

Virginia Falls

From the campsite at Virginia Falls we climbed to the summit of Sunblood Mountain for a few of the endless horizon that is the South Nahanni River. From the summit we could also look directly down on Virginia Falls. It did not look that far up but it took awhile. We could see the float planes landing on the river above the falls and get a bit of sense of how far we had paddled and how far we had to go. Like, it was beyond the horizon in both directions. The river was FLAT above the falls but we were about to enter the fun stuff and put on our canoe spray skirts and try to get the canoe and two weeks of food too fly off the end of the 6 foot waves and plunge the bow paddler waist deep into the next wave. Mmmm. My turn in the back.

Glacier Lake

OK. We liked Glacier Lake so much that we had to return. Somewhere down there is our canoe and the Nahanni River. In a couple of days we are supposed to meet up with Adam and the rest of our Nahanni Party to run the wild rapids.

We had some great company on the beach here and some beer and some fish. Fire. More beer. No more fish. Beaver slapping his tail at 2 in the morning. The rocks on this beach are ALL perfect skipping rocks.

That is the Cirque of the Unclimbables just to the right of the big rock. I think the clouds and mist and rain are the usual weather around here. What an awesome spot!

Cirque of the Unclimbables

So, you can see fancy pictures of the Cirque of the Unclimbables just about anywhere, but here is the picture from near the top of the hike up from Glacier Lake. It is kind of steep and fairly easy to lose the trail. Apparantly this year there were less than a dozen people that did the hike. The climber types mostly fly in by heli with a sackful of gear and beer. We did enjoy the morning down by the lake and set out for the Cirque at our usual time of 2pm. Pitched camp at (hmmm) around 7pm. I think Sara almost had words to me on the hike up as we thrashed through over-the-head slide alder. Everything was OK after the tent was set-up, food was eaten and the 6" air mattress was installed into the tent with the down bags. Nice. The following day we were spoilt by perfect weather - one of the two non-rainy days in a month - according to a pair of climbers who had spent the last 30 days in the neighborhood. Sara took some amazing pictures but even I have not seen them. I think they get catalogued and processed and submitted to win photo competition's first.

Glacier Lake

After two days of paddling it was time to start the hike into the Cirque. Starting at our usual 2pm we left our canoe at Brittnell Creek and made our way through the swamps and moose meadows that is sometimes called a trail. There is an occasional strip of flagging tape and once in awhile the trail becomes obvious. I have the GPS co-ordinates of the trail if anyone wants it. We got to the canoes on the edge of Glacier Lake and paddled across to our campsite below the Cirque. Nice to get to camp before 8pm and prior to a spot of rain. It did seem an awfully long way up to the Cirque. It is one of the reknowned areas known to climbers around the world as location of one of the 50 Classic Climbs of North America - the Lotus Flower Tower. Oh well, if the weather looks promising tomorrow we will check it out. Meanwhile, what an awesome campsite and this is pretty remote. Where are we anyhow? "Up North" is the best answer as it is vague enough for this immense landscape.

Flying into Nahanni River

Sara and I flew in from Fort Simpson NWT to Honeymoon Lake. What an amazing flight with a canoe strapped to the struts of a Cessna 185! After two hours of flying we arrived at our destination. In the absolute middle of nowhere. The pilot flew away and we were over 500 kilometers from our destination just past the the confluence of the Liard River. I think it was around 6pm when the plane landed and in early August dusk fell around midnight. We paddled across the lake and down a barely flowing meter wide outlet for about 300 meters until we emerged on the Nahanni River. A nice little ferry out into the current and a lazy draw downstream and we were on our way down river. The river was flowing at a nice clip and the scenery was changing so fast we had to stop and camp to slow down the absorbtion rate.