The first day in the field for our Level Two Avalanche Skills Training course. We rode up Wawa Chair and headed out towards the Monarch Ramparts, to get across to Healy Pass from the South.

We wandered down through the trees towards Simpson Pass, stopping on the way to dig some pits.

Then some more pit digging once we reached Healy Pass, then a nice run down – through the powder, then back along the packed trail to the carpark.

Woah, it’s been a while… I haven’t been on the internet much, although I have found the time to make a pie chart displaying exactly how much time I’ve been spending at work and in transit and sleeping, leaving only 3 hours or so at home for laundry/dinner cooking/grocery shopping/going for bike rides/bouldering…. But anyway, prepare for an onslaught of backdated adventures. With lots of pictures and not many words no doubt.

This one is more of a Nordic trail than anything else, with just one little steep section to get from the lower lake to Rockbound Lake. Optional to keep going to the top of Castle Mountain, but much higher avy risk as you go further. We just stopped and had lunch at the lake then flew down the packed trail home again.

Touring loop up to Simpson Pass and returning via Sunshine Village

We started at the Sunshine Village carpark, heading out along Healy Creek, passing through several large avalanche run-offs, before reaching the Simpson Pass turn off. From the turn off you’re heading south for about a a kilometre up a drainage, then it flattens out as you reach Simpson Pass.

We ate some lunch at Simpson Pass, then headed up around under the bluffs above Simpson Pass until a reaching a weakening in the cliff-line, then up onto the Sunshine Meadows.

You hit Sunshine Village at the top of the Wawa Chairlift, then ski down through Sunshine Villlage back to the car. It’s a nice easy day tour with fairly limited exposure to avalanche risk.

One of the handy things about Canmore – if you want to go on a quick ice climb, but still get other things done that day – the Junkyards. A little ice climbing location just on the edge of town, with one huge sheet of ice and a few more sections of ice further up the hill from that. Just a 5 minute drive and a 5 minute walk, and you’re climbing.

Just one of the things I’ve been distracted with recently instead of writing new posts.