Winter Traverse Attempt of the Wapt Icefields
March 17-20


The Wapta Icefields are in the Rocky Mountains just north and west of Lake Louise Ski Area. Wapta means Running Water in Cree.
The icefields cover roughly 150 square km of Banff and Yoho National Parks

The glaciers straddle the continental divide meaning that water flowing off the east side drains into Hudsan Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and water on the west side flows into the Pacific Ocean

We went into this area with the plan of traversing from the North end of the icefields to the south over 5 days. We reserved spaces in ACC (Alpine Club of Canada) huts along the way

As this was all of our first times skiing in the Rocky Mountains and also our first times being on glaciers in the winter we were very cautious for the first 2 days until we were able to get a sense of our surroundings.
This was a traverse first. We went in there to cover distance and see for ourselves what this area holds for future trips.


Day 1

Right off the Icefield Parkway we skied across Peyto Lake towards the Peyto Glacier which is hin the hills beyond. Our first hut is also up there in the clouds


At the end of the lake we had to gain a bit of elevation on laterial morraine. But at the top the glacier came into view


This is what greeted us once we rounded the top of the morraine. Nice. Our hut was is on the rocky ridge on the left. Once we got on the glacier we motored up there pretty quick.

Day 2
The weather dawned clear which was a huge surprise as we expected a large storm to come in. We didn't complain about the change in weather


From Peyto hut where we spent our first night the Wapta Icefields themselves start. Our day would have us first climbing this glacier to the top.
You can see a roped up ski group of 4 in the distance. Might help with scale. Took us about 90 minutes to ski to the top of this.


On the way up we passed by Rhonda North and this amazing looking line. Not a ski trip. Not a ski trip.


Up on the divide. We would have lunch in the col between the two peaks on the left. It was really windy up here and we skied in with jackets and toques all day. That's a first for me.

My feelings about your TR can be summarized in only one word, "envy".

The group. Myself, Dave and Joel
After skiing roped up down the Vulture Glacier to our second hut at the base of Balfor mountain.


Balfor and the crux of the route. We would attept this mountain on day 4. We would have to navigate around some very large crevesses with the very large threat of seracs falling right above. From there we would ski to the Balfor High Col (I love saying High Col) But that would all be day 4


Day 3 - Weather Day

The storm moved in on Day 3 and we awoke to this. Whiteout in the high alpine.
So we went skiing. We also started to get a sense of our surroundings and felt we could start to ski around unroped. Here we skied up to the top of the Diableret Glacier for some low angle turns on the way back down. We were only out on our skis for 3 hours.



Day 4
It snowed heavily most of Day 3 and into the morning of Day 4. We would attempt the Balfor High Col on this day. We had a GPS route to get over it but getting through the crevesses with the seracs above and the now high avy danger put us in reverse

Skiing back to the Balfor Hut after checking out the conditions on Balfor itself. We left a note in there saying we were bailing out the Bow River Valley.


The weather cleared a bit while we skied back up the Vulture Glacier. But it never cleared on Balfor.

Mount Olive and it's little pocket glacier spilling out onto the much larger Vulture Glacier


At the top of the Vulture Glacier it got pretty windy. But this was our high point and we now had a pretty large ski out to the Icefield Parkway below


2 pictures above is that knife edge ridge. That is the same mountain as this one. St. Nicholas




Don't laugh. Skiing with large 15-20kg bags is hard
We skied out to Bow Hut where we had a quick lunch and from there it was just a gentle ski back to the highway


From the Bow Hut. This isn't really a mountain. The top of this is part of the Vulture glacier which we skied up that morning
I got stuck carrying the rope for most of the trip out. But that just meant that I stayed in the back of the group. Carrying the rope gets you out of trail breaking. Although I did my share lower down.

Again the top of the Vulture glacier
Joel traversing out in the foreground


Trying our hardest not to AK77


At the end it was just a km or two ski across Bow Lake to the highway on the other side. A quick hitchhike got me to my car a couple kms away where we started

And that is that

nice toque big holes always scare me. how cold did it get?

Nice

great TR toque looks like a good adventure, glad you are out there after it as often as you can!

Wasn't that cold out. Probably -1 during the storm and that was at 2400metres. But the wind dropped that temp down. For Rockies it was kind of mild. Being Winter and all.

nice try man. the wapta is a special place. a potentially terrible place as well. too bad you didn't make it to Scott Duncan. but glad to here you didn't have to emergency bivy out there!
for all the reports of a massive season, things looked a little bare in many places. running water in "the death trap"? yikes.

Nice trip and pics. Last time I was in the Rockies it looked bare just the way it looks on those pics. I guess it just gets windblasted all the time. Is it the norm?

looked like a fun trip toque

i never made it out for a hut trip when i lived close to the rockies

Seemed strange to have open water in that canyon. Especially with the lakes frozen enough to ski across. There was also open water above Peyto Lake

Have you completed the traverse Daver?
I'm really looking forward to getting back into the Rockies. I've been bitten bad. Too bad it's a 6-7 hour drive.

There was loads of snow out there. And it is a large snow year. But there have been many wind events which has kind of stripped parts of the mountain for snow.
Doesn't seem to be much snow down low though (1500-2000metres) Probably 1 metre tops

Thanks for the stoke toque. Looks good and some great pics too. Have any more big trips coming up?

nice pics toque

happy b-day luke de toque

luke de toque has his birthday the same day as tsondagirl!

Happy birthday!

thats easy to remember ne =)
send my hug to tsondagirl yani

dont you have her keitai mail ewok?

err, i think not, could you send that to my keitai pletty pls.