CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

Date: Mar 22 2020
Type: Ski Tour
Difficulty: Single Black Diamond
Distance: 11.5km
Elevation: 879m
Car to Car: ~4-5 hrs
Where: Lake Louise, Banff National Park
Gear: Standard Touring Thing

A classic tour that should be on everyone to do list! Do it on a nice sunny day to take in the amazing views, you’ll see Mt. Temple in the distance as you crest Saddle Pass, then as make your way around Mt. Fairview the grand face of Sheol Mountain will be staring at you. Finally, going up the Surprise Pass it self you will see the striking view of Aberdeen glacier with Haddo peak and Mt. Aberdeen towering over it.

The tour starts at the upper Lake Louise parking lot, usually in the winter the tourists won’t be hoarding the parking lots so you don’t need to get up at an unreasonable hour to get a parking spot. From the parking lot go towards the lake then immediately make a left turn going up towards Paradise Valley Trail. Don’t worry there’s a lot of good signage there I’ll be impressed if you get lost. From there make your way up the trail that snakes its way up. Follow the trail up towards saddle pass, as you make your way up you’ll pass a few avalanche run outs. Once you’re close you’ll see the saddle mountain couloir in front of you before making your way up to the top of the pass itself.

At the top of the pass you’ll be presented with incredible views of Mt. Temple, Saddle mountain, Mt. Fairview, and Haddo Peak. From here if you have the energy and the time you can go for a quick run to the top of Mt Fairview, and/or Saddle Mountain. Otherwise keep circumventing Mt. Fairview, when I went and did Surprise Pass it was a really warm day at it had been for a while so it was a tedious icy off camber skin track. As you cross a few more avalanche paths keep an eye to your left into the valley, don’t start going down too early otherwise you might get a bit cliffed out. Eventually you’ll hit a short but steep downhill section into the valley. Since I suck at splitskiing it probably would’ve been easier to transition but I was too stubborn.

From there keep going west towards Mt. Aberdeen, you’ll see some couloirs on your right but be patient. Surprise pass is in my opinion the “last one” that looks like you can go up. It really lives up to its name since you don’t see the pass until you get to the base of the pass. As you make your way up, its steep but definitely doable without boot packing up. But since it is south facing, when I was there it was baked solid, thankfully there were already steps kicked into the pass so it was like walking up a flight of stairs. Don’t forget to take a look back and enjoy the views.

From there it’s a beautiful 700+m run taking you down to Lake Louise. This is a very popular tour, so as expected it was ridiculously tracked out near the top. It’s a bit steep near the top but after a turn or two it mellows out pretty quickly. The top section was amazing, barring the bumpy tracked out snow, we managed to find some fresh lines once it widened up. It was an amazing run all the way to the lake pretty much.

From there it was a bit of a slog making our way across the lake back to the parking lot. The skin track was destroyed by all the tourists thinking they can walk across the lake. But sunny skies and a pretty sweet view rounded out my day.