CODY SHIMIZU

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

Date: Feb 09 2020
Type: Ski tour
Difficulty: Blue
Distance: 16.5 km
Elevation: 850m
Car to Car: ~4-6 hrs
Where: Icefields Parkway, Banff National Park
Gear: Standard Touring Thing

This tour, another classic to check off is definitely one for the views. Unfortunately, there really isn’t much for turns to be had, with only one short section in the middle then the trees off of Dolomite shoulder to take you back down to the highway at the very end of the day. For a splitboarder it turned out to be an interesting tour with getting some splitskiing practice in. Although the turns by themselves aren’t quite worth it make sure to do this tour on a nice clear day to soak in all the views.

For this tour you don’t necessarily need two cars but it will save you about 5 km of skinning along the side of the highway. You can leave one car at HI Mosquito Creek Hostel and you’ll start the tour from a small roadside pullout about 5 km down the road from HI Mosquito Creek (copy paste this into google maps 51.654781,-116.376852).

Bryan and I had done Grand Daddy Couloir the day before and Devon was driving up from Calgary to join us for the day. We left a car at HI Mosquito Creek and started our day at the small pull out. From there start heading north west into the trees, since it was a popular tour there was a pretty good skin track already in place for us. You’ll start your day circumventing your way around Dolomite peak, you’ll pass a few large avalanche run outs that you should be careful about.

From there you make your way through the trees and gain a bit of a ridge, from there we made the mistake of avoiding going all the way up the ridge and instead headed north on a different skin track, it took us a bit to realize we were going the wrong direction. INSTEAD what you should do is make your way all the way up to the top of the ridge. From there it’s a short descent (not worth transitioning for) down to Lake Katherine. Of course the lake will be frozen and snowed over, but the clearings will make for some amazing views of Dolomite Peak.

From there keep making your way around going more NE at that point. You’ll be tempted to stay tight to Dolomite peak trying to go between Dolomite Peak and Dolomite NE1 but keep going till the next “pass” below Watermelon Peak. Congratulations you’ve pretty much gained all of the elevation for the day! From here as a splitboarder I transitioned into board mode once for a bit of a downhill, then the terrain, although still going downhill its way too low angle to gain any momentum while in board mode. So I splitskied my way down, that’ll take you all the way down to the far end of Dolomite peak, a short uphill section that I was too lazy to put my skins on for took the wind out of me (probably worth throwing the skins on). From there it’s a bit more low angle splitskiing before finally the final run that takes you all the way back down to the highway.

It was an absolutely beautiful tour that you get an amazing perspective on Dolomite peak, one of the most unique and iconic mountain along the icefields parkway. Lots of people choose to do the Dolomite circuit when the conditions are not great but make sure you have good visibility. Otherwise in all honesty I think it would be a pretty boring tour.

Here are some other great trip reports/beta!
http://www.soistheman.com/diary/page.php?id=dolomite-peak-circuit
http://confessionsofaskibum.com/2019/02/13/dolomite-circuit-highline/
https://athousandhilltops.com/dolomite-circuit-in-a-storm/