CODY SHIMIZU

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

After taking my AST 1 mid-January it was like another door of opportunity opened, a whole new world of fresh powder, unexplored mountains, new terrain accessed only via a splitboard. My reading week plans were still up in the air so I got talking with a few of my friends who were also interested in starting backcountry skiing. After some talking with Jason and Evelyn plans were made, hostels were booked, places to check out were researched and we were ready, a full week spent in the mountains touring the back country. No words could describe how excited I was for the week. It was incredibly motivating and distracting for me to get though school, I would constantly be checking out websites about backcountry skiing trying to find the best places to go in the vast playground.

The weekend before our grand adventures I couldn’t wait any longer so Evelyn and I decided to get down to Kananaskis for a quick day tour of Burstall Pass. With forecasted lows of -30 degrees Celsius my parents thought I was crazy for going down. But it was absolutely worth it! In the morning it was a bit chilly getting ready in the parking lot but soon after the sun started shining and by noon it was close to -5 degrees, I might as well have been skinning up in shorts. The views were breath taking, or maybe Im just out of shape, but undeniably beautiful. I felt almost cheated that this incredible sport hadn’t been introduced to me sooner, like a secret that people were keeping. Never the less it just got us both stoked for the coming week.

BLACK PRINCE

This was where we had done our AST 1 course with the Alpine Club of Canada so we had a general idea of the terrain as well as many guidebooks pointing us in this direction for relatively easy terrain to manage for getting some turns in. On day 1 we left Edmonton bright and early around 6Am to make it to MEC in Calgary to pick up rentals for Jason. After fighting through Calgary traffic and making the drive down towards the Kananaskis area it was close to 1pm. With an entire week of ski touring in front of us we were in no mood to start rushing. We quickly put skins on our boards/skis and headed out. As good as it was that it hadn’t snowed in a while for the avalanche conditions, seeing that Black Prince was one of the most popular touring spots around this area it was fairly tracked out. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about getting lost. We cautiously followed this gully (knowing it’s a terrain trap) until it finally opened up with lots of fresh untouched snow surrounding us. It was like everything I had hoped for, beautiful untouched snow ready for me to put some turns into them. We quickly transitioned and made our way down, the first lines of our trip. By the time we made our way down it was getting pretty late in the day and not wanting to have to make our way back to the car in the dark we decided to call it a day, a successful one at that, fresh pow was found, everyone safe and uninjured, with some mediocre views with the valley being surrounded by a haze of light snow. It was serene.

BLACK PRINCE PT.2

Keeping in mind our lack of back country experience and margin of error leaning towards the safe side we decided to go to Black Prince again. Although there were temping objectives in the area such as Tent Ridge, or Mt Sparrowhawk, as far as we were concerned the ATES had rated those placed complex rather than challenging, we could always come back next year, but we cant do that if we are dead. With good avalanche conditions we decided to try our way up a slightly larger gully cautiously assessing the snow and overhead danger we made our way up and off to the side we went to transition, putting my 2 planks of wood together to make a snowboard. This time the terrain was wider giving us more options to be creative little features in the terrain to try and play around with. The sense of freedom was thrilling, all I saw around me was opportunity. We did another quick run before making our way back to the Calgary hostel. The next day we would be moving our base camp to Lake Louise to explore Icefields parkway acclaimed for its extensive road side ski touring.

NOSEEM CREEK

There’s a good reason Icefields Parkway is known around the world, although some people will only have the opportunity to drive through it the I cant believe I have the opportunity to explore the area let alone with a snowboard. After an early morning departure of Calgary chowing down on apple strudels in the car we parked on the side of the highway to start our day.

Have you ever driven through the area in the winter wondering why in the world people had skis with them when there’s no chairlift in sight? Well, yeah that was me when I was a little kid and my parents had no idea either. Fast forward a few years and I’m one of “Those” people now. Like being a part of an exclusive club, only we know the secret to unlocking the true potential of the mountains, I couldn’t help but wonder why this sport of touring isn’t something that everyone strives for, how could you NOT like this beautiful sport? Maybe I’m just blinded by the affection of this new sport.

As we made our way up the creek surrounded by imposing peaks of Mount Andromache, Noseeum Mountain, and Bow Peak evoking a sense of wonder, allure, and fear as we made our way through the valley only to be greeted by a towering wall with a frozen water fall. No words, video, photo could do justice to the serenity of that moment.

We made our way up the extremely steep skin track, a brutal awakening to our lack of touring experience. With our sloppy kick-turn technique we slowly made our way to the top of the ridge only to be greeted with Bow peak glistening in the sun behind us. We explored along the ridge for a little bit considering the face that we just came up would be a bit on the steep side to descend. We had spotted a pretty temping couloir on our way up so we traversed along the check it out. Unfortunately, the top of the couloir was fairly wind swept with some pretty big wind slabs forming up there, so we decided to turn back and go back down the steep face that we came up through the trees. It made for an interesting descent. As the sun was getting lower the valley filled with an orange hue as we exited the valley, a beautiful ending to an adventurous day. At the Lake Louise Hostel we met up with the University of Alberta Outdoors Club (UAOC) since they were having a trip that Jason was running, but they would be going hiking and skiing at Lake Louise. Jason was busy running the trip so it was just Evelyn and I for the next few days.

WEST NILE

Since yesterday was a fairly hard day with steep climbs and intense descents we were looking for a fairly chill day in hopes to get some easy turns in. Unfortunately, the past few days we haven’t been able to find a wide-open terrain with good snow that we were confident enough to go on to get quality turns in. So, looking through the guidebooks West Nile sounded like where we would get it.

We drove out to Mosquito Creek HI parking lot and skinned right across the frozen bow river, as soon as we were across and into the trees the terrain started pitching up. We wanted to check out an avalanche runout that according to Confessions Of A Ski Bum had some good terrain, we could actually see it from Noseem Creek yesterday too. As we trended climbers left we finally popped out to the runout, still with lots of smaller trees (probably 5-10 years old) and a good avalanche condition reflected in our observation of the snow it got us excited, we decided to back track through the trees for a bit to climb up through the trees rather than the open slope. For our first run we decided to stop on a small bench just below tree line for a short conservative run to kick things off. It was magical, surfing on the pow looking through sneaking lines past the small trees, small flying all around me THIS is what I came for! We decided not to go too low down so we could quickly skin back up for another run.

This time we decided to go a little above tree line into the alpine, we didn’t go too far since the snow was starting to feel relatively wind swept with some slabs over small features here and there. With a blank canvas of snow in front of us it was glorious, painting satisfying curves in the snow and looking back to see the mark you’ve left it is one of the most satisfying feeling ever. As we made our way down the run out to near the bottom it was getting a lot more tracked out with all the skiers converging on the single exit track.

It was another gratifying day with breaks in the clouds to give us views of where we were yesterday across the valley and good turns, I couldn’t imagine having to be sitting in a lecture hall next week.

BOW SUMMIT

A classic along the icefield parkway we decided to finally check out the Bow summit area, I’ve been here once before but didn’t have much chance to do too much exploring. The day started out with a beautiful blue sky with a clear summit up towards the flower couloir. We gained a small bench and decided to do a quick run to traverse along to check out the other side of the small valley looking for some open slopes, but as we crested along the small ridge the snow got fairly wind swept, although the wind slabs didn’t look too threatening in terms of an avalanche we were more interested in the powder below treeline from where we were skinning up earlier. So after taking in the incredible views of the valley through the small breaks between the light snow storms that were rolling through we traversed back across the small valley. We did a few laps below treeline surfing through waist deep powder, cutting through trees, surfing along the surface with snow flying all around me, it was marvelous.

As each run took us closer towards the parking lot traversing along the side of Bow Summit we found ourselves over an incredible ridge overlooking Peyto lake and a valley looking towards Wapta Icefields. Hopefully I would have the opportunity to do the Wapta traverse in the next few years. The view was unimaginable, one of those times where you really have to pinch your cheek to actually make sure you’re just not dreaming. The sky had cleared up with incredible visibility down the Icefields Parkway. We set our packs down and decided to chill out for a bit, just taking in the views. Afterwards we decided to head back down to the car we were able to ski/snowboard right to the car, no walking, no skinning.

HELEN'S SHOULDER

Unbelievable, we were already down to the last day of touring. The weather forecast was looking incredible, the best of the entire week. Reaching a high of close to 0 degrees and a blue bird day. From the side of the road we were winding through some thick trees and pitching up fairly quickly. We gained the ridge fairly quickly with the Dolomite peak setting a beautiful backdrop with tremendous views across the valley we couldn’t believe it. For our first lap we our way through the trees, floating through the powder. Then it was a really quick skin back up to regain the ridge, for our second lap we decided to drop down the other side where there were some beautiful open slopes sidelined by a burnt forest, zig zagging through the burnt trees was a neat little feature. Unfortunately, the snow was quite crusty but the views, and terrain made it all worth it. After, we did another lap on the other side of the little valley like feature and it was another a bit of a crusty run but good spots of snow to be found here and there.

At the bottom, we managed to follow the avalanche path till we hit treeline then we made our way through the trees, ridiculously tight trees. Definitely ran into some on the way out. Thankfully we popped to the side of the road less then 200m from the car.