Mount Black Prince

I am becoming a snow snob.

Oftentimes, I will overhear conversations at the ski resorts, whether it be on the lifts or in the lines, that go like this:

Sample 1: "oh man I took a wicked slide on the ice"
Sample 2: "the powder on that last run was AWESOME"

Having started my ski life out east, I can assure those of the sample 1 persuasion that ice, while not non-existent in the Rockies, is very rare and localized. What these people are "taking a wicked slide on" is usually wind-scoured hard packed snow. They have no idea what skiing on ice is really like.

Powder, on the other hand, does happen from time to time. However, it lasts a day or two at most on exposed runs before it gets blown away to form hard packed slab in some other location. Unless you want to ski the steep glades, the chances of finding powder (and I'm talking the fluffy stuff, not the chopped up crud that people who only ski resorts think is powder) on a weekend is very low.

I spent the previous day at Lake Louise resort, getting thrown around by crud and skidding on wind-scoured slab. I think I was hoping for a day to tweak some technique issues, but by the end I wasn't sure if I knew how to ski anymore. That and $50 bought me constant delays on the lifts and bone-chilling winds.

To purge the bad taste left in my mouth from that outing, Joanne and I decided to check out the Mount Black Prince area. The slopes on the east face are very popular for turns and if you pick your spots, you can even find some safe exposed terrain.

Our day started out a bit awkwardly however, as the second car coming into the parking lot (we were first) lost control and went up on an embankment of snow. We spent about an hour helping the guy dig his car out, and by the end of it, my feet were frozen.

Once we finally got going, three other groups had arrived at the parking lot and started up before us. Oh well.

Joanne coming up to the bench ... no, not a "shelflike area of rock with steep slopes above and below" ... a real bench, made of wood, half buried in snow

We encountered a few more forks in the path than I expected, and even missed one turnoff. As a result, instead of heading up to what is referred to as the "tree triangle", we continued up the main gully north of where we wanted to be. Instead of traversing back into the dense forest, we angled up right a bit more, got out of the gully, and picked a sheltered area for lunch before de-skinning.

The view from lunch

We skied the open slopes in the photo above. The powder ... THIS was real powder, not that shit at the resorts. It was so good, we skinned back up and did it again.

The best snow, though, was in the glades above the gully. Previously, I had skied the gully back down to the bridge crossing Warspite Creek, but we stayed about 50 feet higher up, and the snow here was sublime. Untracked powder, low density mature growth trees, and enough of a slope that we could continuously carve turns in shin-deep powder with a soft midpack underneath.

By the time we got back to the car, I no longer felt the bad vibes from the previous day.