We spent 2 nights at Mosquito Creek hostel to celebrate Aki's and Angie's birthdays.
Aki and I had stayed at this hostel this past summer while biking from Jasper to Canmore. Things looked very different in the winter, but it was still the same comfortable setting with a brand new outhouse.
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| Bike shelter that we used in the summer |
We were a party of 8, so took over one of the two sleeping quarters (which could hold 12). We essentially had the entire place to ourselves, as the other guests were in the private quarters and therefore had their own kitchen.
Molar Meadows
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| Heading up to Molar Meadows |
Our plan for the first day was to ski up to Molar Meadows. It is a light touring destination, but several of us were on backcountry gear, in the hopes of finding some turns.
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| Someone had built a quinzhee |
After the initial climb, the rest of the trail was quite flat. Unfortunately, visibility was poor due to some falling snow, lots of clouds, and gusting winds.
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| Burnt tree looks like a totem pole |
Just a bit after the North Molar Pass junction, we stopped for lunch in the trees. We couldn't see a whole lot, but at least it was sheltered.
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| Lunch, with Noseeum Peak in the background |
On the way back out, a few of us decided to try skiing one of the avalanche runouts off of Noseeum Peak. Unfortunately, the slope was quite wind affected with several crusts, so it wasn't that great.
Note that the GPS data above seems off. I had accidentally installed the wrong app version on my GPS, so the tracking wasn't working very well.
West Nile
Due to the new snow and high winds from the day before, we decided to check out the glades under Bow Peak. As a bonus, we could start our day skiing out of the hostel as apposed to having to drive.
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| West Nile, the glades below Bow Peak |
I didn't realize how popular this area was. We encountered 3 other groups, one of which consisted of 7 people.
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| Looking back along the Bow River towards Dolomite Peak |
The approach was quite relaxed, as we skinned through nicely-spaced trees. The snow quality was also much better than the day before, probably owing to being sheltered by Bow Peak.
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| Gnarly |
From below treeline, we could see a couple of shelves from which it looked like there might be good skiing. We headed towards the one on climber's right, and eventually broke through to a nice spot for lunch.
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| When the sun poked through the clouds, it felt like a spring day |
There was evidence of some recent cornice failures, perhaps from the wind the day before, but we felt pretty safe where we were. The run down was awesome, with nice, light powder atop a very firm midpack. It was so good, we decided to go back up for another run.
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| Looking for some virgin powder for our second run |
The ski back down through the trees was pretty good as well, although a bit steep in spots.
All in all, this was one of the better effort-to-reward ratio touring days I've had. The runs aren't long, but the snow quality was nice, being in a sheltered area. This would probably be a scary place to come in the spring, owing to the potential for large cornices.
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