Mount Field

It's been an unusual winter in the Rockies, with snow conditions more stable than I've ever experienced.

There are some exposed, avalanche-prone slopes on Mount Field, but the weather and avalanche conditions were such that we decided to at least get to treeline to see how things looked up top.

Yoho Valley Road was boring and tedious, as usual. It seems like Parks Canada doesn't trackset the road anymore, although they have in the past. No trailbreaking was required as the area had seen lots of activity, although we were the first to arrive on this day.

Once past the switchback, we headed into the trees before the first bridge, following a clear set of uptracks. Through the forest we went, always looking up at the scary cornices hanging off of Wapta Mountain.

Finally out of the trees

It took us about 2 hours to get through the trees, and when we encountered our first exposed slopes, I did a compression test. 1.8m snow depth, hard result on the January 6th layer with a Q3 shear, so pretty good! We took our standard precautions and spaced ourselves out generously.

Beyond the last of the trees, we stopped to discuss the snow quality and overhead dangers on several occasions. The terrain was quite scary and didn't let up much, varying from about 20 degrees to 40 degrees. Just below the final steep headwall, we almost turned back, but the snow quality made us feel as though it was safe to proceed.

We got to the col between the summit and a subpeak, and from here we could see the town of Field. This section was scary as a slide would result in going over the steep cliff on the south side. Even though we were confident that the snow was stable, it took a lot of mental strength to keep our legs moving.

On the summit, looking west, past what I think is a buried cairn

We made it! It was a long trudge, with lots of shaking knees, but we got up in about 6 hours total, which was in line with our estimate. The summit itself is fairly broad and comfortable, even though the severe dropoff on the south side made us not spend too much time at the apex.

Emerald Peak and the big slide path that was the scene of a size 4.0 avalanche a couple of years ago

It was remarkably warm on the summit, with the sun shining down on us and the wind giving us a bit of a reprieve. A beautiful day with a great sense of accomplishment.

Brave enough to stand at the summit!

I felt much more comfortable sitting

It didn't take us long to decide on a line back down. We wanted to avoid any risk of falling over cliffs, so we skied back down to the col, regrouped, traversed back to the steepest section of the headwall, then let 'er rip! The snow quality was fabulous, with about 40cm of medium density powder atop a firm (but not crusty) midpack.

Looking back at our line

Once we hit the avalanche runout, we skied perfectly spaced trees almost all the way down to the road. 1300m from summit to road made for possibly the best single run I've ever had.

Alas, the fun ended there, as the ski back to the car was tedious and painful. But that's the price you pay!

Oh, and Chic Scott's claim that this trip is 16km round trip? I don't think so. My GPS said 23.30km, as the link below will show.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/158267168/3101909