Hero's Knob

Our second attempt at Hero's Knob was both more successful and very educational.

We started a bit south of the Sawmill parking lot, where there were some old ski and snowshoe tracks leading towards the creek. It was not clear where the occupants of the other cars nearby had gone, and this would prove to be an interesting question later on in the day.

The crossing was tricky, and the boys ended up going for a swim. I also got a nice welt on my right ass for my trouble.

Once across the creek, things were much more reasonable and we found our way into the bowl southwest of Hero's Knob. We could see a group heading up ... Purple Knob? ... on the south side of the bowl. I was wondering if they were the occupants of the other two cars, and if so, where they had crossed the creek.

Cougar prints

We took the standard route for the loop around Hero's Knob. Once at treeline, we did a compression test with a result of (Moderate 17 80cm Q1). The failure occurred on the October 27th rain crust, and the entire column slid as a cohesive block. Very scary! We decided not to cross the open slope towards the col between Hero's Knob and Mount Black Prince.

There are no photos of the bowl as it was snowing quite hard and visibility was somewhat limited.

The upper part of the slope, near treeline, was very hard with a wind crust. As we got lower, snow quality got better and skiing down to the creek was actually quite fun. Minimal bushwhacking got us back to our uptrack, and we crossed the creek at a different spot that seemed a little easier.

The easy crossing (no photos of the hard crossing)

As my first time in the area, I can see huge potential, but I still haven't found a satisfactory crossing. Perhaps when the weather gets colder and more snow falls, the creek crossings will be easier.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/273885726/3101909