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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
17 Jan 04 |
3:30 |
4:00 |
17 Jan 04 - Blair and I left the parking lot at 0830, just as the sun was starting to come up.
In the winter, you have to ski down Akamina Parkway to get to the trailhead. Here we see the eastern
half of Akamina Ridge in the background. The summit on the left is Forum Peak. Blair and I did that
one last year while in a whiteout.
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17 Jan 04 - Here we see Blair cutting across the east side of the ridge between Wall and
Forum Lakes. The goal here is to make it to the notch to the right of the headwall. It's shown
with a red arrow. From the red arrow, we had to carry our skis the rest of the way across the
entire ridge, but the skiing down the other end of Akamina Ridge was well worth the effort.
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17 Jan 04 - This was taken from the notch shown in the above picture. It shows the entire
ridge, and the arrow on the right shows where we dropped back down to ski the bowl leading back to
Wall Lake. I actually fell down this gully, but eventually caught myself and had a great ski the
rest of the way.
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17 Jan 04 - This is a close up of our descent gully. Notice all of the ice climbs along the
base of the ridge. The big ice climb at the bottom centre of the picture is called Midnight Madness
(110m WI-3)
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17 Jan 04 - This is the headwall that we have to first get through to reach the ridge proper.
There aren't any difficulties here, but you have to carry your skis, and there are a few cornices, which
would drop you a long long way down to Wall Lake.
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17 Jan 04 - I was having one of those very rare days where I actually got in front of Blair. Here
we see Blair coming up through the headwall.
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17 Jan 04 - At this point, we've reached the ridge itself. In the background (on the right), you
can see Mts. Custer and Chapman. Custer is the long knife-edged ridge, while Chapman is the pointed one
behind it. Both peaks are in the States.
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17 Jan 04 - Looking toward the west, you can see the remaining part of Akamina Ridge. As you can see,
there wasn't enough snow to ski the ridge, so we had to carry them all the way.
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17 Jan 04 - Here's another view looking into the States. Just beautiful mountains down there.
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17 Jan 04 - This is Blair looking around. It was very windy, and that wind was freaking cold.
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17 Jan 04 - One more view into the States.
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17 Jan 04 - Here we are at the summit, looking west. Still not enough snow to ski, so it's more hiking.
There were big cornices along the ridge.
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17 Jan 04 - This is taken from the far end of Akamina Ridge (where our descent down the gully starts).
At the base, you can see Wall Lake (frozen and snowed over).
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17 Jan 04 - The gully was steep, but once you got through that, you were in a big bowl and the skiing was
fantastic. In front of me, you see Blair getting ready to make some more turns and continue down to Wall Lake.
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